The Iliad and The Odyssey - comparisons with the Bible

“Of all the books in the Bible, First Samuel has the largest number of references to the Philistines and their dealings with the Israelites. It also contains a considerable number of similarities to the writings of Homer, particularly on the issue of warfare”. Jewish Bible Quarterly We read in this excellent article (2016), LITERARY PARALLELS BETWEEN HOMER’S EPICS AND THE BIBLICAL PHILISTINES, at: https://jbqnew.jewishbible.org/jbq-past-issues/2016/443-july-september-2016/literary-parallels-homers-epics-biblical-philistines/ …. If the biblical Caphtor indeed refers to the region of the Aegean Sea, and if the Philistines were truly of Caphtorite origin, then it might be expected that evidence corroborating the Caphtorite/Aegean origin of the Philistines could be found in a comparison of the Bible to Homer’s great epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their settings in the ancient Aegean world. In Judges, the first biblical book in which the Philistines play a significant role, we find at least two occasions in which contact between the Philistines and the Israelites finds remarkable parallels in the Homeric epics. The first instance describes Shamgar son of Anath, who slew six hundred Philistines with an ox- goad (Judg. 3:31). This unique choice of weaponry finds an astonishing parallel in the Iliad, where the Achaean warrior Diomed, upon being accosted by the Trojan Glaucus, reminds him that even the son of Dryas, mighty Lycurgus, lived not long, seeing that he strove with heavenly gods – he that on a time drave down over the sacred mount of Nysa the nursing mothers of mad Dionysus; and they all let fall to the ground their wands, smitten with an ox-goad by man-slaying Lycurgus (Il. 6.130-134 [emphasis added: all biblical and Homeric emphases in this paper have been added by the author]). In an ironic twist, Shamgar’s unusual taste in weaponry seems to have been borrowed from the very people against whom he wielded it. The second example involves Samson. To the chagrin of his parents, the youthful and headstrong Israelite opts to marry a Philistine woman (Judg. 14:2); during the nuptial feast at Timnah, he strikes a deal with his Philistine hosts in the following manner: Let me propound a riddle to you. If you can give me the right answer during the seven days of the feast, I shall give you thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing; but if you are not able to tell it to me, you must give me thirty linen tunics and thirty sets of clothing (Judg. 14:12-13a). This use of sumptuous6 clothing as economic barter finds its counterpart in the Iliad, where a despondent Priam uses gorgeous apparel, along with precious metal, to ransom the body of his son Hector from an unforgiving Achilles, who is still enraged over Hector’s slaying of Patroclus. Homer states that the Trojan monarch opened the goodly lids of chests, wherefrom he took twelve beauteous robes and twelve cloaks of single fold, and as many coverlets, and as many white mantles, and therewithal as many tunics (Iliad 24.229-230). A similar situation, in which sartorial finery is held on par with jewels and precious metals, appears in the Odyssey: For Antinous he brought a large and beautiful robe, richly broidered, and in it were golden brooches, twelve in all, fitted with curved clasps (Odyssey 18.293-294). It appears that Samson, well versed in Philistine/Aegean custom, knew precisely how to arouse his opponents’ venality. Of all the books in the Bible, First Samuel has the largest number of references to the Philistines and their dealings with the Israelites. It also contains a considerable number of similarities to the writings of Homer, particularly on the issue of warfare. For example, when the Philistine soldiers cower before the power of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites have brought into battle, they exhort each other to ‘be men, O Philistines! Or you will become slaves to the Hebrews as they were slaves to you. Be men and fight!’ (I Sam. 4:9). In a comparable Homeric scene, Ajax exhorts his fellow Achaeans, whose resolve is weakening in the face of a Trojan onslaught, to “be men, my friends, and bethink you of furious might” (Iliad 15.734). A more striking parallel between the Homeric epics and First Samuel occurs slightly later in the book: . . . as Samuel was presenting the burnt offering and the Philistines advanced to attack Israel, the Lord thundered [va-yarem] mightily against the Philistines that day. He threw them into confusion, and they were routed by Israel (I Sam. 7:10). The Israelite God is portrayed as knowing precisely which miraculous intervention would have the greatest effect on the Philistine descendants of Achaean soldiers. According to Homer, there was nothing quite as effective as a peal of ominous thunder from Zeus to take the fight out of the Achaeans: Then himself [Zeus] thundered aloud from Ida, and sent a blazing flash amid the host of the Achaeans; and at sight thereof they were seized with wonder, and pale fear gat hold of all (Iliad 8.75). In an example that mirrors the biblical episode even more closely, Zeus took his tasselled aegis, all gleaming bright, and enfolded Ida with clouds, and lightened and thundered mightily, and shook the aegis, giving victory to the Trojans, but the Achaeans he drave in rout (Iliad 17.594ff.). At the close of the Odyssey, when the eponymous hero and his companions are about to slaughter their enemies, who have dropped their weapons in terror, Athena entreats them to desist. All but Odysseus obey, and it is only the literally thunderous intervention of Zeus that induces him to relent: And now would they have slain them all, and cut them off from returning, had not Athena, daughter of Zeus, who bears the aegis, shouted aloud, and checked all the host, saying: ‘Refrain, men of Ithaca, from grievous war, that with all speed you may part, and that without bloodshed.’ So spoke Athena, and pale fear seized them. Then in their terror the arms flew from their hands and fell one and all to the ground, as the goddess uttered her voice, and they turned toward the city, eager to save their lives. Terribly then shouted the much-enduring, goodly Odysseus, and gathering himself together he swooped upon them like an eagle of lofty flight, and at that moment the son of Cronos cast a flaming thunderbolt, and down it fell before the flashing-eyed daughter of the mighty sire (Odyssey 24.528-545). Thus, in both epics Homer makes it clear that thunder from the king of the gods is the necessary divine manifestation to cause the Achaeans to desist from hostilities. On numerous occasions, the biblical tradition credits God with miraculous intervention to defend Israel from its military enemies: He drowns the Egyptian army in the Red Sea (Ex. 14), rains hailstones upon the Amorite forces (Josh. 10:11), uses a plague to annihilate the Assyrian army besieging Jerusalem (II Kgs. 19:35), creates the illusion of a huge army of chariots against the Aramaeans (II Kgs. 7), and so forth. However, on no occasion does the God of the Israelites use the sound of thunder, as did Zeus in Homer’s tales, except against the Philistines, almost as if the biblical authors knew perfectly well what the Philistine warriors feared the most. The most famous episode involving the Philistines and Israelites is of course the clash between David and Goliath. The central theme of this classic encounter is that each army, facing the other on opposite sides of the battlefield, produces a single champion to fight as a representative of his side: . . . the Philistines [were] stationed on one hill and Israel [was] stationed on the opposite hill; the ravine was between them. A champion of the Philistine forces stepped forward; his name was Goliath of Gath . . . .He stopped and called out to the ranks of Israel, and he said to them: ‘Why should you come out to engage in battle? I am the Philistine, and you are Saul’s servants. Choose one of your men and let him come down against me. If he bests me in combat and kills me, we will become your slaves; but if I best him and kill him, you shall become our slaves and serve us.’ And the Philistine ended, ‘I herewith defy the ranks of Israel! Get me a man and let’s fight it out!’ (I Sam. 17:3-4, 8-10). This motif of a single champion from each opposing army engaging in hand-to-hand combat to determine the outcome of the battle betrays an Aegean origin of the biblical Philistines.7 It is found frequently in the Iliad, and is in fact a highly important element of the tale. In one example, when Paris is stung by Hector’s rebuke of his cowardice in battle, he states: [I]f thou wilt have me war and do battle, make the other Trojans to sit down and all the Achaeans, but set ye me in the midst and Menelaus, dear to Ares, to do battle for Helen and all her possessions. And whichsoever of us twain shall win, and prove him the better man, let him duly take all the wealth and the woman, and bear them to his home (Iliad 3.68-72). In a later battle, Apollo and Athena conspire to induce Hector to come forth as Troy’s single champion: [Thus] spake king Apollo, son of Zeus: ‘Let us rouse the valiant spirit of horse-taming Hector, in hope that he may challenge some one of the Danaans in single fight to do battle with him man to man in dread combat. So shall the bronze-greaved Achaeans have indignation and rouse some one to do battle in single combat against goodly Hector.’ So he spake, and the goddess, flashing-eyed Athene, failed not to hearken. And Helenus, the dear son of Priam, understood in spirit this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector’s side, and spake to him, saying: ‘Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans, and do thou challenge whoso is best of the Achaeans to do battle with thee man to man in dread combat’ (Iliad 7.38-52). When Goliath harangues the Israelite ranks to produce a champion to contest him, he almost seems to be saying, “Don’t you Israelites know how we Philistines conduct our battles? Where is your champion to fight me?” The implication here is evidently that the Philistines were well known, even to their enemies, for this Aegean method of combat.8 In addition to his distinctive fighting tactic, Goliath is described as wearing armor and bearing weaponry that find unmistakable echoes in Homer’s world: He had a bronze helmet on his head, and wore a breastplate of scale armor, a bronze breastplate weighing five thousand shekels. He had bronze greaves on his legs, and a bronze javelin [slung] from his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s bar, and the iron head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels (I Sam. 17:5-7). This is highly reminiscent of Homer’s depictions of Trojan and Achaean soldiers, particularly in the wearing of greaves, the enormous size of the spear, and the use of two spears by a single warrior (in Goliath’s case, a spear and a javelin): “The greaves first he [Achilles] set about his legs” (Iliad 19.369); as for Hector, “in his hand he held a spear of eleven cubits” (Iliad. 6.318-319). Odysseus carried a “helmet and shield and two spears” (Odyssey 1.256); elsewhere the same hero declares, “I had put on my glorious armor and grasped in my hand two long spears” (Odyssey 12.228-229); still later “he took two mighty spears, tipped with bronze” (Odyssey 22.125). Down to nearly every detail, Goliath is depicted as an Aegean warrior par excellence. When the Israelite forces finally manage to produce their own representative champion in the person of David, Goliath hurls the following threat at the youth: ‘I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field’ (I Sam. 17:44). This expression finds parallels in the Iliad, where Achilles, exulting over the death of Hector, boasts that “dogs and birds shall devour thee utterly” (Iliad 22.354), while earlier, Athena predicts that “of a surety many a one of the Trojans shall glut the dogs and birds” (Iliad 8.378-379). Ironically, before dispatching Goliath, David speaks to his adversary in nearly identical terms: ‘I will give the carcasses of the Philistine camp to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth’ (I Sam. 17:46b). This is not the only instance in which David adopts Philistine/Achaean conventions of warfare. Upon dispatching the towering braggart with a well-aimed slingstone, David uses Goliath’s sword to decapitate his fallen foe (I Sam. 17:51); then David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem; and he put his weapons in his own tent (I Sam. 17:54). This morbid deed was actually something practiced by the Philistines themselves – as well as by Homer’s Achaean warriors. When Goliath’s countrymen subsequently defeat the Israelites at Mt. Gilboa, King Saul is slain. The next day, First Samuel 31:8-10 recounts: the Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons lying on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head and stripped him of his armor. . . .They placed his armor in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they impaled his body on the wall of Beth-shan. The Philistine custom of stripping a fallen opponent’s corpse of its armor appears with great frequency in the Iliad (4.466; 5.48-49, 163-164; 6.27-28; 13.550-551; 15.343; 16.500, 545, 560ff.; 22.367-368, etc.). In fact, Book 17 focuses on Hector’s stripping Patroclus’ corpse of its armor (125ff.) and the Achaeans’ overwhelming desire to avenge this effrontery. Further, the gruesome habit of decapitating the defeated soldier’s corpse after stripping it of its armor, as David did to Goliath and the Philistines did to Saul, finds parallels in Homer’s Aegean world: Now Hector, when he had stripped from Patroclus his glorious armour, sought to hale him away that he might cut the head from off his shoulders with the sharp bronze, and drag off the corpse, and give it to the dogs of Troy… (Iliad 17:125ff.).