Podcasts about Telemachus

Send us a textLauren welcomes back Emily for the second part of deep diving into Mythica and this episode Lauren cherry picks women from The Odyssey. They talk about the importance of new translations. More on what the Linear B tablets can tell us and go into Lauren's favourite topic weaving. They agree on coming back as a sexually charged magic female goddess as being life goals and why certain women should be reconsidered with historical facts.And thank god Lauren didn't make Emily do a shot every time she bad mouths Telemachus

I'm reading Ted Gioia's "Immersive Humanities Course," 52 weeks of World Classics. We continue with the Odyssey this week. I'm joined this week by my son Jack Drury. Jack is pursuing a Masters in Classics at the University of Chicago, so we are on familiar ground for him here.I'm a beginner at reading the classics, but I've decided to just "crack the book" and get started. Here are a few of my key take-aways from this week:What will I take from this week? Let's see:A deeper understanding of Greek mythology. I have a copy of Bullfinch's Mythology on my bookshelf and will probably be dipping in and out of it soon. A better view of the ancient world, its customs and habits of life. I know it's fiction, but the way the poem describes the interactions between people of different classes, between men and women, and between city-states is eye-opening. I'm tempted to carry my modern worldview into these stories, and to find fault with various people. Instead, I really have to suspend my judgement to understand what is going on and how it compares to what I already know.A richer view of the Bible, believe it or not. I've read the Bible through about ten times (maybe more). Reading other ancient works ADDS to my understanding of the world the ancient Hebrews lived in. It's one thing to understand the Old Testament, but so much richer to understand how very different the Hebrews' struggles with God were compared to the Greeks' encounters with their array of gods and goddesses.Finally, my last take-away is one that deserves its own paragraph. I am angry, honestly, that every bit of this kind of literature was erased from my education. Who did that? Why? Who decided that Flowers for Algernon was worth my attention but Odysseus and Telemachus and Pallas Athena and Penelope weren't?Jack and I also have a long discussion about the heart of the Odyssey. What is it truly about? Is it a homecoming, or a story of exiles, or a model for suffering? How can we as 21st-century Americans relate to these ancient Greeks?This is a year-long challenge! Join me next week as we head to eastward and read Confucius.CONNECTTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm

I'm reading Ted Gioia's "Immersive Humanities Course," 52 weeks of World Classics. Week 2 starts with Greek Poetry, and then we start Homer and The Odyssey. What a great week!I'm a beginner at reading the classics, but I've decided to just "crack the book" and get started. Here are a few of my key take-aways from this week:The surviving Greek Lyrics are very male-dominated, full of war and fighting and politics, with not a lot of attention paid to nature or beauty, or even romance. That is, until you get to Sappho, a woman. Her verses are really beautiful. I can't help but wonder why. Is it just what survived? Or is that an accurate reflection of Greek society? I thought it was the second until I read Homer.The Odyssey is full of male and female characters, and they are both important to the story. So where the poetry was very male-centric (except for Sappho) Homer absolutely isn't. I mean, Penelope seems kind of weak, but Athena is absolutely crucial to the plot. I will have to think about this a lot more.Odysseus is a pain in the neck. While I love the story, I'm not a fan of the guy himself so far, at least by Book 10. For instance, when he gets ready to pass by the Sirens, he is told to lash himself to the mast of the ship IF he wants to hear the Siren Song. And that's what he chose to do! Why would he not just say, “Nope, I'll put beeswax in my ears like the rest of the crew and we will just sail on by.” It seems supremely arrogant.Telemachus, on the other hand, seems to me to possibly be the better hero. I'm looking forward to seeing him find his dad.I have a lot of other thoughts this week, especially about the Fagles translation I read.This is a year-long challenge! Join me next week to finish the Odyssey. We'll be joined by a fun guest!CONNECTTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crack-the-book/id1749793321 Captivate - https://crackthebook.captivate.fm

This week Dcn. Garlick is joined by Mr. Thomas Lackey and the Adam Minihan to discuss part one of the Libation Bearers, the second play in Aeschylus' Oresteia. Check out thegreatbooksdpodcast.com for more resources.Check out our Patreon for a written GUIDE to the whole Oresteia.From our guide:The Libation Bearers presents Orestes as both the hero and the victim. The cycle of violence will both demand his action and condemn it. “The one who acts must suffer,” as Aeschylus observes. The play builds an incredible tension within the current mechanics of justice and primes the audience to desire some lasting resolution—a resolution that will only come in the Eumenides.Aeschylus' Libation Bearers, the second play in the triad of the Oresteia, places Orestes within the moral tension of lex talionis and its cycle of violence. He is the son who, to avenge his father, must kill his mother, Clytemnestra. Aeschylus presents us with fundamental questions on justice—a primitive justice that demands blood for blood, an eye for an eye. The cycle of violence both demands action and condemns it.What makes the Libation Bearers such an essential and resonant part of the Oresteia is its relentless focus on the mechanics of justice and its interplay between violence and fate. Aeschylus "pushes us to think not only about the relationships in play but about larger moral questions.” Through Orestes' struggle to fulfill his divine obligation as blood avenger, and through Electra's own crisis of prayer, the play asks profound questions about the nature of justice. Aeschylus' beautiful line, "The anvil of justice stands fast... fate beats out her sword" (628), is arguably the moral heart of the play. A tale of pain, justice, and fate. I. Orestes Returns Home (1)The story begins several years after the murder of Agamemnon, when Orestes, now a young man of eighteen or so, secretly returns home from exile.[1] Much of the tragedy lies in understanding Orestes' difficult situation: to be a blood avenger for his father, he must kill his own blood, his mother.Orestes' opening monologue invokes Hermes—who fittingly serves as the bridge between the living and the dead (1). The opening invocation to the divine was seen in Agamemnon as well and will be seen again in the Eumenides. The relationship between the living and the dead is a key theme in this play and a perennial question that makes this a great book. It will contain both prayers on behalf of the dead and the intercession of the dead for the living.It is notable that in the absence of having a father, Orestes is presented as a confident, determined figure ready to do the unthinkable. In the Odyssey, he served as the role model for Telemachus, and here we see him lack the timidity and self-doubt that plagued the fatherless Telemachus. It raises the question, however, of who or what shaped Orestes into a character ready to face this grave moral burden? To use a phrase, who was his Mentor? As we will see in the text, as Telemachus had Athena, Orestes had Apollo....Keep up the good work![1] Fagles,...

The panel reads Tennyson's Ulysses with special attention given to how the return to Ithaca changed Ulysses; how he may be compared to and contrasted with his son, Telemachus; and what the nature of his heroism is—narrow, selfish, noble, or courageous.Continue reading

Subscriber-only episodeThis is my second discussion on Homer's Odyssey for the Fathers & Sons series.  This discussion consists in showing how an education from reading the Odyssey translates into everything involved in the following constellation of overlapping themes: (1) The meaning of justice in the life of man and the divine(2) The unmanliness of gossip in the becoming of a man from adolescence and, just as importantly, the effeminacy of men regressing into adolescence by trafficking in gossip(3) The importance of the element of experience for knowledge to properly be called knowledge, with emphasis upon Achilles in Hades(4) The meaning of "nature" and, in particular, "natural right"(5) The relevance of poetry for Aristotle as a helpful lens through which to understand the opening scene with Odysseus's son Telemachus(6) The meaning of the imagery of the bow and the lyre in Homer(7) The relevance of Glaucon and Socrates from Plato's Republic for understanding Telemachus and Athena in the absence of Odysseus(8) The meaning of fathers and sons amid nihilism(9) The meaning of all these things for what we call "life" and "education"

THE FINAL BOOK! Dcn. Garlick is joined by Adam Minihan, David Niles, Thomas Lackey, and Dr. Frank Grabowski to discuss Book 24 of the Odyssey: Peace. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more information.From our guide:111. What happens in book twenty-four? Hermes leads the souls of the suitors to Hades, to the fields of asphodel, where they meet Achilles and Agamemnon (24.130). One of the suitors tells Agamemnon their story, and Agamemnon praises Odysseus calling him “happy” and praises his wife Penelope in contrast to his wife, Clytemnestra (24.210). Meanwhile, Odysseus and his men arrive at his country estate, and he elects to test his father, Laertes (24.238). Laertes passes the test, and Odysseus reveals himself to his father by showing him the scar (24.368). Elsewhere on Ithaca, the families of the suitors have discovered their deaths and cries arise in the city (24.457). Eupithes, father of Antinous, rallies the kinsmen of the suitors to take revenge upon King Odysseus (24.471). Medon, the bard, warns the mob that the deathless gods helped Odysseus (24.485), and Halitherses, a seer, tells them it was due to their own “craven hearts” that the massacred occurred (24.501).Athena intercedes on Odysseus' behalf, and Zeus declares there should be peace in Ithaca (24.534). The mob arrives outside the country estate, and Odysseus, Laertes, Telemachus, and others prepare for combat (24.552). Athena strengthens Laertes to spear Eupithes in the head (24.576), and then she brokers peace between the two factions (24.584) 112. Who gained the most glory: Achilles, Agamemnon, or Odysseus?The opening passage on the plains of asphodel serves to compare the lives of Achilles, Agamemnon, and Odysseus. Agamemnon recounts the funeral of Achilles and the glory he achieved there, e.g., the Muses sang, he's buried in a golden urn made by Hephaestus, etc. (24.64). Agamemnon explicitly states Achilles has achieved immortal glory (24.100), and Achilles' death and burial serves as a comparison to the ignoble death of Agamemnon (24.30). If Agamemnon would have died in glory at Troy, he too could have had immortal glory—but instead, he was betrayed and slaughtered by his own wife. Despite Achilles having the better of the glory, we have already seen that he would trade it all in to be alive again—even if only to be a dirt farmer. Thus, when Agamemnon calls Odysseus “happy,” this seems to be a final judgment that Odysseus has found the best path: he has the glory (kleos) of both fighting in Troy and returning home—but he also now has political and familial peace. In a certain way, whereas Achilles had to choose between two fates (glory or peace), Odysseus has been given both.Good work everyone!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Mrs. Rachel Greb to discuss Book 23 of the Odyssey: The Great Rooted Bed. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more resources!From our written guide:108. What happens in book twenty-three?The old maid Eurycleia, laughing with delight, runs and tells Penelope that the day she's dreamed of is here: Odysseus has come home (23.05). “Penelope's heart busts in joy” upon hearing that the beggar in the hall was actually her husband (23.34). Penelope, however, falls back into her guarded skepticism (23.75). She enters the hall and sits in silence studying his face in “numbing wonder” (23.100). Meanwhile, Odysseus counsels Telemachus on the threat of the suitors being avenged and asks that the whole house be full of dancing and merrymaking to hide the fact the suitors have all been slain (23.146). Odysseus is bathed, and Penelope instructs her servants to drag the marital bed out the chamber for this “strange man” to sleep on (23.193). Odysseus falls into a “fury,” as he knows the marital bed he made cannot be moved: it is made of the stump of an olive tree still rooted in the ground (23.203). Odysseus passes the test, and Penelope runs to him and embraces him in tears (23.230). Odysseus tells her of his penitential journey he must undertake to appease Poseidon (23.282), and, after the two delight in each other, he tells her of his journey home (23.349). The book ends with Odysseus, inspired by Athena, going out into the country to visit his father (23.407). 109. What should be noted about the reunion of Penelope and Odysseus?Penelope's “heart bust[ing] in joy” at hearing the beggar was Odysseus again raises the question of what she already suspected. Despite the reaction, she quickly resumes her guarded skepticism (23.75). Most notably, Penelope is not convinced by the scar (22.83), and we should recall Telemachus' earlier concern that a god could deceive them in the guise of Odysseus. Penelope shares this concern (23.250). What test has Penelope devised to avoid this fate? Note that Telemachus cannot understand what is happening between the man of twists and turns and the matchless queen of cunning (23.111).Penelope's test is one of the intimate knowledge between husband and wife. The knowledge of the marital bed is the “secret sign” between them (23.226), as it is carved in part from a stump still rooted in the ground (23.222). The immovable marriage bed is an analogue for Penelope's fidelity to her husband. It is the final answer to the parallel narrative of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra.Next week Book 24 and the end of the Odyssey!

Slaughter in the hall! This week Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Adam Cooper of Wyoming Catholic College to discuss Odysseus' revenge upon the suitors in Book 24. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more information!103. What happens in book twenty-two?The time has come. Odysseus stands at the threshold of his home, cries out to Apollo, and lets loose an arrow straight through the neck of Antinous (22.15). It is chaos in the hall, as the “bread and meats [were] soaked in a swirl of bloody filth” (22.21). Eurymachus attempts to broker a true between Odysseus and the suitors—but it is rejected (22.57). Eurymachus then calls the suitors to arms and is subsequently slaughtered by Odysseus (22.73). Telemachus brings armor and weapons to his father, the swineherd, and the cowherd (22.121), but the goatherd, however, is able to sneak weapons and armor to the suitors as well (22.151). On his second run for weapons, the cowherd and swineherd intercept the goatherd and tie him up and hang him from the rafters (22.196).Athena first arrives in the guise of Mentor (22.217) and then becomes like a sparrow perched on the rafters assisting Odysseus in his slaughter (22.250). She reveals her “man-destroying shield of thunder” and the suitors fall into a panicked madness; as Odysseus and his men went “wheeling into the slaughter, slashing left and right, and grisly screams broke from skulls cracked open—the whole floor awash with blood” (22.311). With only a few suitors left in the hall, Odysseus has no mercy on their prophet but spares the bard and the herald (22.327).The slaughter of the suitors is complete. Odysseus has the old maid, Eurycleia, send in the female servants who were disloyal (22.458), and these women help to carry out the corpses and clean the home of gore (22.471). Telemachus then oversees the disloyal women being slowly hanged in the courtyard—a “pitiful, ghastly death” (22.487). The goatherd is retrieved and mutilated to death by the swineherd and cowherd (22.500). Odysseus purifies his home with fire and brimstone (22.518). The book ends with the loyal maid servants of the house surrounding Odysseus, and the king breaks down and weeps (22.528). 104. What should be noted in how the suitors are slaughteredOdysseus invokes Apollo, the god of archery, on his feast day to help him with his slaughter (22.07). Notice that Homer makes it explicit that the suitors are killed while feasting (22.09). Homer writes, “food showered across the hall, the bread and meats soaked in a swirl of bloody filth” (22.21). It recalls Odysseus' statement that he is going to give them the feast they deserve (21.477). The mixed imagery of food and slaughter gives credence to seeing Odysseus as the cyclops consuming his guests. One wonders whether Antinous being shot in the throat is symbolic of his constant vile rhetoric throughout the narrative (22.15).Consistent with what we have previously observed, Eurymachus attempts to talk his way out of the situation, which includes an appeal for the king to spare his own people (22.57). Notice Odysseus says they can fight or flee, but it is not apparent that they can actually flee the situation nor that Athena would permit it (22.69).Arguably, Odysseus kills Antinous and Eurymachus first to deprive the suitors of their leadership—a fact he would have observed as the beggar. The suitors, which greatly outnumber Odysseus and his men, could overwhelm Odysseus, but instead their cowardice allows them to be picked off individually.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by another Catholic deacon, Dcn. Adam Conque to discuss Book 21 of the Odyssey: Odysseus Strings His Bow.Check out more at thegreatbookspodcast.comHelp support the podcast and get access to guides!From the guide:100. What happens in book twenty-one?The time has come for Penelope's test and the slaughter the suitors (21.05). Penelope brings out Odysseus' bow, one he received as a gift of friendship (21.40), and Telemachus sets out a line of ax heads the suitors must shoot through (21.140). Telemachus gives the first attempt and fails to even bend the bow (21.143). Leodes, a suitor, attempts and fails to even bend the bow as well (21.170). Antinous, who has been mocking everyone, has the goatherd attempt to limber the bow with fire and grease (21.198). Meanwhile, Odysseus takes the cowherd and swineherd out and reveals himself as their king—the three then plot the death of the suitors and return to hall. Eurymachus tries and cannot even bend the bow (21.274). Antinous, noting that Penelope has given them a test of archery on the feast day of Apollo, leads the suitors in a libation to the Archer God (21.289).Odysseus the beggar asks to try and is mocked by the suitors—but with the help of Penelope, Telemachus, and the swineherd, he is given his bow (21.314). The suitors look on with horror as he plucks the string with ease like a musical virtuoso (21.456). Odysseus lets an arrow fly, and the arrow passes through the ax heads perfectly (21.469). The book ends with Odysseus calling his son to arms, as it is time to provide the suitors their supper (21.473). 101. What should be noted about Odysseus' bow?First, note that the bow was given to Odysseus as a gift, and one given in friendship (21.40). Second, it is a foreign bow (21.15). One wonders whether Odysseus' ability to use the bow is not simply a test of strength but a test of techne, i.e., there is a cleverness needed to understand how to use the bow. Note that he seems to use a stool (21.467). Such a test would be more aligned with Odysseus as coupling of both cunning and strength. Third, it is notable that he did not take the bow to Troy with him.Moreover, one may question the veracity of Telemachus' attempt (21.149). To wit, his failure and his commentary on it seems so dramatic that one wonders whether he is presenting himself as weak, as non-threatening to mislead the suitors right before the trap is sprung. Notice his language: “must I be a weakling, a failure all my life,” and “come, my betters” speaking of the suitors (21.150, 53). He speaks like the old Telemachus before his maturation, but the new Telemachus is confident and knows his father has come home. Is Telemachus channeling the rhetoric of his father and presenting a falsehood?Penelope running interference for Odysseus the beggar to attempt the test to become her suitor lends again to her knowing or having a suspicion of who he truly is (21.350). Moreover, pay attention to how she speaks of the beggar fondly (21.373).We are in the final stretch of our Year with Homer!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Jennifer Frey of the University of Tulsa Honors College to discuss Book 20 of the Odyssey: The Portents Gather.Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for guides and more!From the written guide:97. What happens in book twenty?After his conversation with Penelope, Odysseus the beggar lays in bed alert to the fact the maidservants are leaving the house to go sleep with the suitors (20.08). Athena causes him to fall asleep (20.59), and in the morning Odysseus prays to Zeus for an omen of support (20.109). His prayer is answered and his “heart leapt up… convinced he'd grind the scoundrels' lives out in revenge” (20.134). The palace is alive in preparation for a feast in honor of Apollo (20.173).We are introduced to a new character, the cowherd, who is immediately reminded of king Odysseus when he sees Odysseus the beggar the first time (20.224). Athena stirs up the suitors (20.316), and one of the suitors throws on “oxhoof” at Odysseus (20.320). Telemachus chastises the suitor (20.339), and the suitors ask Telemachus to have Penelope choose a new husband (20.370). Athena whips the suitors up into a frenzy (20.385), and the prophet, Theoclymenus, leaves the palace—as he is so troubled by his visions of the house drenched in blood (20.390). The book ends with the suitors mocking Telemachus, Telemachus bearing it stoically while looking at his father, and Penelope listening to every word said in the hall (20.439).98. What should be made of Odysseus' request of Athena?Odysseus' request of Athena gives structure to the rest of the text (20.41). First, recall that it is Zeus that oversees guest-friendship; thus, Odysseus understands he needs divine permission to kill the guests in his home. Second, note the concern that if he does kill the suitors, their avengers will come to kill him (20.45). Here, we need to understand the judicial custom of blood avengers. In short, if a person in the family was murdered, a member of the victim's family bore a responsibility to then avenger the death of their relative. This is the underpinning to the story of Orestes killing Aegisthus for the murder of his father, Agamemnon. Later in Aeschylus' Oresteia, the tragedian will take up this story and explore the shortcomings with this understanding of justice. One such fault with the blood avenger model of justice is that is perpetuates circles of violence. For example, Odysseus will kill the suitors, but the family of the suitors will then seek to murder him; in turn, if they do murder Odysseus, Telemachus would then be bound to avenge father. As such, the concern is how does the cycle of violence stop? The answer to that question will be given one way at the end of the Odyssey and in another at the end of the Oresteia.Returning to the text, note that Athena does not answer him (20.47). Odysseus needs to have faith, as he's not given a detailed explanation of the divine plan. It is notable the passage ends with Homer using “loosed his limbs” as an idiom for sleep—as its normally an idiom for death (20.61). One wonders then if we are not on the verge of a rebirth for Odysseus. Finally, despite Athena's response, note that Odysseus still asks Zeus for a sign—and Zeus gives it to him (20.109).More questions and answers in our guide!

Welcome to another Huge Niblet episode. And yes, it's a bit huge. (You saw the time stamp!) In the A segment, we discuss Hugh Nibley's 1969 diatribe titled Science Fiction and the Gospel as well as the article that likely triggered his rage induced lecture. Then we move into our penultimate Approaching Zion discussion. Following that, we have some excellent news about Gen Z women leaving religion. Enjoy!  Show Notes:  https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/hugh-nibley/science-fiction-gospel/   Sword of Laman:  Approaching Zion, by Hugh Nibley    Books and poems mentioned:    1984 by George Orwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four  In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose  The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy  Egyptian and Mesopotamian lamentation literature: lamenting lost glories and looking forward to a return of the same under a messianic king Lycurgus by Plutarch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycurgus  Eunomia by Solon:https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_91-96/fid_932_solon.html  Republic by Plato: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_(Plato)   Eclogues by Virgil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclogues  Utopia by Thomas More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)  The City of the Sun by Thomas Campenella: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_the_Sun  Nova Atlantis by Francis Bacon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atlantis  Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)  The Commonwealth of Oceana by James Harrington: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Commonwealth_of_Oceana   The Adventures of Telemachus, son of Ulysses by François Fénelon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Aventures_de_T%C3%A9l%C3%A9maque    Other references:    1984 US Presidential Election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_United_States_presidential_election  Ronald Reagan scandals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration  Cry Havoc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dogs_of_war_(phrase)  Utopia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia  Rekhabite/Rechabite/Rekabite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechabites, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Order_of_Rechabites  Joachim of Fiore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_of_Fiore  Benedict of Nursia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia  Mendicant orders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendicant_orders  Potemkin Village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village  Happy News: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/08/13/gen-z-women-less-religious/74673083007/  Next Live Show!: Saturday November 23, 2024 at 11:00 AM (Mountain time)    Kang, Lydia; Pedersen, Nate. Quackery: A Brief History of the Worst Ways to Cure Everything. Workman Publishing Company.  Email: glassboxpodcast@gmail.com  Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GlassBoxPod  Patreon page for documentary: https://www.patreon.com/SeerStonedProductions Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/glassboxpodcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlassBoxPod  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glassboxpodcast/  Merch store: https://www.redbubble.com/people/exmoapparel/shop Or find the merch store by clicking on “Store” here: https://glassboxpodcast.com/index.html One time Paypal donation: bryceblankenagel@gmail.com  Venmo: Shannon-Grover-10   

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Mary Pat Donoghue, Executive Director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education at the USCCB, to discuss Book 19 of the Odyssey: Penelope and her guest. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more!From our written guide:93. What happens in book nineteen?With the suitors retired for the evening to their own houses, Odysseus and Telemachus clear the hall of weapons, as Athena carries a golden lamp to light their way (19.35). Odysseus is harassed by the maidservant Melantho (19.70), and Melantho is warned by both Odysseus the beggar and Penelope that judgment is coming (19.97). Odysseus sits down with Penelope, and the two begin to trade carefully crafted responses (19.110). Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, spins a falsehood for his wife about his history, which includes that he had met Odysseus (19.193). Penelope tests the beggar by asking about Odysseus' clothing, which Odysseus is easily able to answer (19.259). Odysseus the beggar tells Penelope her husband is alive and returning soon (19.310). Penelope, skeptical of the claim (19.354), arranges for the old maid, Eurycleia, to wash Odysseus' feet (19.406). Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus due to his scar—and we hear the story of how Odysseus received his name (19.445). Odysseus threatens the old servant, his old wetnurse, into silence (19.554). The book ends with Odysseus interpreting a dream for Penelope, and Penelope tells Odysseus the beggar how she intends to test the suitors (19.644).94. What should be noted in the dialogue of Odysseus and Penelope?The matchless queen of cunning and the man of twists and turns have their reunion—to a degree. Notice that Odysseus' original answer to Penelope is a non-answer (19.114). Penelope, in response however, appears to be quite open with her beggar-guest (19.137). What is the impetus of her openness to this stranger? Is she simply isolated, exhausted and recognizes in the beggar a noble spirit to which she can decompress? Or is Penelope's openness and invitation for the beggar to be open, because she suspects it is Odysseus? If Argos the dog can recognizes his master through this disguise, why not his cunning wife? The question of when Penelope suspects the beggar is Odysseus haunts the text.Odysseus arguably loves Penelope because of her wit, and she sharing the story of the loom would have been quite endearing to him (19.169). Odysseus tests his wife—recall the Clytemnestra episode—but the reader should be cognizant of to what degree Penelope is testing Odysseus (19.248). She certainly tests him in the story he presents, but one wonders to what degree she is testing him in her suspicions of who he really is. One notes how often Odysseus the beggar refers to his wife as “noble wife of Laertes' son, Odysseus” (19.299, 384).It is notable as well that the oath given is on the hearth of the home of Odysseus and Penelope (19.349). Odysseus' commentary on curses for those who are cruel toward guests and glory for those who are kind toward colors both his return home and his episode with the cyclops (19.376). Note also that xenia can be a source of glory and fame (19.382). In other words, glory comes not simply from wartime excellence but also peacetime hospitality. It reveals a path to glory in peace, which aligns with the Odyssey being a parallel to the city of peace of Achilles' shield. The book ends with another episode of Penelope seeming to be overly open to this beggar in her house, as she tells him her dream (19.603). Again, one wonders what she suspects and whether her openness is supposed to draw out a reciprocal openness. Her weeping at the end lends to theories that she suspects the beggar is Odysseus but the safeguards she has put in place around her heart will not admit it (19.680).Join us!

First up, we've got something big! Imagine Odysseus with a John Wick twist! In The Return, Ralph Fiennes stars as the legendary Greek hero on a mission to reclaim his palace from ruthless intruders after years away. Expect epic battles as he fights his way back to Penelope, played by Juliette Binoche. Directed by Uberto Pasolini, this gripping take on The Odyssey also features Charlie Plummer as Telemachus. Mark your calendars – this one hits cinemas on December 6, 2024!

Dr. Jared Zimmerer of Benedictine College returns to the podcast to discuss Book 18 of the Odyssey with Dcn. Garlick and Adam Minihan. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more.From our written guide:90. What happens in book eighteen?Another beggar, a man nicknamed Irus, arrives at Odysseus' palace and begins to harass Odysseus, the beggar in disguise (18.13). Antinous, the suitor, elects to host a battle between Odysseus the beggar and Irus—the winner will dine with the suitors and loser will be cast out (18.56). Odysseus soundly beats the would-be beggar king (18.121) and is rewarded with a meal from the suitors (18.136). Penelope comes forth, blessed by Athena, and the “suitors' knees went slack, their hearts dissolved in lust” (18.241). The suitors bring Penelope gifts, and Odysseus sees his wife's actions for what they are—a plot to lure gifts from the suitors (18.316). The suitor Eurymachus offers Odysseus the beggar work, but Odysseus' response causes him to throw a stool at him (18.437). The book ends with Amphinomus calling for peace and leading the suitors in a libation to the gods (18.463).91. Could a suitor repent?It appears the fate of the suitors is already locked in fate. Notice that despite Amphinomus' forebodings that something is wrong, Athena has already bound him to the fate of death (18.178). Similarly, Athena goads the suitors into acting worse (18.391). In fact, Telemachus appears to intuit this fact (18.459). To wit, it appears that the suitors no longer have the capacity to repent. Athena is holding them to their violent fate and even festering the problem. One may recall that Odysseus' coming home was compared to the “shadow of death,” and it appears after that moment the fate of the suitors was sealed.92. What else should be observed in book eighteen?The mockery of guest-friendship continues, as the suitors have the beggars fight each other for food (18.56). It is important to note that Penelope critiques the suitors for their violation of guest-friendship on the grounds they have deviated from the “time-honored way” and should have been bringing animals to her house “to feast the friends of the bride-to-be” (18.309). Assuming we take this assertion to be true, it is an important insight into how the suitors are violating the norms of guest-friendship. Regardless, we see that Odysseus delights in his wife's wit, the matchless queen of cunning, as he recognizes her ploy to receive gifts from the suitors in recompense for their violations (18.316).Notice that Eurymachus is sleeping with the servant girl, Melantho (18.368). The disloyalty of the servant women to the house of their master, Odysseus, should be noted. Moreover, the polished rhetorical mask of Eurymachus slips at Odysseus' quips (18.437). It is a notable scene as both rhetoricians are wearing a mask, so to speak, and Odysseus proves himself the better rhetorician. The fact that neither Telemachus or Odysseus will act until Athena gives them approval may be read that it is ultimately Zeus that oversees and judging guest-friendship; thus, it is not until the divine is ready to pass judgment that the mortals can act. Our Year with Homer continues next week!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Jared Zimmerer to discuss Book 17 of the Odyssey: The Stranger at the Gates. Dr. Jared Zimmerer is the Content Marketing Director and Great Books adjunct professor for Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. The former Senior Director of the Word on Fire Institute and the Dean of Pastoral Fellows. He holds a PhD in Humanities from Faulkner University and a master's degree in Theology from Holy Apostles College. He and his wife Jessica live in Atchison, Kansas, with their six children.Check out more resources at thegreatbookspodcast.com. From the guide:86. What happens in book seventeen?Telemachus returns home and presents himself to his mother (17.36). He tells of his journey to Pylos and Sparta, and how Menelaus told him that Odysseus was being held captive on the island of Calypso (17.45). The prophet, Theoclymenus, declares that Odysseus is already on Ithaca (17.168). Meanwhile, the Swineherd and Odysseus—in the guise of a beggar—start to make their way to the palace and are mocked by the goatherd, Melanthius (17.231). As they approached the palace, Odyssey sees the dog he trained as a puppy, Argo, “invested with ticks, half dead from neglect” laying on a pile of dung (17.319). Argo recognizes his master and Odysseus hides his tears (17.330). As Odysseus enters his home, “the dark shadow of death closed down on Argo's eyes” (17.359).Odysseus, as the beggar, tests the suitors by asking each one for a scrap to eat (17.398). The suitor Antinous mocks him and throws a stool at Odysseus (17.492). Odysseus is “unstaggered” by the blow, silent, “his mind churning with thoughts of bloody work” (17.513). The book ends with Penelope inviting Odysseus the beggar to come and tell her his story face to face (17.588). 87. How does the theme of guest-friendship (xenia) inform book seventeen? The predominant theme in book seventeen is that Odysseus returns home and does so as a guest in his own house. Homer is arguably drawing a parallel between Odysseus' return home and cyclops narrative. As Odysseus raided the cyclops' cave and intended to pervert guest-friendship to receive gifts, so too does he now find guests in his own home devouring his goods. Moreover, as the cyclops consumed his ill-intentioned guests, so too will Odysseus consume his. The two narratives are linked explicitly by the curse the cyclops asks of Poseidon after Odysseus escapes and reveals his name.Other aspects of xenia to observe include the prophet, Theoclymenus, making an oath according to the table of hospitality (17.169). Moreover, we see that xenia is not only something upon which an oath may be made but also a standard of judgment—as it is for the suitors and their treatment of Odysseus the beggar (17.397). We also see guest-friendship expose the irony that the suitors—who are devouring the house of their host—mock Odysseus the beggar as bleeding the house dry (17.425, 492). Notably, the suitors are aware, in part, of Antinous' violation of guest-friendship, as they condemn him hitting Odysseus the beggar with the stool (17.531).Much more in our written guide!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by independent scholar and friend of the podcast Mr. Thomas Lackey to discuss book 16 of the Odyssey: Father and Son.Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for our written guide!From the guide:83. What happens in book sixteen?Telemachus arrives at the home of the Swineherd and, the Swineherd greets him like a father welcoming “home his darling only son” (16.19). Telemachus meets Odysseus disguised as a beggar, and the three men discuss the problem of the suitors (16.100). Telemachus tells the Swineherd to tell Queen Penelope he is back in Ithaca (16.148), and to have one of her servants tell Laertes the same (16.172). After the departure of the swineherd, Odysseus sees Athena outside the house under the guise of a woman “beautiful, tall and skilled at weaving things” (16.179). Odysseus goes to meet her, and she says now is the time to reveal himself to his son, Telemachus (16.189). She transforms him back into Odysseus the hero, and Telemachus is “wonderstruck” and believes some god has entered the house of the Swineherd (16.194). Odysseus tells Telemachus he is his father (16.212) and, after some disbelief, the father and son embrace and weep together (16.243). The two then discuss the slaughter of the suitors and form a plan in which Odysseus, disguised again as a beggar, will go into his own home with the suitors until Athena tells him the time is right (16.298). Meanwhile, the suitors are told that Telemachus escaped their ambush and is back in Ithaca (16.382). Antinous, one of the suitors, calls for the murder of Telemachus (16.401), and Penelope overhears the plot and chastises Antinous (16.453). The book ends with the Swineherd returning home and feasting with Telemachus and Odysseus—who is once again disguised as a beggar by Athena (16.505). 84. What do we see in the reunion of Odysseus and Telemachus?It seems fitting that Odysseus, who has been testing everyone, would in turn be tested by his son upon his grand reveal (16.220). Notably, the concern that a spirit or god would attempt to trick Telemachus with an imposter Odysseus (16.220) is a concern that Penelope shares and will later voice—but it is only the latter who has devised a test to avoid that fate. Telemachus seems to eventually simply trust Odysseus' testimony (16.243). Telemachus still appears unexperienced with the gods, as he confuses his father for one (16.202) and doubts Athena's plan (16.273). It is hard not to read Odysseus' response about whether Athena and Zeus will be adequate as sarcasm (16.291). Telemachus, however, has grown into his own wit as shown by his retort: “off in the clouds they sit” (16.299). He has also grown in confidence of his own strategic thinking (16.342).Odysseus shares with Telemachus he'll return to his home in disguise and bear whatever he must until Athena says it is time (16.303). The strategy behind Odysseus' return seems patterned off the Agamemnon narrative, but the problem itself seems patterned off his episode with the cyclops. He will come home to find guests of malintent within his home and then consume them.The YEAR WITH HOMER continues!

Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan continue the YEAR WITH HOMER by discussing Book 15 of the Odyssey: The Prince Sets Sail for Home. Check out our guide at thegreatbookspodcast.com.80. What happens in book fifteen?Athena goes to Sparta and inspires the young Telemachus to return home quickly (15.10) and advises him on how to avoid the ambush set by the suitors (15.31). Menelaus gives Telemachus kingly gifts and sends him and Nestor's son back to Pylos (15.112). Telemachus asks Nestor's son to leave him at his ship and not take him back to Nestor's house—as to be able to return home quickly and not be hosted again by the old king (15.222). As Telemachus is praying to Athena before launching his ship (15.246), a stranger approaches and asks to sail with him (15.286). Telemachus agrees, and the prophet Theoclymenus joins him on his journey back to Ithaca (15.312).Meanwhile, Odysseus the beggar tells the Swineherd he plans to go beg from the suitors (15.351). The Swineherd tells Odysseus the beggar his own story—and we discover that the Swineherd comes from a royal line (15.463). He was a toddler kidnapped, sold into slavery, purchased by Laertes, Odysseus' father, and raised by Odysseus' mother (15.540). The book ends with Telemachus returning to Ithaca and heading to the home of the Swineherd (15.618).81. What is notable about the story of the Swineherd?The story of the Swineherd reveals him to be royalty (15.437). To wit, he was kidnapped by a female servant who was subsequently killed by Artemis (15.534), and he ended up being purchased by Laertes, Odysseus' father (15.540). The noble soul of the Swineherd now has a fitting backstory. Note also the contrast between the unworthy servant who kidnapped him and the noble servant he has become. The piety or gratitude the Swineherd shows Odysseus' family is remarkable given the opportunities he has for bitterness. One may argue that the Swineherd shows the arete or excellence of a simple life—the excellence of a servant, as Penelope shows the excellence of a wife. One should return to the Swineherd's epithet, the “foreman of men,” and discern whether Homer has placed here a second meaning: a man who is the best of men.[1][1] We are thankful to Alec Bianco for raising many of these questions and exploring the richness of the Swineherd. Be sure to check out the podcast on Book 15 for further discussions.

Dcn. Garlick and Adam Minihan are joined by Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos of Wyoming Catholic College to discuss BOOK THIRTEEN of the Odyssey. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for more. From our guide: 73. What happens in book thirteen?King Alcinous makes good on his promise and sends Odysseus back to Ithaca (13.108). Odysseus sleeps the whole way home (13.91), and the Phaeacians lay a sleeping Odysseus on the beach and leave (13.133). Poseidon, meanwhile, convinces Zeus to punish the Phaeacians for their hospitality and aid of Odysseus (13.142). Back in Ithaca, Odysseus awakes and fears he's been hoodwinked by the Phaeacians and must now suffer yet another unknown island (13.227). Athena, under the guise of a shepherd boy, tells Odysseys he's on Ithaca (13.252), and he spins for her some grand tale regarding his background (13.290). Athena reveals herself, and she and Odysseus enjoy a warm conversation about her role in bringing him back to his home (13.329). She helps him hide his treasure in a cave (13.412), and then they sit to plot the death of the suitors (13.429). The book ends with Athena telling Odysseus to go to his loyal servant, the swineherd, and she leaves for Sparta to call Telemachus home (13.449). 74. Why are the Phaeacians punished?Poseidon tells Zeus that the Phaeacians helping Odysseus is a sign of disrespect, and that the Phaeacians should be punished (13.142). Zeus says they are in Poseidon's power, and Poseidon plans to destroy the ship that brought Odysseus home and “pile a huge mountain” around the Phaeacian port (13.166). Zeus suggests that Poseidon wait to destroy the ship in front of the Phaeacian people (13.174), and Poseidon does just this (13.181). The Phaeacians, in turn, recall the prophecy that one day Poseidon would be angry with them for escorting men home across the sea (13.194). Homer leaves the narrative untold with King Alcinous leading his people in sacrifices to Poseidon to hopefully avoid the mountain being placed on their port (13.207).Why does Zeus, who oversees guest-friendship, allow the Phaeacians to be punished for helping Odysseus? It should be recalled the Phaeacians are close to Poseidon, as both King Alcinous and Queen Arete are his descendants. Moreover, it should be noted that King Alcinous and the Phaeacians continued to abide by guest-friendship and assist strangers who landed on their island even when they knew about the prophecy—which may inform why King Alcinous was originally hesitant to assist Odysseus when he first fell at the knees of Queen Arete. Zeus' suggestion that the ship be destroyed in view of the Phaeacians may be seen as an opportunity for pity and reconciliation, as it allows the Phaeacians to understand what is happening and make sacrifices to Poseidon.Check out more: thegreatbookspodcast.com

The Odyssey is a very different poem from the Iliad in many ways, but in one way it picks up right where the Iliad leaves off: with the fallout of war and the journey to re-integrate soldiers back into the civil society they came from. Today we begin Odysseus' long journey home, which actually begins at the end and works backward, starting with his son Telemachus' journey to grow to manhod without his dad around.  Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM Subscribe to my joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com Stephen C. Meyer, The Return of the God Hypothesis: https://a.co/d/gbIOQSY Owen Barfield, Worlds Apart: https://a.co/d/1eVagdy Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: https://a.co/d/ioLqsnf C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: https://a.co/d/e3QeBte C.S. Lewis, Miracles: https://a.co/d/g9hpjq5 Victor Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: https://a.co/d/gmGwcoW James Hannam, God's Philosophers: https://a.co/d/625AA62 Ed Feser, Aristotle's Revenge: https://a.co/d/bPGnKuf Augustine, Confessions: https://a.co/d/99APz4T Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber: https://www.augustinus.it/latino/genesi_incompiuto/index.htm  

Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Adam Minihan are joined by Evan Amato of Rewire the West to discuss Book Five of Odyssey: Odysseus escapes Calypso's Island.Check out thegreatbookspodcast.com for a written guide to the Odyssey. A couple questions from the guide: 28. What happens in book five?King Odysseus is trapped on Calypso's island. Zeus, at Athena's pleading, agrees to two proposals: first, Odysseus may leave the captivity of Calypso; and second, Athena may help Telemachus escape the trap set by the suitors (5.24). Hermes, the messenger god, goes and tells Calypso that it is Zeus' will that Odysseus be set free upon a make-shift raft, and Calypso, though upset, acquiesces to the will of Zeus (5.125, 176).[1] She tells Odysseus he may leave, and he has her promise she is not plotting some new harm against him (5.202). After four days of working on the raft, Odysseus sets sail on the fifth with gifts and provisions from Calypso (5.288).Poseidon, who is returning from Ethiopia, sees Odysseus has left the island and, “it made his fury boil even more” (5.313). Poseidon sends a storm to sink Odysseus (5.321). As he's being battered by the waves, a goddess of the sea, Ino, pities Odysseus, and tells him to strip off his clothes, tie her scarf around his waist, and swim for land (5.377). Poseidon smashes the raft to pieces (5.403), and Odysseus, with the help of Athena, makes it to the shore (5.471). The book ends with Odysseus falling asleep beneath two olive trees (5.544).[2] 29. Why does Odysseus refuse Calypso's offer of immortality?Calypso tells Hermes that she has offered immortality to Odysseus (5.151), and again makes the offer after Odysseus knows he's free to leave the island (5.230). How can Odysseus refuse immortality? How can a mortal man refuse an immortal life with a beautiful goddess? A subtle clue is found in the opening of book five. It does not repeat the typical line of Dawn and her rosy fingers but instead invokes Dawn's lover, Tithonus (5.01).[3] It is said that Dawn (Eos) asked Zeus to make her mortal lover, Tithonus, immortal, and Zeus agreed—but Zeus did not grant Tithonus immortal youth. Thus, Tithonus, immortal, continued to age until he “became an old shriveled creature little more than a voice.”[4] Tithonus attempts to graft onto human nature something that is unnatural to it: immortality. As Dr. Patrick Deneen observes: “Tithonus accepts what is unacceptable for mortals to attain, but which is nevertheless clearly tempting to normal mortal desires.”[5]One aspect of the unnaturalness of immortality in man is the necessity for the possibility of death to achieve glory (kleos). It is in facing death that man achieves renown. Without death, what is man? Furthermore, observe how those who are without death, the immortal gods, are presented: imploded personalities, obsessive, petty, and narcissistic. The sinews between man, death, and glory are one to observe, as the story of Odysseus continues to develop.Similarly to Tithonus, we should observe Homer references the goddess Ino who was “a mortal woman once” (5.367). Ino, the sister of Semele, was driven mad by Hera, and she jumped into the sea with her son in her arms. She...

On today's episode, Dustin interviews author Tad Crawford about his new book, On Wine Dark Seas, a story about the aftermath of the Odyssey from the perspective of Telemachus. Tad's Social Media: Instagram: @onwinedarkseasnovel @tadcrawfordauthor LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/tadcrawford TikTok: AuthorTadCrawford   Find Us At:  Sources: https://alexanderstandardpod.weebly.com/sources.html Facebook: The Alexander Standard Podcast Instagram @alexanderstandardpod Twitter @AlexStandardPod Email: Alexanderstandardpod@gmail.com Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/alexstandardpod.bsky.social      

This week Adam Minihan returns to discuss Book Four of the Odyssey with Father Bonaventure, OP - a Dominican Friar of the Province of St. Joseph. The out our website for a 50+ page guide to the Odyssey.23. What happens in book four?Telemachus arrives in Sparta to find King Menelaus hosting a “double-wedding feast;” as Menelaus' daughter is marrying the son of Achilles, and Menelaus' son is marrying a girl from Sparta (4.04). Telemachus and Nestor's son, Pisistratus, are received warmly (4.68). Though a gracious host, Menelaus still mourns for his brother, Agamemnon (4.103), and for all the men lost in the Trojan war, especially Odysseus (4.120). Menelaus and Helen recognize Telemachus by his likeness to his father (4.131, 158).The next day, Menelaus tells Telemachus of his journey home from Troy (4.391). He and his men were stuck on the island of Pharos (4.396). After wrestling Proteus, the Old Man of the Sea, he is told he failed to offer sacrifices to the deathless gods before leaving Troy (4.530); and now for penance, he must return to Egypt and make a “splendid sacrifice” (4.535). Menelaus asks about the fate of his comrades, and Proteus tells him the stories of little Ajax, Agamemnon, and Odysseus—the last of which is held captive by the sea nymph Calypso (4.627). Menelaus did as the Old Man of the Sea said, and he then returned home to Sparta (4.657). The narrative shifts to Queen Penelope in Ithaca (4.703). The suitors, led by Antinous, discover Telemachus has taken a ship to Pylos (4.711), and they elect to send out their own ship to ambush him (4.753). Penelope is told Telemachus is gone and that the suitors plan to murder him (4.784). Eurycleia, the old nurse, tells Penelope she helped Telemachus prepare for his departure, and advises the queen to pray to Athena (4.836). Penelope prays to Athena, and Athena sends a phantom of Penelope's sister to reassure the queen Telemachus is safe (4.930). The book ends with the suitors setting sail to ambush Telemachus (4.947). 24. What do we observe about the character of Menelaus?Notice that Menelaus agrees to welcome Telemachus and Pisistratus by first recalling all the hospitality he received on his journey home (4.38). He displays a certain gratitude and dare we say humility in passing on what he has received. A similar disposition is found in his piety of not wanting to be compared to Zeus (4.87). The pious but somber Menelaus declares: “So I rule all this wealth with no great joy,” as he recalls the death of his brother, Agamemnon (4.103). Moreover, he seems to lament the entire Trojan war, stating he would have rather stayed home with the wealth he had and the friends he lost at Troy—note, however, the implications of this statement regarding his wife, Helen (4.108).Check out the rest of the guide at thegreatbookspodcast.com.

Dcn. Harrison Garlick, Dr. Frank Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey discuss Book Three of the Odyssey: KING NESTOR REMEMBERS. The lovable old man from the Iliad returns to help set Telemachus on his way. More on Telemachus' coming of age storyWhat power comes to rest on Telemachus?How did Great Ajax die?! (ignobly...)What caused the Achaeans to suffer the wrath of Athena?Check out Dcn. Garlick's 50+ page guide to the Odyssey.What happens in book three?Telemachus arrives in Pylos to find King Nestor sacrificing eighty-one bulls to Poseidon and hosting a feast for forty-five hundred people (3.06). Athena, under the guise of Mentor, encourages Telemachus to speak to Nestor (3.16). Telemachus and Athena are welcomed warmly by Nestor's son (3.40), and, after their meal, Nestor asks them who they are (3.77). Telemachus asks Nestor for news of his father, Odysseus (3.91), and Nestor recalls the “living hell” of Troy (3.113). Nestor tells Telemachus of the disaster that was the Achaean army returning home from Troy (3.147). Telemachus tells Nestor of the plight of the suitors (3.228), and Nestor tells Telemachus of Athena's favor for his father, Odysseus—as Athena sits there in the guise of Mentor (3.247). Telemachus asks Nestor to tell the story of how Agamemnon died (3.282), and Nestor tells of how Agamemnon was betrayed by his wife and murdered (3.345).As the conversation turned to returning to Nestor's halls, Athena, disguised as Mentor, transformed into an eagle and flew away (3.415). Nestor explains to Telemachus what favor he must have with the goddess (3.420) and prepares a splendid sacrifice to Athena in her honor (3.429). He has the heifer's horns sheathed in gold (3.488), and Athena returns pleased with this sacrifice (3.485). The book ends with them obeying Athena's orders by preparing a chariot to take Telemachus to Menelaus in Sparta (3.335).Join us as we read the Odyssey in this YEAR OF HOMER.

Send us a Text Message.Can mentors truly shape the trajectory of our lives, leading us from mere dreams to tangible achievements? Find out as we explore the profound impact of mentorship in this compelling episode of the Word Cafe podcast. Join me for an insightful journey through history, starting with the mythological roots of the term "mentor" and the guidance that shaped legends like Telemachus. I also draw fascinating parallels with historical figures such as Alexander the Great and his influential mentor, Aristotle, illustrating how pivotal mentorship can be in our growth and accomplishments.You'll learn why seeking the right mentor requires thoughtful and perhaps even prayerful consideration, and how living within your unique "box" of influence is crucial for genuine development. I also share ways to connect with me on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Plus, discover my books, "A Cocktail of Words," "The Color of Words," and "My HR Notebook," available on Amazon and Roving Heights online bookstores. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more enriching content. This episode promises a captivating exploration of how mentors shape our lives and steer us toward success.Support the Show.You can support this show via the link below;https://www.buzzsprout.com/1718587/supporters/new

Dcn. Garlick, Dr. Frank Grabowski, and Mr. Thomas Lackey come together to discuss Book Two of the Odyssey: Telemachus sets sail.Summary of the bookDiscussion on key themesAristotle's MetaphysicsJohn Wayne referencesAnd more!Check out our website for 60+ page reader's guide to the Odyssey.What happens in book two?Inspired by Athena, Telemachus addresses the assembly of Ithaca (2.25) and condemns the suitors and invokes the gods against them (2.70). In response, Antinous, a suitor, blames Telemachus' mother, Penelope, the “matchless queen of cunning” (2.95) for refusing to return to her father's house and letting him choose for her a new husband (2.125). Thus, the suitors will “devour” Telemachus' house until a new husband for Penelope is chosen (2.136). Telemachus refuses to tell his mother to return to her father's house (5.154) and announces he is leaving for Sparta and Pylos to seek news of his father (2.238). Athena, takes on the guise of Mentor—the man Odysseus left in charge of his affairs (2.250)—and reassures him in his mission (2.302). Telemachus has his nurse prepare provisions for his journey and swears her to secrecy (2.384). The book ends with Telemachus setting sail with his crew and pouring out libations to Athena, the goddess with the “flashing sea-gray eyes” (2.472).Click HERE for more resources.

WE ARE STARTING THE ODYSSEY! Dcn. Harrison Garlick is joined by Dr. Frank Grabowski and Mr. Thomas Lackey to discuss Book One of the Odyssey. Check out our website - thegreatbookspodcast.com - for a written guide to the Odyssey and other resources. Questions discussed:What happens in book one?What should be observed about the invocation to the Muses?What should be made of Zeus' comment on fate?What happened to Agamemnon?What should be made of Telemachus?What major themes and narratives help unfold the story of the Odyssey?Join us as we continue in our YEAR OF HOMER.

This is the preview to my second discussion of Homer's Odyssey for the "Fathers & Sons" series on my AthensCorner.com website. It's the sequel to my previous discussion on the Odyssey titled "The Beautiful, the Good, and the Just in Homer's Odyssey.  At issue in this is the status of Odysseus's son, Telemachus.  More than merely an entryway into the Odyssey, the opening account of Athena's discussion with Telemachus reveals aspects of the proper relationship between fathers and sons that become thematic and definitive for the Odyssey as a whole.  In particular, there is the definitive role any father has in his son even being able to properly become a man which, even in the best circumstances, cannot be taught to a son by his mother.  In other words, there are natural hierarchies within the family which make it not simply the most foundational unit of political community but also its most important.  These hierarchies, in turn, establish the possibility of children being teachable: and as the household goes, so goes the entirety of political community when the particular household represents the highest authoritative element of the polis.  In other words, education as such depends upon recognition of the natural familial hierarchies which, in turn, reveal the family as either the strongest foundational unit definitive of the entire political community or its weakest link.Accordingly, the opening scene of Athena with Telemachus represents the possibility of correction for both a great household and the people dependent upon it amid an extreme situation in which everything has seemingly gone awry.  The ability of Telemachus to successfully become a man worthy of all that is attendant upon invoking the name Odysseus represents, ultimately, the worthiness of Odysseus himself to have such greatness attributed to his name.  This is to say that the success of Telemachus in becoming a man is not the true beginning of Homer's Odyssey but, in fact, the true ending of the Odyssey in the sense of its titular purposiveness.  The presentation and justification of that claim constitutes this discussion.

Rob Pizzola and Joey Knish rank the best and the worst guest episodes of Circles Off. Also, make sure to vote for Circles Off as the best Sports Betting podcast out there! VOTE NOW: https://smartbettingclub.com/2024-awards/ GOAT Episodes #81 - Trenhaile (https://youtu.be/fAYrhzaiMiM) #11 - Abnormally Dist (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Uh4DW9KwxofJLF7YeUWRt?si=uBXS7eHzQ0aXqwxg1Y_BZw) #95 - Berryhorse 1 (https://youtu.be/3JNH1cfp3hc) #121 - Shipper (https://youtu.be/H1i2-P6YX2U) Honourable Mention #61 - Chris Bennett (https://youtu.be/znbWX0JNEkE) #74 - Ferris (https://youtu.be/xSRFGRL57Ig) Overrated Episodes #88 - Steve Fezzik (https://youtu.be/Syq2P2rmdrM) #100 - Ed Golden (https://youtu.be/mj40UN2Wa0M) #129 - GiantsBadgers (https://youtu.be/TmD80pHgJV8) #137 - Gambling Frank Costanza (https://youtu.be/UyFm0aTAXzs) #79 - Benson vs Gruden (https://youtu.be/Cqt1eEaER6U) Underrated Episodes #153 - Dennis Montoro (https://youtu.be/g0YLFKWjp80) #48 - Telemachus [pt. 1] (https://youtu.be/x9TrXPod_24) #152 - Telemachus [pt. 2] (https://youtu.be/ugSo6WcCHPc) #19 - Eddie Walls (https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MO9G2aQmKHRRfn94l7Y8g?si=vgxYdPOtSEuabnxU4vSNtA) #83 - Pisky Positivo (https://youtu.be/WU4U-sszUm8) #110 - Jeff Ma (https://youtu.be/k8akUl1go0A) #126 - Eric Eager (https://youtu.be/Z9yaSksEZ94) #127 - Antonino De Rosa (https://youtu.be/j0Z4k-4_FD8) #114 - CallCustService (https://youtu.be/cVjgXnRJ5LY) WTF Were You Thinking? #145 - Alan Boston (https://youtu.be/5VqhOmzuViI) #131 - CizzlingSports (https://youtu.be/VXtgIk8eC60) #123 - Sharky Waters (https://youtu.be/U6srxz3Pazk) #12 - Harout Massoyan (https://open.spotify.com/episode/6psClaV9PUqhuEFfR1dsOB?si=sn3PUOyaQ3-oA5SKp2VqZQ) #63 - Derek Stevens (https://youtu.be/N4cA_svyP2w) #104 - Kevin Davis (https://youtu.be/13EAAFFEOM0) #147 - Corbie Craig (https://youtu.be/RcWhohzI640) I would like this if the guest wasn't a dork… #28 - PlusEVAnalytics (https://open.spotify.com/episode/4ZKukArdHaxE0kfNsGmGrM?si=HMXfRuhnSnaFv7WL_bfp2w) #53 - Hitman (https://youtu.be/jtZAmnFbSF8) #39 - Chernoff (https://youtu.be/zhQeWD-OPUQ) Looking to sign up at new sportsbooks? Support Circles Off when you do! www.betstamp.app/circlesoff

You'll feel the earth move under your feet this week because You've Got A Friend in Carole King! We'll listen to her weave a Tapestry of self-love and heartache on her unprecedented 1971 sophomore album. She was already established as a hit songwriter; we'll talk about her early career and her breakout as a recording artist. The Mixtaper has another journey for us and Where He Leads, we will follow... even if that means facts about Gilmore Girls, her VERY loose ties to Otis Redding, or even reading the phone book‽‽ The whole album feels like a time capsule, like sitting around a piano listening to Carole King play these songs in her living room with Telemachus. Will it be a surefire winner? Can James call his shot in the Year Of Healing? (And if you DIDN'T want us to release this episode, well, It's Too Late, baby, it's too late... We really did try to make it.) Keep Spinning at www.SpinItPod.com!Thanks for listening!0:00 Intro4:26 About Carole King9:34 About Tapestry16:16 Awards & Accolades18:01 Fact Or Spin19:35 Otis Redding Was A Part Of Her Conception23:49 Carole King Is A Fan Of Dead Punctuation‽30:40 Gilmore Girls: She Sang That Song33:31 Carole King: Grade Skipper38:40 Album Art40:07 I Feel The Earth Move42:15 So Far Away44:06 It's Too Late46:47 Home Again47:53 Beautiful49:34 Way Over Yonder50:37 You've Got A Friend52:56 Where You Lead54:33 Will You Love Me Tomorrow?56:12 Smackwater Jack57:51 Tapestry1:00:02 (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman1:02:20 Final Spin Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob Pizzola and Johnny from betstamp are joined by Telemachus to discuss what he's been up to, working as part of a betting group, the OT Flip, and a whole lot more Looking to sign up at new sportsbooks? Support Circles Off when you do! www.betstamp.app/circlesoff

Dit hoorspel gaat eind deze maand weer achter slot en grendel in De Geluidskluis van Het Geluidshuis. Daarna trakteren we jullie weer op een ander luisterverhaal.Koning Odysseus van Ithaca is overal goed in: boogschieten, zwaardvechten, grote houten paarden maken, zeilen en poseren voor op Griekse vazen. Maar één ding lijkt hem maar niet te lukken: thuis geraken. Bijna 20 jaar is hij al onderweg. Dat is vervelend, want thuis dingen tientallen aanbidders naar de hand van Odysseus' vrouw, koningin Penelope. Zijn zoon Telemachus blijft rotsvast geloven in de terugkeer van zijn vader, maar Odysseus zit letterlijk vast op een rots. Een verhaal vol omzwervingen langs eilanden met losbandige lotuseters, zeskoppige monsters, verleidelijke sirenen en cyclopen die scheel zouden zien van de honger, mochten ze twee ogen hebben.Met de stemmen van Warre Borgmans, Koen De Graeve, Evelien Bosmans, Robby Cleiren, Günther Lesage, Tiny Bertels, Gène Bervoets, Bruno Vanden Broecke, Geert van Rampelberg, Stijn Van Opstal, Steven Van Herreweghe, Jonas Vermeulen, Tom Audenaert, Ruth Becquart, Veerle Baetens, Frank Mercelis, Esther Lybeert en Isolde Lasoen.Tekst: Paul WautersRegie: Koen BrandtMuziek: Koen Brandt en Hannes De MaeyerIllustraties en vormgeving: Mark BorgionsTechniek: Patrick Voets en Bram CoumansJe vindt al onze hoorspelen op geluidshuis.be. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In s3e54, Platemark host Ann Shafer talks with Andrew Raftery, artist, professor, scholar, and wallpaper designer. Andrew works in several modes, most notably in engraving. The through line in the work is domesticity. An early print featured a young man suit shopping. Next was a portfolio of engravings detailing rooms during a real estate open house. Then engravings representing each month in the life of a garden were transferred to twelve dinnerplates and sold as a set. His latest show included watercolors depicting historical interior rooms that feature French and Chinese wallpapers. He also produces letterpress wallpapers himself.  Ann and Andrew talk about how engraving shows itself completely—there is no secret to how it is made, the inscrutability of Vermeer's paintings, the importance of understanding the history of prints, how the transfer process works with ceramic dinnerware, how French and Chinese wallpapers were made (some were hand painted!), and hatboxes. Images of Andrew's art are by Erik Gould; Andrew's headshot is by Ned Lochaya. Andrew is represented by Mary Ryan Gallery.  Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Human Resources, 1990s. Engraving (unfinished). Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Cosmetic Counter, 1990s. Exterior of folding triptych. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Cosmetic Counter, 1990s. Interior of folding triptych. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Suit Shopping: An Engraved Narrative, 2002. Diptych, engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Suit Shopping: An Engraved Narrative, 2002. Triptych, engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Scene 1 (living room) from the portfolio Open House, 2008. Engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Scene 2 (dining room) from the portfolio Open House, 2008. Engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Scene 3 (kitchen) from the portfolio Open House, 2008. Engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Scene 4 (hallway) from the portfolio Open House, 2008. Engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Scene 5 (bedroom) from the portfolio Open House, 2008. Engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). January (recto) from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). January (verso) from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). February from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). March from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). April from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). May from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). June from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). July from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). August from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Study for August from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Pen and ink. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). September from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). October from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Figure model for October from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). November from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). December from the set Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16. Earthenware dinner plate with transferred engraving. Courtesy of the artist. Installation shot of Autobiography of a Garden on Twelve Engraved Plates, 2009–16, at Mary Ryan Gallery. Courtesy of the artist. Clare Leighton (American, 1898–1989). New England Industries, c. 1952. Set of twelve dinner plates. Live Auctioneers. Paul Scott (British, born 1953). Gardens of Lyra, 2020. Set of dinnerware produced for Fortnum and Mason. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Winter: Weeds, 2019. Letterpress printed wallpaper. Courtesy of the artist. Installed Winter wallpaper. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Spring: Irises, 2019. Letterpress printed wallpaper. Courtesy of the artist. Installed Spring wallpaper. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Summer: Scutellarioides, 2019. Letterpress printed wallpaper. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Autumn: Amaranths, 2019. Letterpress printed wallpaper. Courtesy of the artist. Installed Autumn wallpaper. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Green Wall, 2019. Letterpress printed wallpaper. Courtesy of the artist. Installed Green Wall wallpaper. Andrew Raftery and Dan Wood printing wallpaper. Working materials for wallpaper. Working materials for wallpaper. Andrew Raftery's studio. Winterthur, Garden & Library, Delaware. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Winterthur, Baltimore Drinking Room with Chinese hand-painted paper, artists unknown, 2022. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. And the artist working in situ. Corliss-Carrington House, Providence. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Corliss-Carrington House, Providence, East Parlor with Chinese hand-painted paper, artists unknown, 2023. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Corliss-Carrington House, Providence, Telemachus on the Island of Calypso by Dufour: Garden of Calypso, 2022. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Winterthur, Philadelphia Bedroom with Chinese hand-painted paper, artists unknown, 2022. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Private Residence, Delaware, Zuber's View of North America, 2023. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Handicraft Club, Providence. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Handicraft Club, Providence, Great Tiger Hunt of India, 2023. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Handicraft Club, Providence, Great Tiger Hunt of India, 2023. Watercolor over lithograph. Courtesy of the artist. Redwood Library, Newport. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Studies for Redwood Library, Newport, commission, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Studies for Redwood Library, Newport, commission, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Studies for Redwood Library, Newport, commission, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Powderhouse Bandbox, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Powderhouse Bandbox with open lid, 2024. Courtesy of the artist. Andrew Raftery (American, born 1962). Monogrammist ASR's Hatbox, 2024. Courtesy of the artist.

Tonight, I will tell you the story of the Odyssey, and as in previous mythology videos, I will discuss a few historical and literary aspects. If you want to know about the lotus-eaters, the cyclops, the sirens, Aeolus, Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, Calypso, and many more things, relax and enjoy the long journey Odysseus will have to endure to be reunited with his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Listen on Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@LightsOutLibraryov⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ¿Quieres escuchar en Español? Echa un vistazo a La Biblioteca de los Sueños! En Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/1t522alsv5RxFsAf9AmYfg⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ En Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/la-biblioteca-de-los-sue%C3%B1os-documentarios-para-dormir/id1715193755⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ En Youtube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@LaBibliotecadelosSuenosov⁠⁠

How does the relationship between Odysseus and Telemachus play out? What does the son think about the murder of the suitors? And why exactly has this story of the Trojan Cycle captivated its listeners and readers throughout the millennia... to this very day? Today's Podcast is with TAD CRAWFORD, founder and publisher of Allworth Press as well as author of A Floating Life: A Novel, The Secret Life of Money and most recently, On Wine-Dark Seas: A Novel of Odysseus and His Fatherless Son Telemachus...Now, is this the sequel to the Odyssey? You decide...You can find Tad's book, On Wine-Dark Seas: A Novel of Odysseus and His Fatherless Son Telemachus, here: On Wine-Dark Seas: A Novel of Odysseus and His Fatherless Son TelemachusThis podcast was brought to you by Classical Wisdom, a site dedicated to bringing ancient wisdom to modern minds. To learn more about Classical Wisdom and sign up for our free newsletter, please go to: https://classicalwisdom.substack.com/

This is my second discussion on Homer's Odyssey for the Fathers & Sons series on my website (AthensCorner.com).  I've provided the entirety of the discussion here because I believe that what Homer provides us with is still so very urgent and relevant for us today and, in particular, for fathers seeking to have a direct involvement in educating their sons toward virtue.  A few of the ways I demonstrate how fathers can do that in this discussion consists in showing how such an education from reading the Odyssey translates into everything involved in the following constellation of overlapping themes: (1) The meaning of justice in the life of man and the divine(2) The unmanliness of gossip in the becoming of a man from adolescence and, just as importantly, the effeminacy of men regressing into adolescence by trafficking in gossip(3) The importance of the element of experience for knowledge to properly be called knowledge, with emphasis upon Achilles in Hades(4) The meaning of "nature" and, in particular, "natural right"(5) The relevance of poetry for Aristotle as a helpful lens through which to understand the opening scene with Odysseus's son Telemachus(6) The meaning of the imagery of the bow and the lyre in Homer(7) The relevance of Glaucon and Socrates from Plato's Republic for understanding Telemachus and Athena in the absence of Odysseus(8) The meaning of fathers and sons amid nihilism(9) The meaning of all these things for what we call "life" and "education"

In this week's episode, I take a look back at my ten favorite scenes to write in 2023. I also discuss how my advertising efforts fared in December 2023. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 182 of the Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is January the 5th, 2024, and today we're going to talk about the favorite scenes I wrote in 2023. We also have an update on how my ads did for my books in December 2023. This is the first episode I'm actually recording in 2024, so Happy New Year to everyone. If you are listening now, however 2023 treated you, I hope 2024 treats you even better. Before we get to our main topics, let's have an update on my current writing projects. My main project right now is Shield of Storms and I am 71,000 words into it. I'm hoping I can get that out in January. It might slip to February. We will see how the rest of the month goes. My side projects right now: I am also working on Sevenfold Sword Online: Leveling and I am 55,000 words into that. That will come out after Shield of Storms, so February or March depending on how long Shield of Storms takes to write. And I am 8,500 words into Wizard Thief, which is going to be the sequel to Half-Elven Thief from December. Not sure when that one's going to come out. I have to write Ghost in the Veils first because I have a recording slot scheduled for that in April that I really need to meet, but so it will probably be late spring, if all goes well. In audio news, the audiobook for Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation is now available at all the usual audiobook stores except Apple, and it should be showing up there later. It's narrated by CJ McAllister, comes to just under 10 hours long, and it's a very good audiobook and worth the listen. So if you have spare credit to or some audiobook money to use, I recommend giving that a chance, and that is where I'm at with my current writing projects. Before we get to the main topic, let's see how ads did in December 2023. Advertising in December is always tricky, both for authors and regardless of what business you're in because every consumer facing business in the world is dumping a ton of money into ads for Christmas and so the cost gets all screwy. But I'm pleased to report some good results for December. First, let's see how the Facebook ads did. For the Ghost series, I got back $4.82 for a dollar I spent, with 16.7% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. For Cloak Games and Cloak Mage, I got back $6.42 for every dollar I spent, with 6% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. For Malison and Dragontiarna, I got back $1.82 for every dollar spent. For Silent Order, I got back $1.98 for every dollar spent. I think for January, I will shut off the Facebook ads for Malison and Dragontiarna and Silent Order and let them rest until the next time and get a Bookbub for one of them. Next up, let's see how my Bookbub ads did. As before, I advertised Frostborn on Bookbub and for Frostborn I got back $6.52 for every dollar spent, with 37% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. Complete series of audiobooks seems to do really well on Bookbub. I need to expand my targeting data for the platform so I can advertise Ghosts there as well, and maybe urban fantasy and perhaps science fiction at some point. Finally, let's look at my Amazon ads. This month, I advertised Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire, Cloak Games: Omnibus One, and Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation on Amazon ads. I'm not entirely sure how Sevenfold Sword Online: Creation did, because the audiobook came out and I'm not entirely sure what the per sale rate for that is going to be, but I think that ad doubled its money, but I'm not entirely sure. For the ones I am sure about, here's how they did. Dragonskull: Sword of the Squire got back $3.06 for every dollar spent, with 18% of the profit coming from audiobook. Cloak Games: Omnibus One got back $3.63 for every dollar spent, with 22% of the profit coming from the audiobook. So, overall I think it is safe to say that my December campaigns went pretty well. So thanks for reading the books, everyone and hopefully we'll have more books to come very soon. 00:04:15 Favorite Scenes of 2023 (SPOILER WARNING FOR REST OF PODCAST) Now our main topic of the week: my ten favorite scenes that I wrote in 2023. First, I should note very strongly that this podcast episode will have spoilers for every single thing I published in 2023, so stop listening right now if you're not caught up and you want to avoid spoilers. That said, I thought it would be interesting to look back at 2023 and talk about some of the favorite scenes to write from the past year. As an added bonus, when I prepared this list, it turned out to be 10 scenes, which is convenient since all the news sites from their top ten articles in December and January anyway. Reminder: spoilers, and there are spoilers after this point. And here are my favorite scenes of 2023, in no particular order. Number One: when Nadia bursts through the roof with Delaxsicoria in Cloak of Dragonfire. That was a fun one to write. I used to joke that I originally intended Nadia's character arc to be a bad person, reluctantly and against her will slowly turned into a good one. But what her plot arc actually turned out to be was Catwoman slowing turning into Gandalf. Exploding through the roof of an athletic complex to save the day while riding a dragon was definitely one of the more Gandalf-esque things that Nadia has done. The scene immediately after that where Nadia, Delaxsicoria, Varzalshinpol, and Tarthrunivor all chase Ferrunivar through the skies of southern California was pretty great as well. Number Two: Caina deduces who Kalliope Agramemnos is in Ghost in the Serpent. I have to admit, for a while I knew it was likely that Caina would have stepchildren she didn't know about since she's married to Kylon, who used to strive to be a model Kyracian noble and Kyracian nobles in general tend to regard abstinence as something to be avoided at best, and a disgraceful vice at worst. Not their most admirable character trait. But for a while I didn't know how to write that situation in a way that would be interesting. If the mother died and Caina was left to raise the stepchildren, that would be lazy writing. It would also be lazy writing if everyone got along. There is an apocryphal story that for a while in the 2000s, all these newly remarried middle-aged screenwriters kept pitching sitcoms where a screenwriter, his new younger wife, and his ex-wife all lived in harmony together. The studio executives, who as a class are not always known for their firm grasp upon reality, always rejected these ideas because they knew a majority of the female half of the audience would absolutely hate it. So a scenario where Caina, Kylon, and Kalliope all got along seemed likely equally lazy writing. But what if Kylon and Kalliope couldn't stand each other? And Kylon had further grievances against Kalliope because she had never told him about the children? But Kalliope ends up being in awe of and a little frightened of Caina? So the dynamic is that Kylon and Kalliope can't stand each other, but Caina keeps the peace between them? I thought that might turn out to be pretty interesting to write and Ghost in the Serpents sold enough that I think people agree with me. It's also interesting to write because this is happening while Caina is one of the few people who know how dangerous the Cult of Rhadamathar really is. But more about that to come in future Ghost books. Number Three: Delaxsicoria tells Nadia not to be so hard on herself in Cloak of Dragonfire. The unlikely friendship between Della and Nadia has been fun to write throughout the Cloak Mage series and side stories. From Della's perspective of course they would be friends – Nadia caught the murderer of her uncle, and Nadia is wound up tighter than a spring and doesn't relax very much. Nadia, of course, is a little baffled by this, especially since she doesn't really have any interest in music, which is Della's great passion. So they have a great dynamic, and we'll see more of that in future books. Number Four: Sir Telemachus and Niara kill Mharoslav in Dragonskull: Wrath of the Warlock. This was fun to write because Mharoslav always got away from or at least got the best of the heroes in their previous encounters, including nearly killing Telemachus in the process. Telemachus decided that he would sacrifice himself in seeking vengeance against Mharoslav and save his friends in the process. Then he met Niara. Niara comes from the General Patton school of warfare – dying for your country is a fine thing, but it's way better to make the other jerk die for his country. Her utter loathing for all wielders of dark magic played into that as well, allowing her to show the way for Telemachus to defeat Mharoslav at last. Number Five: Myotharia versus Xothalaxiar in Dragonskull: Doom of the Sorceress. I have to admit Myotharia was originally going to die in the final battle of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians, but she was such a great character that I felt I could get more narrative mileage out of the poor woman. I always knew from the beginning of the series that Niara was going to have to fight Xothalaxiar for the final time, and Myotharia lost everything to the urdmordar. So I realized that having Myotharia join the fight against Xothalaxiar would give her a sort of emotional catharsis, and help set Niara onto a path other than seeking her own death in battle. Number Six: Thunderbolt. I lucked out with Thunderbolt's character in the Silent Order series. I charted out the rest of the Silent Order series way back in 2021, which is when Thunderbolt was first mentioned in Silent Order: Royal Hand. I originally envisioned her as the sort of classic Star Trek Evil Sentient Computer, the sort of computer Captain Kirk would have to talk into a logic loop every other week. But then in 2022 and 2023 ChatGPT and Bing Chat came along, and they were terrible! For a while, the various insane ramblings of ChatGPT and Bing Chat regularly made the news. So when it was time to write Silent Order: Thunder Hand, I based Thunderbolt's personality off some of ChatGPT's more hilarious public meltdowns, though I left it ambiguous just how insane Thunderbolt actually was and how much of her behavior was just screwing with people to put them off their balance. By the end, Jack March definitely suspected the latter. Number Seven: The Battle of Calaskar. The entire Battle of Calaskar sequence in Silent Order: Pulse Hand was fun to write because I've been thinking about it for ages, since I've had a clear endpoint for the Silent Order series in my head for a while. I liked how it was able to bring back Admiral Stormreel, the Navigators, the Calaskaran Navy, and a bunch of other elements from the series for the Grand Finale. Number Eight: Gareth Figures out the Dragonskull. I also liked the final confrontation with Azalmora in Dragonskull: Crown of the Gods. Azalmora was such a self-controlled and intellectual villain that I wanted her demise to be intellectual, a sort of a moment of revelation that kills her. When Gareth figures out the nature of the Dragonskull itself and the way the xortami twisted it with their dark magic, he's able to use that against Azalmora, and in her final moment she understands the true nature of the Dragonskull, albeit briefly. Number Nine: Riordan MacCormac vs Michael Durst. This was a fun scene to write in Cloak of Embers. Durst had been an arc villain over the last few books. He proudly considered himself a monster, but then he had the bad luck to start working for Maestro, who was just as evil as he was but without any of his self-destructive indulgences. So it was little wonder that Durst found himself dragged into Maestro's orbit, even if he didn't realize what was happening. (The scene where Durst goes to kill Maestro and instead she talks him into doing exactly what she wants was also pretty great to write.) Even if Durst didn't want to kill Nadia, Riordan would still have fought him to the death, because Durst represents a rejection of self-control and responsibility, something Riordan finds utterly abhorrent. And unlike Durst, Riordan knew that a moment of reckoning was coming, which was why he practiced and trained so much with Sir Trandor, while Durst simply went begging to the Dark Ones for power, so the final showdown between Riordan and Durst was quite fun to write. And finally, Number Ten: Rivah and the Magister's Tower. When I plotted out Rivah's heist of Ramarion's tower in Half-Elven Thief, I didn't get too detailed in my outline as to what the inside of the tower would look like. I just knew I wanted it to be as weird and freaky and unsettling as possible, with a lot of Evil Wizard Stuff cluttering up the place. Several people have told me Rivah's venture into the tower was their favorite part of the book, so I think I succeeded. So those were my ten favorite scenes that I wrote in 2023. Thanks for reading, everyone. So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Ever wondered how the ancient wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount could radically alter modern life? Dr. Hank Williams joins me in a riveting discussion that promises to unlock the transformative impact of living a holy life amidst the turbulence of our times. Together, we navigate the stark contrasts between society's values and the teachings of Jesus, casting a light on the 'Already Not Yet' kingdom concept that resonates powerfully during the festive season. This episode is a journey through the challenges and joys of sustaining a kingdom mindset in a world that often seems to pull in the opposite direction.Our conversation takes an intriguing turn as we examine the Apostle Paul's defense of his authority through the lens of a clear conscience and a life immersed in godly sincerity. Dr. Williams and I delve into the notion that a transparent faith, unmarred by duplicity, can withstand the fiercest scrutiny and spur on both personal and community growth. The episode offers a deep reflection on the practicalities of embodying the Sermon on the Mount in daily living, encouraging listeners to consider the authenticity of their own spiritual walk.The power of a holy life, catalyzed by the grace of God, is vividly illustrated through historical anecdotes, including the life-altering story of Telemachus and the influential legacy of Thomas Jefferson. Our exchange highlights how dedication to kingdom principles can instigate monumental change, a theme that sets the stage for next week's engaging dive into 'the upside down house.' For those yearning to deepen their connection with the divine and make a lasting impact, this episode is not to be missed. Join us and discover the profound influence of living a life aligned with the heart of God.https://www.jacksonfamilyministry.comhttps://bobslone.com/home/podcast-production/

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 12, 2023 is: mentor • MEN-tor • noun A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. // They regarded the professor not only as a mentor, but as a good friend as well. See the entry > Examples: “The grant supports individuals who are pushing boundaries as founders, educators, and artists. Awardees are matched with creative industry mentors, who include the likes of stylist Zerina Akers, and Hanifa's Anifa Mvuemba.” — Skylar Mitchell, Essence, 30 Oct. 2023 Did you know? Mentor is pretty ubiquitous in today's world as a word for anyone who is a positive, guiding influence in another (usually younger) person's life, but no matter your age we're here to guide you through the word's history. Mentor comes originally from ancient Greek literature: in Homer's epic The Odyssey, Odysseus is away from home fighting and journeying for 20 years. During that time, Telemachus, the son he left as a babe in arms, grows up under the supervision of Méntōr, an old and trusted friend. When the goddess Athena decides it is time to complete the education of young Telemachus, she visits him disguised as Méntōr and they set out together to learn about his father. A version of Méntōr (written as Mentor) later appeared as a major character in the Odyssey-inspired French novel Les aventures de Télémaque (1699) by François Fénelon, after which it became a generic noun for “trusted guide” in that language before being borrowed into English with the same meaning.

In this episode of Wandering DMs, Dan and Paul discuss the role of mentorship in teaching D&D. How did the role of mentors help the spread of D&D in the early days? How has that changed over the years? And how does the game present itself to new players who aren't furtunate enough to have this kind of personal introduction? The word mentor was inspired by the character Mentor in Homer's Odyssey. Although the Mentor in the story is portrayed as a somewhat ineffective old man, the goddess Athena assumes his appearance to guide young Telemachus in his time of difficulty. A meta-analysis of 112 individual research studies found mentoring has significant behavioral, attitudinal, health-related, relational, motivational, and career benefits. For a learner, these benefits depend on the different functions being performed by the mentor. Originally, the concept of mentoring functions developed from qualitative research in an organizational context with functions that belong under two major factors: psychosocial support (e.g. role modeling, friendship, emotional support, encouragement) and career-related support (e.g. providing advice, discussing goals). An early quantitative approach found role modeling to be a distinct third factor. In mentoring for college success, a fourth function concerning knowledge transfer was additionally identified, which was also discovered in the context of mentoring creativity. This description uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mentorship", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

În cadrul book clubului "paralel" (pentru nerds), eu cu câțiva membri din comunitate am început a citi una din cele mai influente (și dificile) cărți din literatura secolului XX. Ulise a fost publicat în 1920, fiind scris în decurs de 7 ani și depictând o singură zi în Dublin (în foarte multe detalii). În primele 3 capitole sunt introduși Stephen Daedalus - unul din protagoniști, un tânăr de 22 de ani erudit și straniu, carismaticul "nietzschean" Buck Mulligan și "naivul englez din Oxford" Mr. Haines. Lucrul cu care e cel mai dificil să te obișnuiești e stilul narării - sunt multe pasaje în care suntem în conștiința lui Daedalus, de aici și proza e haotică, cu paranteze și subparanteze, cuvinte aparent aruncate aleatoriu (dar care, uitându-te la adnotări, au sens) și multe referințe la mitologii, istoria religiei, foclor irlandez, literatură (Shakespeare, Homer), filosofie (Aristotel, Nietzsche), jargoane locale ș.a. Dacă vrei să mențin regularitatea acestor întâlniri, susține-mă pe Patreon: www.patreon.com/meditatii ▶DISCORD: – Comunitatea amatorilor de filosofie și literatură: discord.gg/meditatii ▶DIALOGURI FILOSOFICE: – Română: soundcloud.com/meditatii/sets/dialoguri-pe-discord – Engleză: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL…NYNkbJjNJeXrNHSaV ▶PODCAST INFO: – Website: podcastmeditatii.com – Newsletter: podcastmeditatii.com/aboneaza – YouTube: youtube.com/c/meditatii – Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/medi…ii/id1434369028 – Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/1tBwmTZQHKaoXkDQjOWihm – RSS: feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundclo…613/sounds.rss ▶SUSȚINE-MĂ: – Patreon: www.patreon.com/meditatii – PayPal: paypal.me/meditatii ▶TWITCH: – LIVE: www.twitch.tv/meditatii – Rezumate: www.youtube.com/channel/UCK204s-jdiStZ5FoUm63Nig ▶SOCIAL MEDIA: – Instagram: www.instagram.com/meditatii.podcast – Facebook: www.facebook.com/meditatii.podcast – Goodreads: goodreads.com/avasilachi – Telegram (jurnal): t.me/andreivasilachi – Telegram (chat): t.me/podcastmeditatii ▶EMAIL: andrei@podcastmeditatii.com

Listen to this episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts Let's face it the New Testament probably calls Jesus God (or god) a couple of times and so do early Christian authors in the second century. However, no one offers much of an explanation for what they mean by the title. Did early Christians think Jesus was God because he represented Yahweh? Did they think he was God because he shared the same eternal being as the Father? Did they think he was a god because that's just what they would call any immortalized human who lived in heaven? In this presentation I focus on the question from the perspective of Greco-Roman theology. Drawing on the work of David Litwa, Andrew Perriman, Barry Blackburn, and tons of ancient sources I seek to show how Mediterranean converts to Christianity would have perceived Jesus based on their cultural and religious assumptions. This presentation is from the 3rd Unitarian Christian Alliance Conference on October 20, 2023 in Springfield, OH. Here is the original pdf of this paper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Z3QbQ7dHc —— Links —— See more scholarly articles by Sean Finnegan Get the transcript of this episode Support Restitutio by donating here Join our Restitutio Facebook Group and follow Sean Finnegan on Twitter @RestitutioSF Leave a voice message via SpeakPipe with questions or comments and we may play them out on the air Intro music: Good Vibes by MBB Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) Free Download / Stream: Music promoted by Audio Library. Who is Sean Finnegan?  Read his bio here Introduction When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” (or “God”) what did they mean?[1] Modern apologists routinely point to pre-Nicene quotations in order to prove that early Christians always believed in the deity of Christ, by which they mean that he is of the same substance (homoousios) as the Father. However, most historians agree that Christians before the fourth century simply didn't have the cognitive categories available yet to think of Christ in Nicene or Chalcedonian ways. If this consensus is correct, it behooves us to consider other options for defining what early Christian authors meant. The obvious place to go to get an answer to our initial question is the New Testament. However, as is well known, the handful of instances in which authors unambiguously applied god (θεός) to Christ are fraught with textual uncertainty, grammatical ambiguity, and hermeneutical elasticity.[2]  What's more, granting that these contested texts[3] all call Jesus “god” provides little insight into what they might mean by that phrase. Turning to the second century, the earliest handful of texts that say Jesus is god are likewise textually uncertain or terse.[4] We must wait until the second half of the second century and beyond to have more helpful material to examine. We know that in the meanwhile some Christians were saying Jesus was god. What did they mean? One promising approach is to analyze biblical texts that call others gods. We find helpful parallels with the word god (אֱלֹהִים) applied to Moses (Exod 7.1; 4.16), judges (Exod 21.6; 22.8-9), kings (Is 9.6; Ps 45.6), the divine council (Ps 82.1, 6), and angels (Ps 8.6). These are texts in which God imbues his agents with his authority to represent him in some way. This rare though significant way of calling a representative “god,” continues in the NT with Jesus' clever defense to his accusers in John 10.34-36. Lexicons[5] have long recognized this “Hebraistic” usage and recent study tools such as the New English Translation (NET)[6] and the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary[7] also note this phenomenon. But, even if this agency perspective is the most natural reading of texts like Heb 1.8, later Christians, apart from one or two exceptions appear to be ignorant of this usage.[8] This interpretation was likely a casualty of the so-called parting of the ways whereby Christianity transitioned from a second-temple-Jewish movement to a Gentile-majority religion. As such, to grasp what early postapostolic Christians believed, we must turn our attention elsewhere. Michael Bird is right when he says, “Christian discourses about deity belong incontrovertibly in the Greco-Roman context because it provided the cultural encyclopedia that, in diverse ways, shaped the early church's Christological conceptuality and vocabulary.”[9] Learning Greco-Roman theology is not only important because that was the context in which early Christians wrote, but also because from the late first century onward, most of our Christian authors converted from that worldview. Rather than talking about the Hellenization of Christianity, we should begin by asking how Hellenists experienced Christianization. In other words, Greco-Roman beliefs about the gods were the default lens through which converts first saw Christ. In order to explore how Greco-Roman theology shaped what people believed about Jesus as god, we do well to begin by asking how they defined a god. Andrew Perriman offers a helpful starting point. “The gods,” he writes, “are mostly understood as corporeal beings, blessed with immortality, larger, more beautiful, and more powerful than their mortal analogues.”[10] Furthermore, there were lots of them! The sublunar realm was, in the words of Paula Fredriksen, “a god-congested place.”[11] What's more, “[S]harp lines and clearly demarcated boundaries between divinity and humanity were lacking."[12] Gods could appear as people and people could ascend to become gods. Comprehending what Greco-Roman people believed about gods coming down and humans going up will occupy the first part of this paper. Only once we've adjusted our thinking to their culture, will we walk through key moments in the life of Jesus of Nazareth to hear the story with ancient Mediterranean ears. Lastly, we'll consider the evidence from sources that think of Jesus in Greco-Roman categories. Bringing this all together we'll enumerate the primary ways to interpret the phrase “Jesus is god” available to Christians in the pre-Nicene period. Gods Coming Down and Humans Going Up The idea that a god would visit someone is not as unusual as it first sounds. We find plenty of examples of Yahweh himself or non-human representatives visiting people in the Hebrew Bible.[13] One psalmist even referred to angels or “heavenly beings” (ESV) as אֱלֹהִים (gods).[14] The Greco-Roman world too told stories about divine entities coming down to interact with people. Euripides tells about the time Zeus forced the god Apollo to become a human servant in the house of Admetus, performing menial labor as punishment for killing the Cyclopes (Alcestis 1). Baucis and Philemon offered hospitality to Jupiter and Mercury when they appeared in human form (Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.26-34). In Homer's Odyssey onlookers warn Antinous for flinging a stool against a stranger since “the gods do take on the look of strangers dropping in from abroad”[15] (17.534-9). Because they believed the boundary between the divine realm and the Earth was so permeable, Mediterranean people were always on guard for an encounter with a god in disguise. In addition to gods coming down, in special circumstances, humans could ascend and become gods too. Diodorus of Sicily demarcated two types of gods: those who are “eternal and imperishable, such as the sun and the moon” and “the other gods…terrestrial beings who attained to immortal honour”[16] (The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian 6.1). By some accounts, even the Olympian gods, including Kronos and Uranus were once mortal men.[17] Among humans who could become divine, we find several distinguishable categories, including heroes, miracle workers, and rulers. We'll look at each briefly before considering how the story of Jesus would resonate with those holding a Greco-Roman worldview. Deified Heroes Cornutus the Stoic said, “[T]he ancients called heroes those who were so strong in body and soul that they seemed to be part of a divine race.” (Greek Theology 31)[18] At first this statement appears to be a mere simile, but he goes on to say of Heracles (Hercules), the Greek hero par excellence, “his services had earned him apotheosis” (ibid.). Apotheosis (or deification) is the process by which a human ascends into the divine realm. Beyond Heracles and his feats of strength, other exceptional individuals became deified for various reasons. Amphiarus was a seer who died in the battle at Thebes. After opening a chasm in the earth to swallow him in battle, “Zeus made him immortal”[19] (Apollodorus, Library of Greek Mythology 3.6). Pausanias says the custom of the inhabitants of Oropos was to drop coins into Amphiarus' spring “because this is where they say Amphiarus rose up as a god”[20] (Guide to Greece 1.34). Likewise, Strabo speaks about a shrine for Calchas, a deceased diviner from the Trojan war (Homer, Illiad 1.79-84), “where those consulting the oracle sacrifice a black ram to the dead and sleep in its hide”[21] (Strabo, Geography 6.3.9). Though the great majority of the dead were locked away in the lower world of Hades, leading a shadowy pitiful existence, the exceptional few could visit or speak from beyond the grave. Lastly, there was Zoroaster the Persian prophet who, according to Dio Chrysostom, was enveloped by fire while he meditated upon a mountain. He was unharmed and gave advice on how to properly make offerings to the gods (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 36.40). The Psuedo-Clementine Homilies include a story about a lightning bolt striking and killing Zoroaster. After his devotees buried his body, they built a temple on the site, thinking that “his soul had been sent for by lightning” and they “worshipped him as a god”[22] (Homily 9.5.2). Thus, a hero could have extraordinary strength, foresight, or closeness to the gods resulting in apotheosis and ongoing worship and communication. Deified Miracle Workers Beyond heroes, Greco-Roman people loved to tell stories about deified miracle workers. Twice Orpheus rescued a ship from a storm by praying to the gods (Diodorus of Sicily 4.43.1f; 48.5f). After his death, surviving inscriptions indicate that he both received worship and was regarded as a god in several cities.[23] Epimenides “fell asleep in a cave for fifty-seven years”[24] (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.109). He also predicted a ten-year period of reprieve from Persian attack in Athens (Plato Laws 1.642D-E). Plato called him a divine man (θεῖος ἀνήρ) (ibid.) and Diogenes talked of Cretans sacrificing to him as a god (Diogenes, Lives 1.114). Iamblichus said Pythagoras was the son of Apollo and a mortal woman (Life of Pythagoras 2). Nonetheless, the soul of Pythagoras enjoyed multiple lives, having originally been “sent to mankind from the empire of Apollo”[25] (Life 2). Diogenes and Lucian enumerate the lives the pre-existent Pythagoras led, including Aethalides, Euphorbus, Hermotimus, and Pyrrhus (Diogenes, Life of Pythagoras 4; Lucian, The Cock 16-20). Hermes had granted Pythagoras the gift of “perpetual transmigration of his soul”[26] so he could remember his lives while living or dead (Diogenes, Life 4). Ancient sources are replete with Pythagorean miracle stories.[27] Porphyry mentions several, including taming a bear, persuading an ox to stop eating beans, and accurately predicting a catch of fish (Life of Pythagoras 23-25). Porphyry said Pythagoras accurately predicted earthquakes and “chased away a pestilence, suppressed violent winds and hail, [and] calmed storms on rivers and on seas” (Life 29).[28] Such miracles, argued the Pythagoreans made Pythagoras “a being superior to man, and not to a mere man” (Iamblichus, Life 28).[29] Iamblichus lays out the views of Pythagoras' followers, including that he was a god, a philanthropic daemon, the Pythian, the Hyperborean Apollo, a Paeon, a daemon inhabiting the moon, or an Olympian god (Life 6). Another pre-Socratic philosopher was Empedocles who studied under Pythagoras. To him sources attribute several miracles, including stopping a damaging wind, restoring the wind, bringing dry weather, causing it to rain, and even bringing someone back from Hades (Diogenes, Lives 8.59).[30] Diogenes records an incident in which Empedocles put a woman into a trance for thirty days before sending her away alive (8.61). He also includes a poem in which Empedocles says, “I am a deathless god, no longer mortal, I go among you honored by all, as is right”[31] (8.62). Asclepius was a son of the god Apollo and a human woman (Cornutus, Greek Theology 33). He was known for healing people from diseases and injuries (Pindar, Pythian 3.47-50). “[H]e invented any medicine he wished for the sick, and raised up the dead”[32] (Pausanias, Guide to Greece 2.26.4). However, as Diodorus relates, Hades complained to Zeus on account of Asclepius' diminishing his realm, which resulted in Zeus zapping Asclepius with a thunderbolt, killing him (4.71.2-3). Nevertheless, Asclepius later ascended into heaven to become a god (Hyginus, Fables 224; Cicero, Nature of the Gods 2.62).[33] Apollonius of Tyana was a famous first century miracle worker. According to Philostratus' account, the locals of Tyana regard Apollonius to be the son of Zeus (Life 1.6). Apollonius predicted many events, interpreted dreams, and knew private facts about people. He rebuked and ridiculed a demon, causing it to flee, shrieking as it went (Life 2.4).[34] He even once stopped a funeral procession and raised the deceased to life (Life 4.45). What's more he knew every human language (Life 1.19) and could understand what sparrows chirped to each other (Life 4.3). Once he instantaneously transported himself from Smyrna to Ephesus (Life 4.10). He claimed knowledge of his previous incarnation as the captain of an Egyptian ship (Life 3.23) and, in the end, Apollonius entered the temple of Athena and vanished, ascending from earth into heaven to the sound of a choir singing (Life 8.30). We have plenty of literary evidence that contemporaries and those who lived later regarded him as a divine man (Letters 48.3)[35] or godlike (ἰσόθεος) (Letters 44.1) or even just a god (θεός) (Life 5.24). Deified Rulers Our last category of deified humans to consider before seeing how this all relates to Jesus is rulers. Egyptians, as indicated from the hieroglyphs left in the pyramids, believed their deceased kings to enjoy afterlives as gods. They could become star gods or even hunt and consume other gods to absorb their powers.[36] The famous Macedonian conqueror, Alexander the Great, carried himself as a god towards the Persians though Plutarch opines, “[he] was not at all vain or deluded but rather used belief in his divinity to enslave others”[37] (Life of Alexander 28). This worship continued after his death, especially in Alexandria where Ptolemy built a tomb and established a priesthood to conduct religious honors to the deified ruler. Even the emperor Trajan offered a sacrifice to the spirit of Alexander (Cassius Dio, Roman History 68.30). Another interesting example is Antiochus I of Comagene who called himself “Antiochus the just [and] manifest god, friend of the Romans [and] friend of the Greeks.”[38] His tomb boasted four colossal figures seated on thrones: Zeus, Heracles, Apollo, and himself. The message was clear: Antiochus I wanted his subjects to recognize his place among the gods after death. Of course, the most relevant rulers for the Christian era were the Roman emperors. The first official Roman emperor Augustus deified his predecessor, Julius Caesar, celebrating his apotheosis with games (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar 88). Only five years after Augustus died, eastern inhabitants of the Roman Empire at Priene happily declared “the birthday of the god Augustus” (ἡ γενέθλιος ἡμέρα τοῦ θεοῦ)[39] to be the start of their provincial year. By the time of Tacitus, a century after Augustus died, the wealthy in Rome had statues of the first emperor in their gardens for worship (Annals 1.73). The Roman historian Appian explained that the Romans regularly deify emperors at death “provided he has not been a despot or a disgrace”[40] (The Civil Wars 2.148).  In other words, deification was the default setting for deceased emperors. Pliny the Younger lays it on pretty thick when he describes the process. He says Nero deified Claudius to expose him; Titus deified Vespasian and Domitian so he could be the son and brother of gods. However, Trajan deified Nerva because he genuinely believed him to be more than a human (Panegyric 11). In our little survey, we've seen three main categories of deified humans: heroes, miracle workers, and good rulers. These “conceptions of deity,” writes David Litwa, “were part of the “preunderstanding” of Hellenistic culture.”[41] He continues: If actual cases of deification were rare, traditions of deification were not. They were the stuff of heroic epic, lyric song, ancient mythology, cultic hymns, Hellenistic novels, and popular plays all over the first-century Mediterranean world. Such discourses were part of mainstream, urban culture to which most early Christians belonged. If Christians were socialized in predominantly Greco-Roman environments, it is no surprise that they employed and adapted common traits of deities and deified men to exalt their lord to divine status.[42] Now that we've attuned our thinking to Mediterranean sensibilities about gods coming down in the shape of humans and humans experiencing apotheosis to permanently dwell as gods in the divine realm, our ears are attuned to hear the story of Jesus with Greco-Roman ears. Hearing the Story of Jesus with Greco-Roman Ears How would second or third century inhabitants of the Roman empire have categorized Jesus? Taking my cue from Litwa's treatment in Iesus Deus, I'll briefly work through Jesus' conception, transfiguration, miracles, resurrection, and ascension. Miraculous Conception Although set within the context of Jewish messianism, Christ's miraculous birth would have resonated differently with Greco-Roman people. Stories of gods coming down and having intercourse with women are common in classical literature. That these stories made sense of why certain individuals were so exceptional is obvious. For example, Origen related a story about Apollo impregnating Amphictione who then gave birth to Plato (Against Celsus 1.37). Though Mary's conception did not come about through intercourse with a divine visitor, the fact that Jesus had no human father would call to mind divine sonship like Pythagoras or Asclepius. Celsus pointed out that the ancients “attributed a divine origin to Perseus, and Amphion, and Aeacus, and Minos” (Origen, Against Celsus 1.67). Philostratus records a story of the Egyptian god Proteus saying to Apollonius' mother that she would give birth to himself (Life of Apollonius of Tyana 1.4). Since people were primed to connect miraculous origins with divinity, typical hearers of the birth narratives of Matthew or Luke would likely think that this baby might be either be a descended god or a man destined to ascend to become a god. Miracles and Healing As we've seen, Jesus' miracles would not have sounded unbelievable or even unprecedent to Mediterranean people. Like Jesus, Orpheus and Empedocles calmed storms, rescuing ships. Though Jesus provided miraculous guidance on how to catch fish, Pythagoras foretold the number of fish in a great catch. After the fishermen painstakingly counted them all, they were astounded that when they threw them back in, they were still alive (Porphyry, Life 23-25). Jesus' ability to foretell the future, know people's thoughts, and cast out demons all find parallels in Apollonius of Tyana. As for resurrecting the dead, we have the stories of Empedocles, Asclepius, and Apollonius. The last of which even stopped a funeral procession to raise the dead, calling to mind Jesus' deeds in Luke 7.11-17. When Lycaonians witnessed Paul's healing of a man crippled from birth, they cried out, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men” (Acts 14.11). Another time when no harm befell Paul after a poisonous snake bit him on Malta, Gentile onlookers concluded “he was a god” (Acts 28.6). Barry Blackburn makes the following observation: [I]n view of the tendency, most clearly seen in the Epimenidean, Pythagorean, and Apollonian traditions, to correlate impressive miracle-working with divine status, one may justifiably conclude that the evangelical miracle traditions would have helped numerous gentile Christians to arrive at and maintain belief in Jesus' divine status.[43] Transfiguration Ancient Mediterranean inhabitants believed that the gods occasionally came down disguised as people. Only when gods revealed their inner brilliant natures could people know that they weren't mere humans. After his ship grounded on the sands of Krisa, Apollo leaped from the ship emitting flashes of fire “like a star in the middle of day…his radiance shot to heaven”[44] (Homeric Hymns, Hymn to Apollo 440). Likewise, Aphrodite appeared in shining garments, brighter than a fire and shimmering like the moon (Hymn to Aphrodite 85-89). When Demeter appeared to Metaneira, she initially looked like an old woman, but she transformed herself before her. “Casting old age away…a delightful perfume spread…a radiance shone out far from the goddess' immortal flesh…and the solid-made house was filled with a light like the lightning-flash”[45] (Hymn to Demeter 275-280). Homer wrote about Odysseus' transformation at the golden wand of Athena in which his clothes became clean, he became taller, and his skin looked younger. His son, Telemachus cried out, “Surely you are some god who rules the vaulting skies”[46] (Odyssey 16.206). Each time the observers conclude the transfigured person is a god. Resurrection & Ascension In defending the resurrection of Jesus, Theophilus of Antioch said, “[Y]ou believe that Hercules, who burned himself, lives; and that Aesculapius [Asclepius], who was struck with lightning, was raised”[47] (Autolycus 1.13). Although Hercules' physical body burnt, his transformed pneumatic body continued on as the poet Callimachus said, “under a Phrygian oak his limbs had been deified”[48] (Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis 159). Others thought Hercules ascended to heaven in his burnt body, which Asclepius subsequently healed (Lucian, Dialogue of the Gods 13). After his ascent, Diodorus relates how the people first sacrificed to him “as to a hero” then in Athens they began to honor him “with sacrifices like as to a god”[49] (The Historical Library 4.39). As for Asclepius, his ascension resulted in his deification as Cyprian said, “Aesculapius is struck by lightning, that he may rise into a god”[50] (On the Vanity of Idols 2). Romulus too “was torn to pieces by the hands of a hundred senators”[51] and after death ascended into heaven and received worship (Arnobius, Against the Heathen 1.41). Livy tells of how Romulus was “carried up on high by a whirlwind” and that immediately afterward “every man present hailed him as a god and son of a god”[52] (The Early History of Rome 1.16). As we can see from these three cases—Hercules, Asclepius, and Romulus—ascent into heaven was a common way of talking about deification. For Cicero, this was an obvious fact. People “who conferred outstanding benefits were translated to heaven through their fame and our gratitude”[53] (Nature 2.62). Consequently, Jesus' own resurrection and ascension would have triggered Gentiles to intuit his divinity. Commenting on the appearance of the immortalized Christ to the eleven in Galilee, Wendy Cotter said, “It is fair to say that the scene found in [Mat] 28:16-20 would be understood by a Greco-Roman audience, Jew or Gentile, as an apotheosis of Jesus.”[54] Although I beg to differ with Cotter's whole cloth inclusion of Jews here, it's hard to see how else non-Jews would have regarded the risen Christ. Litwa adds Rev 1.13-16 “[W]here he [Jesus] appears with all the accoutrements of the divine: a shining face, an overwhelming voice, luminescent clothing, and so on.”[55] In this brief survey we've seen that several key events in the story of Jesus told in the Gospels would have caused Greco-Roman hearers to intuit deity, including his divine conception, miracles, healing ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension. In their original context of second temple Judaism, these very same incidents would have resonated quite differently. His divine conception authenticated Jesus as the second Adam (Luke 3.38; Rom 5.14; 1 Cor 15.45) and God's Davidic son (2 Sam 7.14; Ps 2.7; Lk 1.32, 35). If Matthew or Luke wanted readers to understand that Jesus was divine based on his conception and birth, they failed to make such intentions explicit in the text. Rather, the birth narratives appear to have a much more modest aim—to persuade readers that Jesus had a credible claim to be Israel's messiah. His miracles show that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power…for God was with him” (Acts 10.38; cf. Jn 3.2; 10.32, 38). Rather than concluding Jesus to be a god, Jewish witnesses to his healing of a paralyzed man “glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Mat 9.8). Over and over, especially in the Gospel of John, Jesus directs people's attention to his Father who was doing the works in and through him (Jn 5.19, 30; 8.28; 12.49; 14.10). Seeing Jesus raise someone from the dead suggested to his original Jewish audience that “a great prophet has arisen among us” (Lk 7.16). The transfiguration, in its original setting, is an eschatological vision not a divine epiphany. Placement in the synoptic Gospels just after Jesus' promise that some there would not die before seeing the kingdom come sets the hermeneutical frame. “The transfiguration,” says William Lane, “was a momentary, but real (and witnessed) manifestation of Jesus' sovereign power which pointed beyond itself to the Parousia, when he will come ‘with power and glory.'”[56] If eschatology is the foreground, the background for the transfiguration was Moses' ascent of Sinai when he also encountered God and became radiant.[57] Viewed from the lenses of Moses' ascent and the eschaton, the transfiguration of Jesus is about his identity as God's definitive chosen ruler, not about any kind of innate divinity. Lastly, the resurrection and ascension validated Jesus' messianic claims to be the ruler of the age to come (Acts 17.31; Rom 1.4). Rather than concluding Jesus was deity, early Jewish Christians concluded these events showed that “God has made him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2.36). The interpretative backgrounds for Jesus' ascension were not stories about Heracles, Asclepius, or Romulus. No, the key oracle that framed the Israelite understanding was the messianic psalm in which Yahweh told David's Lord to “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110.1). The idea is of a temporary sojourn in heaven until exercising the authority of his scepter to rule over earth from Zion. Once again, the biblical texts remain completely silent about deification. But even if the original meanings of Jesus' birth, ministry, transfiguration, resurrection, and ascension have messianic overtones when interpreted within the Jewish milieu, these same stories began to communicate various ideas of deity to Gentile converts in the generations that followed. We find little snippets from historical sources beginning in the second century and growing with time. Evidence of Belief in Jesus' as a Greco-Roman Deity To begin with, we have two non-Christian instances where Romans regarded Jesus as a deity within typical Greco-Roman categories. The first comes to us from Tertullian and Eusebius who mention an intriguing story about Tiberius' request to the Roman senate to deify Christ. Convinced by “intelligence from Palestine of events which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity”[58] Tiberius proposed the matter to the senate (Apology 5). Eusebius adds that Tiberius learned that “many believed him to be a god in rising from the dead”[59] (Church History 2.2). As expected, the senate rejected the proposal. I mention this story, not because I can establish its historicity, but because it portrays how Tiberius would have thought about Jesus if he had heard about his miracles and resurrection. Another important incident is from one of the governor Pliny the Younger's letters to the emperor Trajan. Having investigated some people accused of Christianity, he found “they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately amongst themselves in honour of Christ as if to a god”[60] (Letter 96). To an outside imperial observer like Pliny, the Christians believed in a man who had performed miracles, defeated death, and now lived in heaven. Calling him a god was just the natural way of talking about such a person. Pliny would not have thought Jesus was superior to the deified Roman emperors much less Zeus or the Olympic gods. If he believed in Jesus at all, he would have regarded him as another Mediterranean prophet who escaped Hades to enjoy apotheosis. Another interesting text to consider is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This apocryphal text tells the story of Jesus' childhood between the ages of five and twelve. Jesus is impetuous, powerful, and brilliant. Unsure to conclude that Jesus was “either god or angel,”[61] his teacher remands him to Joseph's custody (7). Later, a crowd of onlookers ponders whether the child is a god or a heavenly messenger after he raises an infant from the dead (17). A year later Jesus raised a construction man who had fallen to his death back to life (18). Once again, the crowd asked if the child was from heaven. Although some historians are quick to assume the lofty conceptions of Justin and his successors about the logos were commonplace in the early Christianity, Litwa points out, “The spell of the Logos could only bewitch a very small circle of Christian elites… In IGT, we find a Jesus who is divine according to different canons, the canons of popular Mediterranean theology.”[62] Another important though often overlooked scholarly group of Christians in the second century was led by a certain Theodotus of Byzantium.[63] Typically referred to by their heresiological label “Theodotians,” these dynamic monarchians lived in Rome and claimed that they held to the original Christology before it had been corrupted under Bishop Zephyrinus (Eusebius, Church History 5.28). Theodotus believed in the virgin birth, but not in his pre-existence or that he was god/God (Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2). He thought that Jesus was not able to perform any miracles until his baptism when he received the Christ/Spirit. Pseudo-Hippolytus goes on to say, “But they do not want him to have become a god when the Spirit descended. Others say that he became a god after he rose from the dead.”[64] This last tantalizing remark implies that the Theodotians could affirm Jesus as a god after his resurrection though they denied his pre-existence. Although strict unitarians, they could regard Jesus as a god in that he was an ascended immortalized being who lived in heaven—not equal to the Father, but far superior to all humans on earth. Justin Martyr presents another interesting case to consider. Thoroughly acquainted with Greco-Roman literature and especially the philosophy of Plato, Justin sees Christ as a god whom the Father begot before all other creatures. He calls him “son, or wisdom, or angel, or god, or lord, or word”[65] (Dialogue with Trypho 61).  For Justin Christ is “at the same time angel and god and lord and man”[66] (59). Jesus was “of old the Word, appearing at one time in the form of fire, at another under the guise of incorporeal beings, but now, at the will of God, after becoming man for mankind”[67] (First Apology 63). In fact, Justin is quite comfortable to compare Christ to deified heroes and emperors. He says, “[W]e propose nothing new or different from that which you say about the so-called sons of Jupiter [Zeus] by your respected writers… And what about the emperors who die among you, whom you think worthy to be deified?”[68] (21). He readily accepts the parallels with Mercury, Perseus, Asclepius, Bacchus, and Hercules, but argues that Jesus is superior to them (22).[69] Nevertheless, he considered Jesus to be in “a place second to the unchanging and eternal God”[70] (13). The Father is “the Most True God” whereas the Son is he “who came forth from Him”[71] (6). Even as lates as Origen, Greco-Roman concepts of deity persist. In responding to Celsus' claim that no god or son of God has ever come down, Origen responds by stating such a statement would overthrow the stories of Pythian Apollo, Asclepius, and the other gods who descended (Against Celsus 5.2). My point here is not to say Origen believed in all the old myths, but to show how Origen reached for these stories as analogies to explain the incarnation of the logos. When Celsus argued that he would rather believe in the deity of Asclepius, Dionysus, and Hercules than Christ, Origen responded with a moral rather than ontological argument (3.42). He asks how these gods have improved the characters of anyone. Origen admits Celsus' argument “which places the forenamed individuals upon an equality with Jesus” might have force, however in light of the disreputable behavior of these gods, “how could you any longer say, with any show of reason, that these men, on putting aside their mortal body, became gods rather than Jesus?”[72] (3.42). Origen's Christology is far too broad and complicated to cover here. Undoubtedly, his work on eternal generation laid the foundation on which fourth century Christians could build homoousion Christology. Nevertheless, he retained some of the earlier subordinationist impulses of his forebearers. In his book On Prayer, he rebukes praying to Jesus as a crude error, instead advocating prayer to God alone (10). In his Commentary on John he repeatedly asserts that the Father is greater than his logos (1.40; 2.6; 6.23). Thus, Origen is a theologian on the seam of the times. He's both a subordinationist and a believer in the Son's eternal and divine ontology. Now, I want to be careful here. I'm not saying that all early Christians believed Jesus was a deified man like Asclepius or a descended god like Apollo or a reincarnated soul like Pythagoras. More often than not, thinking Christians whose works survive until today tended to eschew the parallels, simultaneously elevating Christ as high as possible while demoting the gods to mere demons. Still, Litwa is inciteful when he writes: It seems likely that early Christians shared the widespread cultural assumption that a resurrected, immortalized being was worthy of worship and thus divine. …Nonetheless there is a difference…Jesus, it appears, was never honored as an independent deity. Rather, he was always worshiped as Yahweh's subordinate. Naturally Heracles and Asclepius were Zeus' subordinates, but they were also members of a larger divine family. Jesus does not enter a pantheon but assumes a distinctive status as God's chief agent and plenipotentiary. It is this status that, to Christian insiders, placed Jesus in a category far above the likes of Heracles, Romulus, and Asclepius who were in turn demoted to the rank of δαίμονες [daimons].[73] Conclusion I began by asking the question, "What did early Christians mean by saying Jesus is god?" We noted that the ancient idea of agency (Jesus is God/god because he represents Yahweh), though present in Hebrew and Christian scripture, didn't play much of a role in how Gentile Christians thought about Jesus. Or if it did, those texts did not survive. By the time we enter the postapostolic era, a majority of Christianity was Gentile and little communication occurred with the Jewish Christians that survived in the East. As such, we turned our attention to Greco-Roman theology to tune our ears to hear the story of Jesus the way they would have. We learned about their multifaceted array of divinities. We saw that gods can come down and take the form of humans and humans can go up and take the form of gods. We found evidence for this kind of thinking in both non-Christian and Christian sources in the second and third centuries. Now it is time to return to the question I began with: “When early Christian authors called Jesus “god” what did they mean?” We saw that the idea of a deified man was present in the non-Christian witnesses of Tiberius and Pliny but made scant appearance in our Christian literature except for the Theodotians. As for the idea that a god came down to become a man, we found evidence in The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Justin, and Origen.[74] Of course, we find a spectrum within this view, from Justin's designation of Jesus as a second god to Origen's more philosophically nuanced understanding. Still, it's worth noting as R. P. C. Hanson observed that, “With the exception of Athanasius virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of subordinationism at least up to the year 355.”[75] Whether any Christians before Alexander and Athanasius of Alexandria held to the sophisticated idea of consubstantiality depends on showing evidence of the belief that the Son was coequal, coeternal, and coessential with the Father prior to Nicea. (Readers interested in the case for this view should consult Michael Bird's Jesus among the Gods in which he attempted the extraordinary feat of finding proto-Nicene Christology in the first two centuries, a task typically associated with maverick apologists not peer-reviewed historians.) In conclusion, the answer to our driving question about the meaning of “Jesus as god” is that the answer depends on whom we ask. If we ask the Theodotians, Jesus is a god because that's just what one calls an immortalized man who lives in heaven.[76] If we ask those holding a docetic Christology, the answer is that a god came down in appearance as a man. If we ask a logos subordinationist, they'll tell us that Jesus existed as the god through whom the supreme God created the universe before he became a human being. If we ask Tertullian, Jesus is god because he derives his substance from the Father, though he has a lesser portion of divinity.[77] If we ask Athanasius, he'll wax eloquent about how Jesus is of the same substance as the Father equal in status and eternality. The bottom line is that there was not one answer to this question prior to the fourth century. Answers depend on whom we ask and when they lived. Still, we can't help but wonder about the more tantalizing question of development. Which Christology was first and which ones evolved under social, intellectual, and political pressures? In the quest to specify the various stages of development in the Christologies of the ante-Nicene period, this Greco-Roman perspective may just provide the missing link between the reserved and limited way that the NT applies theos to Jesus in the first century and the homoousian view that eventually garnered imperial support in the fourth century. How easy would it have been for fresh converts from the Greco-Roman world to unintentionally mishear the story of Jesus? How easy would it have been for them to fit Jesus into their own categories of descended gods and ascended humans? With the unmooring of Gentile Christianity from its Jewish heritage, is it any wonder that Christologies began to drift out to sea? Now I'm not suggesting that all Christians went through a steady development from a human Jesus to a pre-existent Christ, to an eternal God the Son, to the Chalcedonian hypostatic union. As I mentioned above, plenty of other options were around and every church had its conservatives in addition to its innovators. The story is messy and uneven with competing views spread across huge geographic distances. Furthermore, many Christians probably were content to leave such theological nuances fuzzy, rather than seeking doctrinal precision on Christ's relation to his God and Father. Whatever the case may be, we dare not ignore the influence of Greco-Roman theology in our accounts of Christological development in the Mediterranean world of the first three centuries.    Bibliography The Homeric Hymns. Translated by Michael Crudden. New York, NY: Oxford, 2008. Antioch, Theophilus of. To Autolycus. Translated by Marcus Dods. Vol. 2. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Aphrahat. The Demonstrations. Translated by Ellen Muehlberger. Vol. 3. The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings. Edited by Mark DelCogliano. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2022. Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. Translated by Robin Hard. Oxford, UK: Oxford, 1998. Appian. The Civil Wars. Translated by John Carter. London, UK: Penguin, 1996. Arnobius. Against the Heathen. Translated by Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell. Vol. 6. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995. Arrian. The Campaigns of Alexander. Translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt. London, UK: Penguin, 1971. Bird, Michael F. Jesus among the Gods. Waco, TX: Baylor, 2022. Blackburn, Barry. Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions. Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991. Callimachus. Hymn to Artemis. Translated by Susan A. Stephens. Callimachus: The Hymns. New York, NY: Oxford, 2015. Cicero. The Nature of the Gods. Translated by Patrick Gerard Walsh. Oxford, UK: Oxford, 2008. Cornutus, Lucius Annaeus. Greek Theology. Translated by George Boys-Stones. Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2018. Cotter, Wendy. "Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew." In The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study. Edited by David E. Aune. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Cyprian. Treatise 6: On the Vanity of Idols. Translated by Ernest Wallis. Vol. 5. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995. Dittenberger, W. Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae. Vol. 2. Hildesheim: Olms, 1960. Eusebius. The Church History. Translated by Paul L. Maier. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007. Fredriksen, Paula. "How High Can Early High Christology Be?" In Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Edited by Matthew V. Novenson. Vol. 180.vol. Supplements to Novum Testamentum. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Hanson, R. P. C. Search for a Christian Doctrine of God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007. Hart, George. The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. 2nd ed. Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2005. Homer. The Odyssey. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York, NY: Penguin, 1997. Iamblichus. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Thomas Taylor. Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras. Delhi, IN: Zinc Read, 2023. Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho. Translated by Thomas B. Falls. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003. Laertius, Diogenes. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library. Edited by David R. Fideler. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988. Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch. Edited by James Miller. New York, NY: Oxford, 2020. Lane, William L. The Gospel of Mark. Nicnt, edited by F. F. Bruce Ned B. Stonehouse, and Gordon D. Fee. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974. Litwa, M. David. Iesus Deus. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Livy. The Early History of Rome. Translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt. London, UK: Penguin, 2002. Origen. Against Celsus. Translated by Frederick Crombie. Vol. 4. The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Pausanias. Guide to Greece. Translated by Peter Levi. London, UK: Penguin, 1979. Perriman, Andrew. In the Form of a God. Studies in Early Christology, edited by David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022. Philostratus. Letters of Apollonius. Vol. 458. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006. Plutarch. Life of Alexander. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff. The Age of Alexander. London, UK: Penguin, 2011. Porphyry. Life of Pythagoras. Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library. Edited by David Fideler. Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988. Pseudo-Clement. Recognitions. Translated by Thomas Smith. Vol. 8. Ante Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Pseudo-Hippolytus. Refutation of All Heresies. Translated by David Litwa. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016. Pseudo-Thomas. Infancy Gospel of Thomas. Translated by James Orr. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903. Psuedo-Clement. Homilies. Translated by Peter Peterson. Vol. 8. Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897. Siculus, Diodorus. The Historical Library. Translated by Charles Henry Oldfather. Vol. 1. Edited by Giles Laurén: Sophron Editor, 2017. Strabo. The Geography. Translated by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020. Tertullian. Against Praxeas. Translated by Holmes. Vol. 3. Ante Nice Fathers. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Tertullian. Apology. Translated by S. Thelwall. Vol. 3. Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003. Younger, Pliny the. The Letters of the Younger Pliny. Translated by Betty Radice. London: Penguin, 1969. End Notes [1] For the remainder of this paper, I will use the lower case “god” for all references to deity outside of Yahweh, the Father of Christ. I do this because all our ancient texts lack capitalization and our modern capitalization rules imply a theology that is anachronistic and unhelpful for the present inquiry. [2] Christopher Kaiser wrote, “Explicit references to Jesus as ‘God' in the New Testament are very few, and even those few are generally plagued with uncertainties of either text or interpretation.” Christopher B. Kaiser, The Doctrine of God: A Historical Survey (London: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1982), 29. Other scholars such as Raymond Brown (Jesus: God and Man), Jason David BeDuhn (Truth in Translation), and Brian Wright (“Jesus as θεός: A Textual Examination” in Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament) have expressed similar sentiments. [3] John 20.28; Hebrews 1.8; Titus 2.13; 2 Peter 1.1; Romans 9.5; and 1 John 5.20. [4] See Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians 12.2 where a manuscript difference determines whether or not Polycarp called Jesus god or lord. Textual corruption is most acute in Igantius' corpus. Although it's been common to dismiss the long recension as an “Arian” corruption, claiming the middle recension to be as pure and uncontaminated as freshly fallen snow upon which a foot has never trodden, such an uncritical view is beginning to give way to more honest analysis. See Paul Gilliam III's Ignatius of Antioch and the Arian Controversy (Leiden: Brill, 2017) for a recent treatment of Christological corruption in the middle recension. [5] See the entries for  אֱלֹהִיםand θεός in the Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (HALOT), the Brown Driver Briggs Lexicon (BDB), Eerdmans Dictionary, Kohlenberger/Mounce Concise Hebrew-Aramaic Dictionary of the Old Testament, the Bauer Danker Arndt Gingrich Lexicon (BDAG), Friberg Greek Lexicon, and Thayer's Greek Lexicon. [6] See notes on Is 9.6 and Ps 45.6. [7] ZIBBC: “In what sense can the king be called “god”? By virtue of his divine appointment, the king in the ancient Near East stood before his subjects as a representative of the divine realm. …In fact, the term “gods“ (ʾelōhı̂m) is used of priests who functioned as judges in the Israelite temple judicial system (Ex. 21:6; 22:8-9; see comments on 58:1; 82:6-7).” John W. Hilber, “Psalms,” in The Minor Prophets, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, vol. 5 of Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Old Testament. ed. John H. Walton (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 358. [8] Around a.d. 340, Aphrahat of Persia advised his fellow Christians to reply to Jewish critics who questioned why “You call a human being ‘God'” (Demonstrations 17.1). He said, “For the honored name of the divinity is granted event ot rightoues human beings, when they are worthy of being called by it…[W]hen he chose Moses, his friend and his beloved…he called him “god.” …We call him God, just as he named Moses with his own name…The name of the divinity was granted for great honor in the world. To whom he wishes, God appoints it” (17.3, 4, 5). Aphrahat, The Demonstrations, trans., Ellen Muehlberger, vol. 3, The Cambridge Edition of Early Christian Writings (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2022), 213-15. In the Clementine Recognitions we find a brief mention of the concept:  “Therefore the name God is applied in three ways: either because he to whom it is given is truly God, or because he is the servant of him who is truly; and for the honour of the sender, that his authority may be full, he that is sent is called by the name of him who sends, as is often done in respect of angels: for when they appear to a man, if he is a wise and intelligent man, he asks the name of him who appears to him, that he may acknowledge at once the honour of the sent, and the authority of the sender” (2.42). Pseudo-Clement, Recognitions, trans., Thomas Smith, vol. 8, Ante Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [9] Michael F. Bird, Jesus among the Gods (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2022), 13. [10] Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 130. [11] Paula Fredriksen, "How High Can Early High Christology Be?," in Monotheism and Christology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, ed. Matthew V. Novenson, vol. 180 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 296, 99. [12] ibid. [13] See Gen 18.1; Ex 3.2; 24.11; Is 6.1; Ezk 1.28. [14] Compare the Masoretic Text of Psalm 8.6 to the Septuagint and Hebrews 2.7. [15] Homer, The Odyssey, trans., Robert Fagles (New York, NY: Penguin, 1997), 370. [16] Diodorus Siculus, The Historical Library, trans., Charles Henry Oldfather, vol. 1 (Sophron Editor, 2017), 340. [17] Uranus met death at the brutal hands of his own son, Kronos who emasculated him and let bleed out, resulting in his deification (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 1.10). Later on, after suffering a fatal disease, Kronos himself experienced deification, becoming the planet Saturn (ibid.). Zeus married Hera and they produced Osiris (Dionysus), Isis (Demeter), Typhon, Apollo, and Aphrodite (ibid. 2.1). [18] Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, Greek Theology, trans., George Boys-Stones, Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2018), 123. [19] Apollodorus, The Library of Greek Mythology, trans., Robin Hard (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 1998), 111. [20] Pausanias, Guide to Greece, trans., Peter Levi (London, UK: Penguin, 1979), 98. [21] Strabo, The Geography, trans., Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020), 281. [22] Psuedo-Clement, Homilies, trans., Peter Peterson, vol. 8, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1897). Greek: “αὐτὸν δὲ ὡς θεὸν ἐθρήσκευσαν” from Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologia Graeca, taken from Accordance (PSCLEMH-T), OakTree Software, Inc., 2018, Version 1.1. [23] See Barry Blackburn, Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions (Tübingen, Germany: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991), 32. [24] Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, trans., Pamela Mensch (New York, NY: Oxford, 2020), 39. [25] Iamblichus, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Thomas Taylor, Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras (Delhi, IN: Zinc Read, 2023), 2. [26] Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 142. [27] See the list in Blackburn, 39. He corroborates miracle stories from Diogenus Laertius, Iamblichus, Apollonius, Nicomachus, and Philostratus. [28] Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, trans., Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Phanes Press, 1988), 128-9. [29] Iamblichus,  68. [30] What I call “resurrection” refers to the phrase, “Thou shalt bring back from Hades a dead man's strength.” Diogenes Laertius 8.2.59, trans. R. D. Hicks. [31] Laertius, "Lives of the Eminent Philosophers," 306. Two stories of his deification survive: in one Empedocles disappears in the middle of the night after hearing an extremely loud voice calling his name. After this the people concluded that they should sacrifice to him since he had become a god (8.68). In the other account, Empedocles climbs Etna and leaps into the fiery volcanic crater “to strengthen the rumor that he had become a god” (8.69). [32] Pausanias,  192. Sextus Empiricus says Asclepius raised up people who had died at Thebes as well as raising up the dead body of Tyndaros (Against the Professors 1.261). [33] Cicero adds that the Arcadians worship Asclepius (Nature 3.57). [34] In another instance, he confronted and cast out a demon from a licentious young man (Life 4.20). [35] The phrase is “περὶ ἐμοῦ καὶ θεοῖς εἴρηται ὡς περὶ θείου ἀνδρὸς.” Philostratus, Letters of Apollonius, vol. 458, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006). [36] See George Hart, The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, 2nd ed. (Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2005), 3. [37] Plutarch, Life of Alexander, trans., Ian Scott-Kilvert and Timothy E. Duff, The Age of Alexander (London, UK: Penguin, 2011), 311. Arrian includes a story about Anaxarchus advocating paying divine honors to Alexander through prostration. The Macedonians refused but the Persian members of his entourage “rose from their seats and one by one grovelled on the floor before the King.” Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 1971), 222. [38] Translation my own from “Ἀντίοχος ὁ Θεὸς Δίκαιος Ἐπιφανὴς Φιλορωμαῖος Φιλέλλην.” Inscription at Nemrut Dağ, accessible at https://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/mithras/display.php?page=cimrm32. See also https://zeugma.packhum.org/pdfs/v1ch09.pdf. [39] Greek taken from W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graecae Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. 2 (Hildesheim: Olms, 1960), 48-60. Of particular note is the definite article before θεός. They didn't celebrate the birthday of a god, but the birthday of the god. [40] Appian, The Civil Wars, trans., John Carter (London, UK: Penguin, 1996), 149. [41] M. David Litwa, Iesus Deus (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), 20. [42] ibid. [43] Blackburn, 92-3. [44] The Homeric Hymns, trans., Michael Crudden (New York, NY: Oxford, 2008), 38. [45] "The Homeric Hymns," 14. [46] Homer,  344. [47] Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus, trans., Marcus Dods, vol. 2, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). [48] Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, trans., Susan A. Stephens, Callimachus: The Hymns (New York, NY: Oxford, 2015), 119. [49] Siculus,  234. [50] Cyprian, Treatise 6: On the Vanity of Idols, trans., Ernest Wallis, vol. 5, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [51] Arnobius, Against the Heathen, trans., Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell, vol. 6, Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995). [52] Livy, The Early History of Rome, trans., Aubrey De Sélincourt (London, UK: Penguin, 2002), 49. [53] Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, trans., Patrick Gerard Walsh (Oxford, UK: Oxford, 2008), 69. [54] Wendy Cotter, "Greco-Roman Apotheosis Traditions and the Resurrection Appearances in Matthew," in The Gospel of Matthew in Current Study, ed. David E. Aune (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 149. [55] Litwa, 170. [56] William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, Nicnt, ed. F. F. Bruce Ned B. Stonehouse, and Gordon D. Fee (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974). [57] “Recent commentators have stressed that the best background for understanding the Markan transfiguration is the story of Moses' ascent up Mount Sinai (Exod. 24 and 34).” Litwa, 123. [58] Tertullian, Apology, trans. S. Thelwall, vol. 3, Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [59] Eusebius, The Church History, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 54. [60] Pliny the Younger, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, trans., Betty Radice (London: Penguin, 1969), 294. [61] Pseudo-Thomas, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, trans., James Orr (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1903), 25. [62] Litwa, 83. [63] For sources on Theodotus, see Pseduo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 7.35.1-2; 10.23.1-2; Pseudo-Tertullian, Against All Heresies 8.2; Eusebius, Church History 5.28. [64] Pseudo-Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, trans., David Litwa (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2016), 571. [65] I took the liberty to decapitalize these appellatives. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), 244. [66] Justin Martyr, 241. (Altered, see previous footnote.) [67] Justin Martyr, 102. [68] Justin Martyr, 56-7. [69] Arnobius makes a similar argument in Against the Heathen 1.38-39 “Is he not worthy to be called a god by us and felt to be a god on account of the favor or such great benefits? For if you have enrolled Liber among the gods because he discovered the use of wine, and Ceres the use of bread, Aesculapius the use of medicines, Minerva the use of oil, Triptolemus plowing, and Hercules because he conquered and restrained beasts, thieves, and the many-headed hydra…So then, ought we not to consider Christ a god, and to bestow upon him all the worship due to his divinity?” Translation from Litwa, 105. [70] Justin Martyr, 46. [71] Justin Martyr, 39. [72] Origen, Against Celsus, trans. Frederick Crombie, vol. 4, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003). [73] Litwa, 173. [74] I could easily multiply examples of this by looking at Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and many others. [75] The obvious exception to Hanson's statement were thinkers like Sabellius and Praxeas who believed that the Father himself came down as a human being. R. P. C. Hanson, Search for a Christian Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), xix. [76] Interestingly, even some of the biblical unitarians of the period were comfortable with calling Jesus god, though they limited his divinity to his post-resurrection life. [77] Tertullian writes, “[T]he Father is not the same as the Son, since they differ one from the other in the mode of their being. For the Father is the entire substance, but the Son is a derivation and portion of the whole, as He Himself acknowledges: “My Father is greater than I.” In the Psalm His inferiority is described as being “a little lower than the angels.” Thus the Father is distinct from the Son, being greater than the Son” (Against Praxeas 9). Tertullian, Against Praxeas, trans., Holmes, vol. 3, Ante Nice Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003).

Christine Perrin is the director of writing at Messiah College and has taught literature and creative writing at Johns Hopkins University, with Gordon College's Orvieto Program, through the Pennsylvania Arts Council to students of all ages, and at the local classical school where her children attended. She consults with classical schools in curriculum development and faculty development in poetry and writing, and speaks regularly at the CiRCE Institute as well as the Society for Classical Learning conferences. She is a two-time recipient of the PA Arts Council Artists Fellowship and a Bread Loaf Writer's Conference Fellowship. Perrin is the author of Bright Mirror, a collection of her own poetry, and of The Art of Poetry, a textbook for middle and high school students. Her work also appears in various journals, including The New England Review, Image, TriQuarterly, Blackbird, Christianity and Literature, and The Cresset.-Bio via Classical Academic Press Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Get ready for a thrilling journey through the world of theatre in this exciting podcast episode! We're diving into epic productions and heartfelt stories that are sure to leave you enchanted. First up, we have The Odyssey, a national, multi-venue production that unfolds over five parts. Each episode of Odysseus' incredible journey is created and performed by local artists and communities from four partner organisations across the UK. The grand finale takes place on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre, featuring community performers from all partner organisations and members recruited through Public Acts founding community partners in London. This epic retelling of Odysseus' adventures will have you on the edge of your seat! Odysseus, held captive by the nymph Calypso, has nearly lost hope of ever returning home. But back on Ithaca, his son Telemachus hatches a daring rescue plan. Meanwhile, the Gods on Mount Olympus are convening to decide Odysseus' fate. Will she be allowed to return home, or are more trials in store for her? Join us on this mythical journey filled with drama, suspense, and the enduring human spirit. To mark the fifth anniversary of Public Acts, The Odyssey is reimagined for today with hundreds of community members from across the country. The production boasts stage favorites Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, Tarinn Callender, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, and Zubin Varla. It's a theatrical experience like no other! But that's not all – we also bring you For Tonight, a new musical that will tug at your heartstrings. Inspired by true events, this timeless love story unfolds in 1832 in a small town in North Wales. A Romani family finds shelter and friendship, but tragedy strikes when an unknown disease spreads. Blame falls on the Romani traveller's, and they are forced to flee, leaving three Parry siblings to navigate a world filled with love, joy, friendship, pain, prejudice, and struggle. For Tonight is a musical that uniquely blends the rich traditions, languages, and cultures of the Welsh and Romani peoples. It's a stirring journey that explores the power and meaning of home. Join us for an exclusive interview with the Musical Director, Iestyn Griffiths, and get a sneak peek of a song from the show sung by the talented Amy Di Bartolomeo and Simon Gordon. This is a musical experience that will resonate with your heart and soul. So, get ready for a podcast filled with epic tales, stunning performances, and captivating music. Tune in now for an unforgettable theatrical adventure!

The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy by Padraic Colum audiobook. Also known as 'The Children's Homer,' this is Irish writer Padraic Colum's retelling of the events of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey for young people. Colum's rich, evocative prose narrates the travails of Odysseus, King of Ithaca: his experiences fighting the Trojan War, and his ten years' journey home to his faithful wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh no, poor Telemachus, here they come. It's Ticklecrabs!! Please face on point! Dual child holding?! Chilli's tickle justified!? Budgey Smugglers! Gum in the hair?! Oh, the floating dusty scenery! How high up in that tree are ya Chilli?!  We love you folks! For real life!  linktr.ee/watchingbluey  Twitter: @WatchingBluey Email: WatchingBluey@gmail.com  Merch: http://bit.ly/2BWBSwag  GUESS WHAT?! We have a PO Box now! If you want to send us a postcard, letter, Bluey stuff, Aussie stuff, or anything in general, send it our way!! Like a good pen pal we will respond with a hand written thank you for everything we receive with a special 2BWB postcard!!  Two Bandits Watching Bluey P.O. BOX 2372 Syracuse NY 13220  

Tonight, we'll read the opening to “The Odyssey,” from the Samuel Butler translation, is one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. This episode first aired in March of 2021. “The Odyssey” is one of the oldest works of literature still read by contemporary audiences. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the decade of war itself, his journey lasts for an additional perilous decade. In his absence, he is assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must contend with a group of rude suitors competing for Penelope's hand in marriage. — read by V — Support us: Listen ad-free on Patreon Get Snoozecast merch like cozy sweatshirts and accessories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have great news this week - for one, we made it through another 7 days in the hellscape that is life in the 21st century, even though the Death Plume is slowly creeping toward Jackie's house. For another, much more significantly, Bekah got a new mic, which makes our first episode covering William Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night' that much more enjoyable! We bring the early 17th century right here to your ears so you can bask in the glory that was only having to worry about the plague. Rachel has a piece of advice for Brits. Bekah meets Liv Tyler and makes a horrible idiomatic mistake. Jackie is an obnoxious little man jumping around in a Yankees cap. Topics include: ASMR, eat hot chip and lie, mukbang, weird fetishes, tarantula justice, interracial relationships, Giada De Laurentiis, surprise Serbs, gender confusion, himbos, hot twins, useless footnotes, NLOGs, She's the Man, the return of Telemachus, and dunking on H*tler.  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

On January 1, 404, a monk from the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire attended a gladiatorial match in Rome. But instead of watching the games, Telemachus leapt into the arena in an attempt to separate the combatants.