Why read the Homeric epics if you are a Christian?

Why should one read the Homeric epics - the Iliad and the Odyssey - after one has become a Christian?

If you're reading them as a holy book for a multi-god religion then I suppose you shouldn't.

If that's not the case, though, then a similar question could be: why listen to Beethoven's 3rd symphony after one has become a Christian?

It's art. A work of art. Objective art, in the case of the Homeric epics. The highest art.

So then can the activity of reading the Homeric epics be put in the category of sanctification?

I don't see why not.

Prior to becoming a Christian the Homeric epics can be a sort of gateway to the Bible (for some), but afterwards simply a work of great art that develops us the way all great art can develop us.

Of course, I don't think the Homeric epics have the Devil's influence in them. If I did I would no more read them for sanctification than I'd read the Koran for sanctification.

So am I overrating the Homeric epics? Are they not perhaps relics of a culture that didn't have the truth of Scripture, and are thus sub-worthy of any influence that should influence a Christian?

No, I'm not. The Homeric epics carry a higher visual language that depicts inner spiritual development and delivers that knowledge deep into a person who is able to engage the two epic poems at a basic level of understanding. They may only depict God as through a glass darkly, in fragmentary ways, yet they aren't intentional counterfeit designed to mislead or draw one away from the truth. And they could be depicting aspects of the higher world in ways we are not used to thinking such as the gods and goddesses being angelic beings, or having characteristics of angelic beings. The back story of Greek myth is missing the Creator/creation divide (among many other things), but it's worth is not how close it is to biblical truth. It's worth, as it is contained specifically in the Homeric epics, is a concentrated depiction of inner, spiritual development; delivered in a powerful and deep way via higher visual language; and a depiction of the dynamics between a higher realm and a lower realm. There is real truth in all of that that can be discerned.

Works with mysterious authorship like the Homeric epics, or the works of Shakespeare, or the Grimm's tales, or Grail legend often have these qualities.