A comment regarding the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible

A Commenter said:

Hey, as long as you consider the Greek gods in the Iliad and the Odyssey as real as the gods in the New Testament, that's fine by me.

Epic poetry is fiction. In the case of the Homeric epics very inspired works of art. A deep language. Higher visual language. Kind of like folk tales or legendary stories that arise from the mists of time of an entire culture rather than from the mind of a single person.

The New Testament (as the Old Testament) is the revealed Word of God.

The Homeric epics get at the truth (that the Bible presents pure) only by degree and the host of gods and goddesses probably mirror more the forces of the Heavenly host - angels - and the influence and inspiration that comes down from on high and also present universal archtypes. The two epic poems also overall present a deep language of inner development presented in sophisticated metaphor and their very structure. They're doing a lot of things at once. This type of knowledge coming from General Revelation - as opposed to Special Revelation - touches on inspiration from the only source of truth which is God, yet they are not the Word of God or 100 percent truth, obviously. Nothing other than the revealed Word of God is.

Most Christians wouldn't understand what I've written above, and most would also shallowly condemn it. The English from the Elizabethans on saw the parallels or same feel of inspiration in the Homeric epics and the Bible and commented on it.

As always though any work that is not the Word of God, though is inspired, is like a planet that reflects the light of the Sun rather than being the Sun itself.

ps- Can works of literature be classified as General Revelation? I don't see why not. Especially the great works, thoroughly vetted by Time, if you can discern them. "General revelation is not like a light that lighteth every man, but a light that illumines the pathway of those who are made receptive for the truth by the special operations of the Holy Spirit." Reworded a bit, because there's a typo, but taken from Louis Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine, Eerdmans edition, pg. 25. If General Revelation consists in the general constitution of the human mind (along with the divine thought in the phenomenon of nature, the voice of conscience, and the providential government of the world in general and individuals in particular - again, paraphrasing Berkhof) then inspired works of art and music and literature would probably be associated with the general constitution of the human mind and voice of conscience as conscience can, by degree, discern truth and the constitution of the human mind can receive truth contained in such works created by other human beings and larger collective human forces over time. We speak of the 'muse' for the poet, but truth and beauty and understanding come from one source, ultimately, which is God, and probably in this case the Holy Spirit.