THE ILIAD

THE ILIAD by Homer

Wow, wow, wow! I'm going to give you a heads up here. This may turn into a super, long post. Befitting for such a long book, don't you think?

I recently took a group of high schoolers through The Iliad. We completed it in FOUR weeks. I would be hesitant to do that again. The book was fantastic, and I did it justice for the teens, but a slower pace would have allowed them to sort through and absorb it more.

Where to begin? I started with Homer. Who was he? Did he even exist? We covered a fair amount of possibilities and what a bard did. Understanding how the Iliad was told during the days of the ancient Greeks brings about more understanding for the reason The Iliad was written the way it was. It's full of imagery, because a bard stood before a group of people and told the epic tale of the days of old. He had to verbally paint the pictures for the people he was entertaining.

Next, we went to the Nephilim. The verses tucked in right before Noah's Flood in Genesis chapter 6 that talk about the "sons of God" that saw the beautiful women in the earth, came and had relations with them. From those encounters, a race of mighty men was birthed. Is it possible that those men were some of the demigods like Achilles that are mentioned in ancient myths. I don't hold the answer on that one, but it is an interesting thought to ponder.

Then, we needed to understand how the Trojan War began, and it's not in The Iliad. It didn't begin with Paris taking King Menelaus' wife Helen. It began when 3 goddesses went to Paris and asked which one of them was the most beautiful. When one promised to give him the most beautiful earthly woman as a reward if he picked her, Paris jumped on it. It didn't matter that that beautiful woman was already married to King Menelaus.

From there we stepped into the disagreement that The Iliad opens up with and ultimately tells the story of, the rage and division that happens between Achilles and Agamemnon, two men who both were on the side of the Acheans fighting against the Trojans. That division ends up causing the unnecessary death of many Acheans when Achilles,their greatest warrior, refuses to fight due to how he has been treated.

I seriously could go on and on about this book. But I'll wrap things up by asking this question. Why read a book like this? My answer is multiple reasons. 1) We get an understanding of the ancient world of the Greeks: their thought process, what motivated them, etc. 2) We can see the devious fickleness of the gods and goddesses they worshipped. What a mess. Line that up next to the Christian God who created us, never forsakes us, makes a way to for us to be with Him eternally, and it's very eye opening. 3) Guess what? We're still dealing with the same problems today that they did in the past! Our emotions, pride, lust, and greed still affect all of us today. It's overwhelmingly clear that motivations have not changed much, but WE CAN LEARN FROM THE PAST!

Last thing, I would not recommend using the Dover Edition. Find a translation that truly was translated from the Greek which keeps the Greek gods' names. Don't choose one that was translated to Latin so the Greek god names were changed to the Roman gods. I chose the edition I did due to length of text and our time frame to cover it!

HEADS UP- Well, there is a bit of this to cover. First, this is a book about war and Homer told the details about how men died on the battlefield. There are probably hundreds of deaths within the pages. Second, whenever Greek gods and goddesses are concerned you know there's going to be a few oddities. I'll just throw out this example: Zeus is married to Hera who is also his sister. He had a boatload of affairs with human women and goddesses alike. Intimate details are not given, but that god had serious roving eye issues.