Re: The Odyssey - question for all!
Let's look now at some things that Louden has noted about the Odyssey and how those same things appear in the OT in rather distorted versions. What is below will be from "Homer's Odyssey and the Near East". It deals specifically with "Divine Councils" in myth and epic.
My thought about this is that it depicts an understanding of hyperdimensional influences on the life of an individual. While the gods may not actually exist as depicted, the hyperdimensional influences that are suggested in these dramas seem to be rather accurate, to say the least!
What is also interesting is Louden's discussion of apocalypses as being of three graduated types and that the gods cause them. This reminds me of the Cs saying that weather and Earth Changes are what we perceive of 4th density wars and other activities.
That humans can be the "cause" of apocalypse (as in, getting the gods angry at them and getting smashed for it) also comes up from the Cs when they say that the human experiential cycle reflects cosmic events and vice versa.
Louden discusses Gilgamesh as though it were older than The Odyssey and we'll leave this open for a bit. I have to get out another book that addresses that problem. For now, we just need to see the analysis of the councils of the gods and their interactions with humans to understand what the ancients were trying to tell us about hyperdimensional realities.
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After a short proem (Od. 1.1–10), and brief transition, the Odyssey’s first
scene is a divine council on Mount Olympos (Od. 1.26–96). I define a
divine council simply as a conversation between two or more gods, often a
large assembly of them, usually with the chief god presiding, usually concerned
with the myth’s protagonist. Since they depend on the presence of more than
one god, divine councils are a naturally polytheistic genre, and also occur
outside of epic.1 ...
Our context for analyzing
the Odyssey’s divine councils will be the divine councils in Gilgamesh, the
Ugaritic myths, the Iliad, Hesiod, and Old Testament myth.2 ...
In most Greek or Near Eastern heroic myths three gods typically define
the parameters of a hero’s career.3 The three gods are each associated with
a specific type-scene through which they demonstrate and act out their
specific relationship with the hero.
The sky father, Zeus, in Homeric epic,
judge and ruler of the cosmos, supports the hero and guides his destiny
by presiding over divine councils involving the hero, rather than personally
intervening on his behalf.
A mentor god defends and advises the hero,
speaks on his behalf at divine councils, and personally appears to him in
theophany.
A third god places obstacles in his path, speaks against him
at divine councils, and causes the deaths of others around the hero, a
divine wrath.
The three gods suggest a legal configuration in which the
sky father is judge, the mentor god a defense attorney, and the wrathful
god a prosecuting attorney.
The three typical functions, and the gods who
serve them, are already visible in Gilgamesh. Anu is the sky father who
presides over divine councils, and supports Gilgamesh but does not appear
to him in person.
Shamash, the sun god, also alluded to in OT myth,4 is
the mentor god who appears face-to-face before Gilgamesh in theophany,
advises him, and speaks on his behalf in divine councils (George 2003:
V.1, VII.1).
When Gilgamesh rejects her advances, Ishtar develops a divine
wrath against him, speaks against him at a divine council (George 2003:
VI.81–114), and causes Enkidu’s death.
In the Odyssey Zeus presides over
divine councils that focus on Odysseus, and supports his return.
Athena, his mentor, speaks on his behalf at divine councils, appears to him in
theophany, and advises him how to proceed (Od. 13.221–440).
Poseidon develops a wrath against him because of the Polyphemos episode.
I call this traditional divine configuration the epic triangle.
Though many gods are often said to be present at a divine council,
only two usually speak in any given instance. In Mesopotamian myth a
full divine council was thought to include fifty-seven gods.5 A Homeric
divine council on such a scale opens Book 20 of the Iliad, at which the
narrator specifies that all the rivers and nymphs were present (Il. 20.4–32).
But in spite of the plentiful attendance, only two gods, Zeus and Hera,
actually speak.
The two gods who speak up at a divine council tend to be
two of the three deities that comprise the epic triangle. Thus most divine
councils, Homeric and other, consist of a dialogue between the sky father
and either the mentor god or the god with a divine wrath.
This simple distinction, whether the divine council features the sky father speaking with
the mentor god or the wrathful god, subdivides divine councils into two
basic types.
Any given divine council either concerns the gods acting on
behalf of the hero, as the mentor god advocates, perhaps righting a wrong
which he suffers, or it is concerned with the gods acting against him, as
the wrathful god desires, often resulting in the death of others around
him.
{This is so typical of what we have observed of hyperdimensional manipulations or what Mouravieff calls the "General Law". A certain person cannot be directly attacked, but 4D critters attempt to get to you through people around you, to hurt you, to entrap you, to wear you out. This "divine council" thing seems to be an attempt to relate that there are certain "laws" that govern the interactions between hyperdimensional beings and humans.}
The Odyssey’s first divine council, programmatic for the entire epic,
depicts the sky father conversing with the mentor god. Though all the
Olympians except Poseidon are said to be present (Od. 1.26–7), the council
is a dialogue between Zeus and Athena (Od. 1.32–95). In what is probably
an instance of ring composition, the Odyssey’s last divine council features
the same two gods, Zeus and Athena (Od. 24.472–86).
In the divine council that separates the Telemachy from the rest of the epic, and serves as fanfare
as the narrative is about to turn its focus to Odysseus (Od. 5.3–42), though
all the gods are again said to be present (Od. 5.3), and Zeus presides as
usual, only he and Athena have speaking parts (Od. 5.5–42). Hermes is
addressed but does not take part in the dialogue.
This specific subtype of divine council that opens the Odyssey, between
the sky father and the mentor god, is common in Near Eastern epic and
myth. In the Ugaritic epic, the Aqhat, the war and storm god Baal converses
with El, the sky father, asking him to grant offspring to Danel (Corpus
des tablettes cun´eiformes alphab´etiques [CTA] 17.i.16–27).
From the perspective of Greek myth, El combines the functions and characteristics of
Zeus, who presides over divine councils, and Kronos, a less dynamic, more
aged figure.
In helping bring about the birth of Aqhat, Danel’s son, Baal
clearly acts as the mentor god for the protagonist.
The Ugaritic myth Kirta features a similar scene, in which again Baal intervenes with El in a divine
council to get the sky father to help Kirta obtain offspring (CTA 15.ii.11–
28).6
In Gilgamesh, Enkidu dreams of a divine council (Gilgamesh Vii.i,
Dalley 1991: 83–4) in which Shamash, the sun god who serves as mentor
to Gilgamesh, speaks on his behalf with Anu, who presides over the divine
councils, and with Enlil, a god whose functions are difficult to determine.
The opposite, complementary, subtype of divine council, which depicts
the sky father conversing with the god who has a divine wrath against the
hero, occurs three times in the Odyssey, and is also extant in Near Eastern
myth. This subtype generates greater drama because it usually precipitates
some form of apocalyptic destruction.
I define an apocalypse as a genre of myth in which a god, angry at mortals’ disrespect, destroys them in large
numbers (explored in Chapters 10 and 13).
Gilgamesh offers a paradigmatic instance of this subtype, and its link with apocalyptic destruction, in the
dialogue between Ishtar and Anu, Gilgamesh VI.iii–iv (Dalley 1991: 80–1;
VI.81–114 in George [2003]). When Gilgamesh rudely rejects her offer of
marriage (discussed in Chapter 5), an enraged Ishtar goes to her father
Anu, threatening to raise the dead so they eat the living, unless he allows
her to use the Bull of Heaven to kill Gilgamesh. If she were to descend
to the underworld and release the dead,7 they would soon outnumber the
living, resulting in a large level of destruction, a full-scale apocalypse.
{This is VERY interesting in terms of psychopathy. Releasing the dead? "Living" meaning those with human souls and empathy and "Dead" meaning those without, i.e. psychopaths, those who can never "wake up", so to say. A world ruled by psychopaths is a world that is bringing on its own destruction, it seems to me. And that is what we are seeing today in our world. Not a pleasant thought.}
But Anu mediates her wrath, talking her down to a lower level of destruction.
Concerned that the Bull would cause seven years of drought for Uruk,
he hesitates. But Ishtar assures him that she has stockpiled grain,8 and he
relents. When she does send the Bull of Heaven down, several hundred
people still die (600 or 1,200), but far fewer than would have been the case
if she had followed through on either of her two other options.
{The "Bull of Heaven" sounds like a cometary cataclysm - possibly Tunguska type.}
Anu’s mediation of Ishtar’s wrath in this council implies three possible
degrees of apocalypse, presented in descending order. Ishtar’s initial threat
to unleash the dead so that they eat the living would probably result in the
destruction of all or most human life, a full-scale apocalypse:
If you don’t give me the Bull of Heaven . . .
I shall set my face toward the infernal regions,
I shall raise up the dead and they will eat the living,
I shall make the dead outnumber the living!
Gilgamesh VI.iii9
Full-scale apocalypse is also extant in Noah’s flood (itself modeled on
the earlier Mesopotamian myth of Utnapishtim/Ziusudra), and Hesiod’s
earlier races (of Gold, Silver, and the first Bronze race).
Anu’s concern that the Bull would cause seven years of famine in Uruk,
which would perhaps destroy the population, represents a middle degree
of apocalypse, the destruction of an entire city,
On no account should you request the Bull of Heaven from me!
There would be seven years of chaff in the land of Uruk.
Gilgamesh VI.iii
This middle degree, the destruction of a whole city (often leaving a lone
survivor, “the one just man,” discussed in Chapter 13), is the most common
degree of apocalypse in ancient myth, manifest not only here in Anu’s
concern for Uruk, but in the myth of Troy, in the myth of Sodom and
Gomorrah, in Ovid’s Baucis and Philemon (Metamorphoses 8), in Poseidon’s
initial wish to punish the entire city of the Phaiakians (Od. 13.152), and
in many others (cf. Works and Days 240–1; discussion at Louden 2006:
227–9).
Anu here mediates Ishtar’s wrath, persuading her to adopt the lowest of
the three levels of apocalyptic destruction. Her subsequent annihilation of
several hundred people instead of the majority of the race, or the whole
city, is a significantly lower degree of destruction, which I call a contained
apocalypse.
The Odyssey is structured around three contained apocalypses:
Helios’ destruction of the crew at Thrinakia (Od. 12.376–419), Poseidon’s
petrifaction of the Phaiakians’ ship (instead of their whole city, Od. 13.125–
64), and Athena’s direction of the destruction of the suitors (Od. 13.393–5,
22.205–309).
Contained apocalypses in other traditions include Exodus 32
(discussed in Chapter 10), and several briefer instances in Numbers 11, 14,
16, and 25.
Three of the Odyssey’s divine councils are the same specific subtype
as that between Ishtar and Anu (Gilgamesh VI.iii–iv, Dalley 1991: 80–1;
VI.81–114 in George [2003]). Zeus, the sky father, similarly mediates and
adjudicates the complaints of three different wrathful gods, talking each
one down from a threat of greater destruction to a contained apocalypse.
Each such scene concludes the respective sequence of the narrative pattern
(Aiaian, Scherian, Ithakan) in which it occurs (discussion in Louden 1999:
69–72, 96–103).
In Book 12 Helios, angered because Odysseus’ crew have
plundered his sacred cattle (discussion in Chapter 10), threatens to descend
to the underworld and upset the basic cycle of human life, much as Ishtar:
If then they will not requite me with just recompense for my cattle,
I will go down into Hades and shine among the dead.10
Odyssey 12.382–3
Like Ishtar’s threat to descend and release the dead, Helios’ shining in the
underworld would similarly invert the order of the cosmos, and, by withholding
his beams from the earth’s surface, threaten all mortals’ existence.
Demeter’s threat to stop all crops from growing, until Zeus intervenes
and mediates (Homeric Hymn to Demeter 310–13), is another instance of
the same level of threatened destruction.
Zeus, much as Anu with Ishtar,
carefully talks Helios down from his threat of full-scale apocalypse, to
the destruction of only the crew, those who actually violated the sacred,
interdicted, cattle:
Helios, truly shine for the immortals
and for mortals on the grain-giving earth.
But I will cleave their ship with a silver lightning bolt.
Odyssey 12.385–8
Zeus mediates the wrathful god’s destruction from a full apocalypse to the
crew members of one ship, a contained apocalypse.
In Book 13, a wrathful Poseidon, angered that the Phaiakians have given
Odysseus safe passage back to Ithaka, threatens to destroy not only the
crew who ferried him home, but the entire Phaiakian city:
Now, in return, I wish to smite the very beautiful ship
of the Phaiakians, as it returns from its escort
on the misty sea, that they cease, and halt their conveyance
of mortals, and I would obliterate their city with a great mountain.
Odyssey 13.149–52
As with Helios, Zeus, acting quickly to prevent the larger level of destruction
Poseidon threatens – in this case the middle degree of apocalypse,
destruction of a whole city – guides him to the lesser level, a contained
apocalypse:
Oh good brother, this is what seems best to me,
when everyone from the city beholds the ship
driving by near the land, turn her into a stone
like a ship so all the people marvel;
but don’t obliterate the city with a mountain.
Odyssey 13.154–8
This council features the usual underlying reason for the angry god’s divine
wrath, a perceived lack of respect by mortals. As the council opens Poseidon
complains:
Zeus Father, no longer will I have any honor among
the immortal gods, when mortals honor me not at all.
Odyssey 13.128–9
His complaint resembles Ishtar’s first words to Anu:
Father, Gilgamesh has shamed me again and again!
Gilgamesh spelt out to me my dishonor,
My dishonor and my disgrace.
Gilgamesh VI.iii 15–17
Both wrathful gods are angry at a perceived lack of respect (cf. Poseidon’s
complaint at Il. 7.446–53). Zeus ensures that both Helios and Poseidon
receive honor and respect, convincing each to contain his wrath and lessen
his destruction (Od. 12.385–8, 13.140–5).
{My thought on this "lack of respect" is that it includes a denial of existence and lack of care in observing reality and interacting with it as it is. Other ideas, anyone?}
The Odyssey’s final divine council (Od. 24.472–86) also belongs to this
same subtype, if somewhat modified. As is clear from her remarks at Od.
13.393–6 and much earlier (Od. 1.227–9), Athena is the wrathful god in
the Ithakan sequence, her wrath directed at the suitors, not at Odysseus,
as Helios’ against the crew, and, after Zeus’ mediation, Poseidon’s at the
Phaiakian crew.11
Though Poseidon is thematically wrathful at Odysseus
through the first twelve-and-a-half books, his wrath is redirected against
the Phaiakian crew after they ferry Odysseus home.
Each of the Odyssey’s three sequences (Ithakan: Books 1–4, Book 13.188 through to end of Book
24; Scherian: Books 6–8, 9–12, 11.333–84, 13.1–187; and Aiaian: Books 9–12)
leads up to and concludes with a contained apocalypse, though each one
does so by employing a different genre of myth (discussed in Chapters 2,
6, 10, and 13).
In Book 24 Athena asks Zeus if he will provoke further violence, or put
an end to the fighting (Od. 24.473–6). Since Athena’s wrath only pertained
to the suitors, she has no desire for further destruction. Therefore, there
is little need for Zeus to mediate here since the destruction she desires
has already occurred, the contained apocalypse that is Athena’s direction
of Odysseus slaying the 108 suitors and their henchmen. Zeus, having
sanctioned the destruction that has already taken place, directs her to
prevent additional violence. Though the details differ somewhat from the
other scenes discussed above, the divine council validates the lower degree
of destruction, as do the other instances. It is thus this lowest degree
of divine destruction, contained apocalypse, with which the Odyssey is
concerned, in the slaying of the suitors, and the two parallel episodes, the
destruction of Odysseus’ crew off Thrinakia, and the destruction of the
Phaiakian crew off Scheria.
The Iliad, by contrast, works toward the middle
degree of apocalypse, the destruction of an entire city, which, in Homeric
epic, only Zeus can validate, not a wrathful god such as Poseidon, Helios,
or Athena.12
The Iliad nonetheless has one instance of the same subtype of divine
council, especially like that at Odyssey 13.127–58, with Zeus again mediating
a wrathful Poseidon, again angry over a perceived lack of respect (Il. 7.443–
63). Noting that the Greeks did not sacrifice to the gods when they built
the wall to defend the ships, Poseidon complains that mortals will forget
how he and Apollo built the walls of Troy. Reassuring him of his respect
among the gods, Zeus bids him to obliterate the wall, but to wait until after
the war is concluded to do so (Il. 7.459–63). In so doing, Zeus prevents
destruction on a larger scale, which would have included extensive loss of
life. This divine council also concludes the first of the Iliad’s three sequences
(Books 1–7), as do each of the three parallel instances in the Odyssey under
consideration (Od. 12.376–88, 13.127–58, 24.472–86).13
Ugaritic myth, the Iliad, and OT myth also have instances of divine
councils between the sky father and a wrathful god that do not lead to
apocalyptic destruction, but to the death of a single mortal.
In both the Aqhat and the Baal Cycle, the war goddess, Anat (see Louden 2006: 240–85
on her parallels with Athena), angrily confronts her father, Anu, in divine
councils. In the Aqhat, Anat covets a bow that the god Kothar (Hephaistos’
counterpart) has made for the title character. In exchange for the bow she
offers Aqhat eternal life, the companionship of the gods, but he refuses
her offer, insulting her in a scene reminiscent of Gilgamesh’s rejection
of Ishtar (VI.i–iii) and Diomedes’ criticism of Aphrodite (Il. 5.348–51).14
Incensed, Anat goes to El, and asks for and receives his permission to
cause Aqhat’s death (CTA 17.vi.46–18.i.19).
The Iliad has a close parallel
in Athena’s divine council with Zeus (Il. 22.166–86) in which she obtains
permission to cause Hektor’s death.
In the Iliad Athena serves as mentor
god for Akhilleus, but as wrathful god for Hektor.15 In both myths the final
comments by El and Zeus are quite close:
Lay hold of what you desire, carry out what you wish,
The one who gets in your way may be struck down.
CTA 18.i.18–19
Act as your purpose would have you do, and hold back no longer.
Iliad 22.18616
It is not often realized that OT myth contains many divine councils,
a natural consequence of the Israelites’ earlier centuries of polytheism
before they converted to monotheism.17 Many OT myths thus employ
genres and motifs common to polytheistic mythic traditions, showing parallels
with other West Semitic traditions, such as Ugaritic, as well as with
Mesopotamian, and Egyptian. Consequently divine councils are not infrequent,
especially in Genesis, Psalms, and the prophetic books.18 Those
in Genesis are clear, if abbreviated: the expulsion from Eden (Gen. 3:22),
“The man has become like one of us,” and the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:7),19
“Come, let us go down there and confuse their language.”20
Though no one dies, god’s deliberate confusion of mortals resembles a contained apocalypse.
Athena similarly incapacitates the suitors in Odyssey Book 2, and
the angels strike the mob with temporary blindness in Genesis 19 (both
discussed in Chapter 2), episodes connected with subsequent apocalyptic
destruction.
But those most like Homeric divine councils are in Job and 1
Kings.
1 Kings 22:19–22 features a divine council quite close to Agamemnon’s
dream at Iliad 2.5–34.21 While two episodes at the beginning of Job
share features with that at Odyssey 1.27–95, as well as with those just noted
between El and Anat (Aqhat CTA 17.vi.46–18. i.19), and Zeus and Athena
(Il. 22.17–86).
As at Odyssey. 1.27–95, though many immortals are described as being
present, only two speak in the first divine council in Job:
The day came when the members of the court of heaven took their places in the
presence of the Lord, and the Adversary, Satan, was among them. The Lord asked
him where he had been. “Ranging over the earth,” said the Adversary, “from end
to end.” The Lord asked him, “Have you considered my servant Job? You will
find no one like him on earth, a man of blameless and upright life, who fears God
and sets his face against wrongdoing.”(Job 1:6–8)
OT myth’s emerging monotheism forces alterations on the traditional epic
triangle. While Satan clearly occupies the function of the wrathful god,22
Yahweh’s position suggests a combination of both the sky father and the
mentor god.
Like the Odyssey’s first divine council, this serves to focus the
narrative on the myth’s mortal protagonist, but it is Yahweh himself who
does so, whereas at Odyssey 1.480, it is Athena who first raises the topic of
Odysseus, suggesting Yahweh’s attitude toward Job is that of the mentor
god. But Yahweh’s concluding comment is essentially the same tag line El
says to Anat, and Zeus to Athena (Il. 22.186), as he gives Satan free rein to
do almost anything he wants to Job, “Very well,” said the Lord, “All that
he has is in your power, but you must not touch him” (Job 1:12), the sky
father’s presiding role.
Much as the Odyssey presents a second divine council very like the first
(Od. 5.3–43), the Book of Job has a second divine council very like its first
(Job 2:1–7). Again, the only speakers are Yahweh, who voices his support
for Job, suggesting the traditional functions of both a mentor god and the
sky father, while Satan presses Yahweh to let him oppress Job in stronger
fashion (Job 2:4–5). Again the council concludes with a variation of the
same tag line we have seen three earlier times (Aqhat CTA 18.i.18–19,
Il. 22.186, Job 1:12), “The Lord said to the Adversary, ‘So be it. He is in
your power, only spare his life’” (Job 2:6).
There is a further unexpected link between Job and the Aqhat. Aqhat’s father is Danel, who is himself
mentioned in OT myth as an example of the righteous man. Twice in
Ezekiel Danel and Job are paralleled, along with Noah, as key instances
of this type, “Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were there,
they would by their righteousness save none but themselves” (Ezek. 14:14,
14:20, cf. Ezek. 28:3).23
This same specific subtype, a divine council between the sky father and
a wrathful god who plans sufferings for a single mortal, occurs again in
the Iliad in Agamemnon’s narrative about the goddess Ate. The king of
Mycenae describes a divine council between Zeus and Hera (Il. 19.100–13),
in which she thwarts his designs for Herakles, causing a life of struggles
and agony for Zeus’ special son. Though the scene omits the usual tag line,
the overall dynamic is clearly the same. Zeus has given permission for the
wrathful god to cause sufferings for the protagonist of the myth (Herakles).
But in a key variation Zeus is unaware that he gives Hera license to cause
horrible sufferings for Herakles (as Anat did for Aqhat, Satan for Job, and
Athena for Hektor), a replay of Hera’s deception of him in Book 14 of the
Iliad (Chapter 6 notes parallels with Rebecca’s deception of Isaac). The
closest to this subtype in the Odyssey is not a divine council, but Poseidon’s
soliloquy when he sees Odysseus crossing the sea by raft (Od. 5.286–90,
377–9), the epic’s only divine monologue. The sea god announces his intent
to harass Odysseus just short of killing him (Od. 5.286–90), which, as he
is fully aware, he is not permitted to do. The upshot is thus quite close
to Satan harassing Job. Neither Poseidon nor Satan is allowed to kill their
hated mortal, as do Anat and Athena (Il. 22.186).
OT myth also features divine councils that lead to apocalyptic destruction,
but with a radical innovation.
In Exodus 32 and in Genesis 18, OT myth has two beings debating the severity of imminent apocalyptic destruction.
But instead of two gods, the “divine councils” are between Yahweh
and Moses (Exod. 32), and Yahweh and Abraham (Gen. 18).
In Exodus 32, when the Israelites rebel during Moses’ absence, and turn to other gods,
Yahweh wants to destroy them all:
The Lord said to Moses, “I have considered this people, and I see their stubbornness.
Now, let me alone to pour out my anger on them, so that I may
put an end to them and make a great nation spring from you.” Moses set himself
to placate the Lord his God: “Lord,” he said, “why pour out your anger
on your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a strong
hand? . . . Turn from your anger, and think betterof the evil you intend against your
people.” . . . So the Lord thought betterof the evil with which he had threatened his
people. (Exod. 32:9–14)
Moses, in talking Yahweh out of enacting a large-scale apocalypse against
the Israelites, replays the same dynamic we have seen three times in the
Odyssey (Od. 12.376–88, 13.127–58, 24.472–87), in Gilgamesh (Gilg. VI.iii–
iv), and in the Iliad (Il. 7.443–63), the specific subtype of divine council in
which Zeus talks a wrathful god down from full apocalyptic destruction
(Helios), or from destruction of a whole city (Poseidon), to a lesser degree
of violence, a contained apocalypse.
The dialogue between Moses and Yahweh is clearly a modified divine
council, in which a mortal, a patriarch and prophet, serves in place of
a god.24
Having Moses act in a role traditionally assigned to a god is
thus a radical innovation. But in an even more surprising innovation, it
is Yahweh who serves the traditional function of the angry lesser god,
while Moses serves the function elsewhere given the sky father, to mediate
and adjudicate the concerns of the wrathful, lesser god. We return
to this episode and compare it to events on Thrinakia in Chapters 10
and 13.
A similar episode concludes Genesis 18. Here, in a dialogue with Abraham,
Yahweh threatens to destroy the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Abraham proceeds in much the same way as Moses in Exodus 32, getting
Yahweh to agree to spare the cities if he can find first fifty, but eventually
ten, righteous men (Gen. 18:23–32).
The dynamic is the same. Their dialogue
is clearly adapted from traditional divine councils, the same subtype
we have observed in the Odyssey (Od. 12.376–88, 13.127–58, 24.472–87) and
Gilgamesh (Gilg. VI.iii–iv).
The dialogue features the same radical innovation
seen in Exodus 32: it is Abraham who attempts to mediate, the
usual role of the sky father, while the wrathful Yahweh is in the traditional
role of the lesser god.
The outcome is different, however. Yahweh goes
ahead with the destruction of the entire cities, the usual, middle level of
apocalypse, not the contained apocalypse noted in all five other instances.
We reconsider the episode from additional perspectives in Chapters 2
and 13.
The Odyssey’s opening divine council also, if indirectly, points to a
contained apocalypse. Zeus specifically convenes the council to air his
complaint about humans:
For shame, how mortals blame the gods!
For they say evils come from us, when they themselves,
through their own recklessness, suffer pains beyond their share.
Odyssey. 1.32–4
Though he makes the complaint, Zeus neither expresses any animus, nor
recommends that the gods initiate events against mortals, but merely comments
on a general human failing.
The Atrahasis offers a loose parallel. Six
hundred years after their creation mortals have become so numerous, and
their noise so great, that the god Ellil complains at a divine council, which
he has apparently convened:
He addressed the great gods,
“The noise of mankind has become too much,
I am losing sleep over their racket.
Give the order that suruppu-disease shall break out.”
Atrahasis I.vii (Dalley translation)
Unlike Zeus, Enlil immediately initiates a plan to act on his complaint, and
destroy mortals in doing so.
Athena, the only other speaker at the divine council, responds to Zeus’
complaint about mortals’ irresponsibility, strongly concurring:
Our father, son of Kronos, highest of the lords,
to be sure, he, at least, lies in fitting destruction.
So let any other perish who would accomplish such acts!
Odyssey 1.45–7
Athena’s “such things” refers to Aigisthos’ exploits, that he
slew Agamemnon and “wooed” Klytaimnestra, though Hermes had earlier
warned him not to (Od. 1.37–9).
Divine interdictions, a god commanding a
mortal not to do something, are often pivotal occasions in myth.25 Mortals
are typically unable to uphold them, as is the case with Aigisthos. Zeus uses
Aigisthos for a specific instance of behavior to illustrate a larger pattern of
mortals’ conduct; Athena applies his consequent death to a larger body of
mortals, “So let any other perish who would accomplish such acts!” She
affirms Zeus’ complaint, and clearly predicts the death of the suitors by
so doing.26 They will execute both categories of Aigisthos’ wrongdoing:
they are wooing a married woman; they will attempt to kill Telemachos,
and then Odysseus. The destruction of all 108 suitors and their retinue
constitutes another contained apocalypse.
For the rest of the divine council Athena plays her usual role as Odysseus’
advocate and mentor. Though she agrees with Zeus’ paradigm of human
irresponsibility, Odysseus clearly does not fit it, and she briefly lashes out
at Zeus, “Why then do you hate him so much, Zeus?” (Od. 1.62).
In the Aqhat, Baal, who serves as the mentor god for Danel (and Aqhat), has a
similar scene with El (CTA 17.i.16–34), and makes a similar complaint,
“Art thou indifferent to Dan’el, the Rapian?”
Like Athena’s scene with Zeus, this divine council occurs close to the beginning of its narrative,
and establishes the sky father’s supportive relationship with the designated
characters, Danel and Odysseus.
The Odyssey’s first divine council also has additional parallels with one
in the Aqhat (CTA 17.i.16–27) and one in the Kirta (CTA 15.ii.11–28).
All three belong to the same subtype, the sky father in dialogue with the
mentor god; all three focus on the hero’s son. After disabusing Athena of
the notion that he hates Odysseus, Zeus reveals that Poseidon’s wrath is
responsible for Odysseus’ failure to return home, but that now he will have
to yield to the other Olympians, who all support Odysseus’ return (Od.
1.63–79). Athena will go to see Telemachos, to give him confidence, that he
may earn fame (Od. 1.88–95).
The Aqhat opens with Danel praying for a
son, while the Kirta begins with the title character yearning for an heir.
In the Odyssey, Telemachos is a young man, but was an infant when his father
last saw him, twenty years before.
The Aqhat quickly switches its focus
from Danel to his son, Aqhat, who remains the poem’s mortal protagonist.
Like the Aqhat the Odyssey quickly turns its focus to the hero’s son, by way
of the divine council (Od. 1.88–95). The parallel focus on the hero’s son in
the Aqhat and Kirta suggests that the Telemachy, sometimes thought a later
addition to the Odyssey, may be more traditional, part of the epic longer
than thought.
To sum up our discussion, epics such as Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Aqhat,
the Kirta, and the Odyssey, tend to have two main subtypes of divine
councils. No matter how many other immortals are said to be in attendance,
the sky father figure is in dialogue either with the mentor god (Athena in
Odyssey 1 and 5, Shamash in Gilgamesh, Baal in the Aqhat), or the wrathful
god (Helios in Book 12 of the Odyssey, Poseidon in Book 13, Athena in
Book 24).
Divine councils between the sky father and the mentor god
tend to begin large actions, and occur, fittingly near the beginning of an
epic (Od. 1.32–95, Aqhat CTA 17.i.16–27, cf. Aen. 1.223–97).
The opposite type, divine councils between the sky father and the wrathful god, tend
to conclude large actions, even whole sequences of an epic (as is the case
at Od. 12.377–88, 13.128–58, 24.472–86; Il. 7.446–63; cf. Aen. 12. 791–842),
often resulting in apocalyptic destruction.
Given Athena’s importance in divine councils with Zeus in the Odyssey
(Od. 1.32–95, 5.3–42, 24.472–86; cf. Il. 8.5–40, 22.166–85), it is worth noting
that Gilgamesh, the Aqhat, the Baal Cycle, the Iliad, and the Odyssey (and the
Aeneid ) all have father-daughter divine councils (Gilgamesh: Anu, Ishtar;
the Aqhat: El, Anat; Baal Cycle: El, Anat; Iliad: Zeus, Athena; Odyssey:
Zeus, Athena), which may be more than mere coincidence.27 In many
ways Athena’s relationship with Zeus resembles Anat’s relationship with
El. In particular Athena often gets her way with Zeus in divine councils,
as Anat does with El.28
