Mark and Homer

by peacefulpete 4 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    The Lukan dependance upon Greek epic has been discussed before.

    How about G.Mark? Here's a review of a book that draws this literary connection:Review by Richard Carrier of Dennis MacDonald's 'The Homeric Epics ...

    comments?

  • the_classicist
    the_classicist

    Well, most historical writers from the Graeco-Roman period have always tried to imitate the Homeric style of writing. Michael Grant at Cambridge wrote in the introduction to the Annals of Imperial Rome: "Indeed, history owed its technique and its very existence to Homer and other Greek epic poems. Again, when Athenian tragic drama became great in the fifth century B.C., that also influenced Greek historical writing. These two facts emerge clearly from the works of Herodotus and Thucydides. And history never quite forgot its early links with poetry."

  • peacefulpete
    peacefulpete

    Exactly. However the practice was more than stylistic emmulation, it was memisis in content as well.

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Sounds quite interesting and worth reading. Thanks for the tip.

    I just googled "Mark Homer MacDonald": there has been a lot of serious and valuable discussion on this thesis.

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia

    I was just reading N. T. Wright today who made the intriguing analogy that in the Greco-Roman world, their Old Testament was Homer and their New Testament was Plato. Surely a bit reductionist and overstated, but there's some truth in that comparison...

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