odysseus

Biblical Morality of Deceiving Those Who Suffer From Dementia In Order to Help Them
Biblical Interpretation

Biblical Morality of Deceiving Those Who Suffer From Dementia In Order to Help Them

09/06/2026 Bruce Strom 0

Often adult children just do not want to lie to their parents. They want to empower them and involve them in the decisions about their care. They expect their parents suffering from dementia to reason with them, and that is impossible.

On rare occasions, you are compelled to tell a white lie for their own good. The commandment is not worded: Do not lie. Rather, it is worded: Do not bear false witness against your neighbor. In part, this reflects the reality that ancient jurisprudence relied heavily on eyewitness testimony, unlike modern jurisprudence that relies more on forensic evidence. […]

Mental Illness, Demons, and Free Will in the Bible and Ancient Israel, Greece, and Rome
Dementia and Alzheimers Disease

Do We Have Free Will? Mental Illness and Demons in the Bible, Church Fathers, and the Ancient World

09/06/2026 Bruce Strom 1

Did the early Christians believe in free will? Or could demons rob them of their free will; just as dementia and mental illness rob modern patients today? The New Testament does not discuss whether we have free will, it simply accepts that we are subject to forces in the divine realm. Jesus often heals those who have lost their minds, driving out their demons. Also, St Paul in his epistles argues for divine determination, which St Augustine later develops into his doctrine of predestination. […]

Bible Stories and Parables

Elisha Cures Naaman of Leprosy, Not With Mighty Deeds, But By Simply Washing in the Jordan

07/27/2022 Bruce Strom 0

Naaman, in the story, is not asked to perform mighty deeds by Elisha, as befits an ancient warrior and hero, but rather to perform the rather simple task of washing in the shallow, muddy Jordan River.

Ancient readers living in their ancient warrior culture would pick up on this contrast immediately, but modern readers often totally miss it. Which makes this one of my favorite stories, since one of the themes of this channel is that, when interpreting the Old Testament stories, you must always remember that most ancient peoples lived in a warrior culture much like that of the Iliad, where life was uncertain, when armies could appear over the horizon, slaughter all the men of military age, and enslave the women and children. […]

History

Odyssey, Blog 4, The Slaughter of the Suitors

02/28/2018 Bruce Strom 5

When Odysseus had seen his departed mother in Hades she said from the shades, “your father stays among the fields, and comes to town no more. Bed he has none, no robes, no bright-hued rugs. Through the winter he sleeps in the house where the servants sleep, in the dust besides the fire, and wears upon his body sorry clothes. . . . There he lies in distress, woe waxing strong within him, longing for your return; and hard old age comes on. Even so I also died and met my doom. . . . longing for you, your wise ways, glorious Odysseus, and your tenderness, took joyous life away.” […]

History

Odyssey, Blog 3, Odysseus Returns Home to Ithaca

02/26/2018 Bruce Strom 8

We get a rare glimpse into the lives of the slaves, the lives spent serving their masters, when Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, approaches the hovel of his swineherd Eumaeus, who chases away the dogs who snap at the stranger, offering hospitality to even an old beggar. “Old man, my dogs had nearly torn you to pieces here, all of a sudden, and so you would have brought reproach upon me. Ah well! The gods have given me other griefs and sorrows; for over my matchless master I sit and sign and groan, and tend fat hogs for other men to eat; while my master, hungry, wanders among lands and men who speak alien tongues, if he still lives and feels the sunshine. But follow me, old man, into the lodge, so that when you have eaten and drunk your fill, you may tell me where you come from and what troubles you have borne.” The good swineherd is more concerned about the beggar’s troubles than who he is. […]

History

Odyssey, Blog 2, Odysseus Sings His Adventures

02/24/2018 Bruce Strom 7

While the Cyclops was fast asleep from the wine, Odysseus and his men drove a large wooden stake into his one eye, blinding him. The Cyclops jumped up and tried feeling about for the men in vain. The next morning, they each escaped by hanging onto the bottom of the large sheep and rams as Cyclops let them out to pasture. After escaping the men loaded the sheep onto their ships, and Cyclops roared at them and threw boulders into the sea near their ships. […]

History

Odyssey, Blog 1, Waiting Those Very Long Years For Odysseus

02/20/2018 Bruce Strom 11

Just as the Iliad revolved around the need to show hospitality and respect to the enemy who had courage to enter your camp, often to ransom his relatives, or to fetch their bodies for a proper burial, so the Odyssey revolves around the need to show hospitality to strangers. Travel in the ancient world was arduous and hazardous, and if you did not show hospitality to stranger, or what the Greeks called xenia, the stranger could die. […]

History

The Iliad Blog 7, the Deaths of Patroclus and Hector

01/16/2018 Bruce Strom 8

The embassy to Achilles ends with them leaving not a warrior
but simply a bard strumming his lyre alone on the shores of the sea.
The battle lines sway back and forth, Odysseus and Ajax spy a Trojan spy,
and cut him down, then the Trojans in his advance camp.
The battle wages, many warriors fall, many warriors are wounded and healed,
as Professor Vandiver notes, they either or suffer minor injuries,
the heroes of the Iliad never suffer humiliating injuries. The Trojans fight their way to very walls of the Greek camps,
which was really a fortified fortress with palisades of sturdy timbers,
surrounded by a deep ditch dug to furnish earth for protection. […]

History

The Iliad Blog 5, the Tide of Battle Turns Against the Greeks

01/06/2018 Bruce Strom 14

Hector is pissed. The duel between Romeo and Agamemnon was supposed to settle and finish this endless war that is just dragging on grinding thousands of soldiers in its maw. He asks himself, Where art thou, Romeo? Paris has disappeared from the battlefield. Aphrodite has magically carried his opponent Paris from the battlefield to the bed of Helen just as he was about to lose the duel and end this dreadful war. […]