Jesus the Epic Hero

Jesus the Epic Hero

Author: Karl Olav Sandnes

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2022-08-29

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1666908630

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The ancient cento-genre was prone to be used on all kinds of subjects. New texts were created out of the classical epics. Empress Eudocia followed this practice and composed the story of Jesus in lines lifted almost verbatim from Homer’s epics. Jesus and his relevance to her audience is thus presented within the confines of style and vocabulary offered by the Iliad and Odyssey. The lines picked to convey her theology are often clustered around key Homeric motifs or type scenes, such as warfare, homecoming, feast, reconciliation, hospitality. Jesus waging war against all evil and Hades in particular runs throughout this Homeric and simultaneously biblical epic. The story starts in the Old Testament which is conceived as a divine counsel on Mt. Olympus where a plan to save sinful humanity is presented. The narrative then follows the biographic lines of the canonical gospels, with John’s Gospel holding pride of place in the way she renders and interprets the Jesus-story. The story told suspends both the geography and time of Jesus. Eudocia preaches the story she tells. She emerges in this poem as one of the most, if not the most prolific female theologian and preacher in the first Christian centuries.


Mythologizing Jesus

Mythologizing Jesus

Author: Dennis R. MacDonald

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2015-05-07

Total Pages: 179

ISBN-13: 1442233508

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Our culture is well-populated with superheroes: Superman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, and more. Superheroes are not a modern invention; in fact, they are prehistoric. The gods and goddesses of the Greeks, for example, walked on water, flew, visited the land of the dead, and lived forever. Ancient Christians told similar stories about Jesus, their primary superhero—he possessed incredible powers of healing, walked on water, rose from the dead, and more. Dennis R. MacDonald shows how the stories told in the Gospels parallel many in Greek and Roman epics with the aim of compelling their readers into life-changing decisions to follow Jesus. MacDonald doesn’t call into question the existence of Jesus but rather asks readers to examine the biblical stories about him through a new, mythological lens.


The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark

Author: Dennis Ronald MacDonald

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780300080124

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this groundbreaking book, Dennis R. MacDonald offers an entirely new view of the New Testament gospel of Mark. The author of the earliest gospel was not writing history, nor was he merely recording tradition, MacDonald argues. Close reading and careful analysis show that Mark borrowed extensively from the Odyssey and the Iliad and that he wanted his readers to recognise the Homeric antecedents in Mark's story of Jesus. Mark was composing a prose anti-epic, MacDonald says, presenting Jesus as a suffering hero modeled after but far superior to traditional Greek heroes. Much like Odysseus, Mark's Jesus sails the seas with uncomprehending companions, encounters preternatural opponents, and suffers many things before confronting rivals who have made his house a den of thieves. In his death and burial, Jesus emulates Hector, although unlike Hector Jesus leaves his tomb empty. Mark's minor characters, too, recall Homeric predecessors: Bartimaeus emulates Tiresias; Joseph of Arimathea, Priam; and the women at the tomb, Helen, Hecuba, and Andromache. And, entire episodes in Mark mirror Homeric episodes, including stilling the sea, walking on water, feeding the multitudes, the Triumphal E


Lord of Legends

Lord of Legends

Author: Eric Eichinger

Publisher:

Published: 2022

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9780758669902

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"This book uses the superhero theme to present Christ crucified in a way that readers may never have seen Him before. But Jesus is not merely another myth on the fantasy shelf in the library or on the movie screen. His story is historical fact! And Christ's superhero errand to rescue fallen mankind brings together the important elements in all hero stories. Jesus' sojourn of salvation will be examined in the Scriptures yet conveyed in storytelling language. This glory story of Christ will enlighten readers as to why Jesus is the only hero the world ever truly needed-or ever will need"--


Spenser, Milton, and the Redemption of the Epic Hero

Spenser, Milton, and the Redemption of the Epic Hero

Author: Christopher Bond

Publisher: University of Delaware

Published: 2011-04-29

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 1611490677

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book studies the interplay of theology and poetics in the three great epics of early modern England, the Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained. Bond examines how Spenser and Milton adapted the pattern of dual heroism developed in classical and Medieval works. Challenging the opposition between 'Calvinist,' 'allegorical' Spenser and 'Arminian,' 'dramatic' Milton, this book offers a new understanding of their doctrinal and literary affinities within the European epic tradition.


Superheroes Can’t Save You

Superheroes Can’t Save You

Author: Todd Miles

Publisher: B&H Publishing Group

Published: 2018-04-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 146275080X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Comic superheroes embody the hopes of a world that is desperate for a savior. But those comic creations cannot save us from our greatest foes—sin and death. Throughout the history of the Church there have been bad ideas, misconceptions, and heretical presentations of Jesus. Each one of these heresies fails to present Jesus as the Bible reveals him. In Superheroes Can’t Save You, Todd Miles demonstrates how these ancient heresies are embodied in contemporary comic superheroes. Miles compares something everybody already knows (who the superheroes are) with what they need to know (who Jesus is), in a book that makes vitally important Christian truths understandable and applicable to a wide audience.


The Jesus We Missed

The Jesus We Missed

Author: Father Patrick Reardon

Publisher: Thomas Nelson

Published: 2012-02-13

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 159555372X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Who was Jesus and what was His mission? The Gospels present us with an obvious but profound and compelling thought, that the eternal Word of God became a real man of particular weight and height, with a specific temperament and particular traits of character. He was a Jew, part of a small village community. He became hungry and tired. He felt anger and was moved to compassion. He had a mother and friends. His name was Jesus. How are we to understand this mystery of Jesus being fully God and also fully man? How do we correctly speak of the real Jesus without falling prey to the skepticism that marks the so-called “quest for a historical Jesus”? In The Jesus We Missed, pastor and scholar Patrick Henry Reardon travels through the Gospel narratives to discover the real Jesus, to see him through the eyes of those who knew him best—the apostles, his community, believers who vividly portrayed him in stories filtered through their own faith. Through these living, breathing accounts, we contemplate who God’s Son really was and is—and we understand how he came to redeem and sanctify every aspect of every human life. “In an age that has too often turned Jesus into a symbol or an abstract doctrine, we are long overdue for a reminder that the Lord of history came to us as a humble carpenter from Nazareth.” — BRYAN LITFIN, Professor of Theology, Moody Bible Institute “In his inimitable style, Patrick Henry Reardon surprises us with insights into the humanity of Jesus drawn from the Gospels and made lively by careful attention to historical and literary detail. Here is a piece that joins together critical awareness, theological fidelity, refreshing wit, and manifest devotion.” — EDITH M. HUMPHREY, William F. Orr Professor of New Testament, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary


Two Shipwrecked Gospels

Two Shipwrecked Gospels

Author: Dennis R. MacDonald

Publisher: Society of Biblical Lit

Published: 2012-06-29

Total Pages: 729

ISBN-13: 158983691X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

With characteristic boldness and careful reassessment of the evidence, MacDonald offers an alternative reconstruction of Q and an alternative solution to the Synoptic Problem: the Q+/Papias Hypothesis. To do so, he reconstructs and interprets two lost books about Jesus: the earliest Gospel, which was used as a source by the authors of Mark, Matthew, and Luke; and the earliest commentary on the Gospels, by Papias of Hierapolis, who apparently knew Mark, Matthew, and the lost Gospel, which he considered to be an alternative Greek translation of a Semitic Matthew. MacDonald also explores how these two texts, well known into the fourth century, shipwrecked with the canonization of the New Testament and the embarrassment at outmoded eschatologies in both the lost Gospel and Papias’s Exposition.


Jesusfreak

Jesusfreak

Author: Joe Casey

Publisher: Image Comics

Published: 2019-03-20

Total Pages: 76

ISBN-13: 1534314210

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The year is 26 C.E. A young Nazarean carpenter is having some trouble adjusting to the violent world around him and finding his place within it. He knows he's different, but he doesn't know why. Not yet, anyway. A bloody, two-fisted tale of historical heroic fiction brought to you by JOE CASEY (SEX, BUTCHER BAKER, THE RIGHTEOUS MAKER, MCMLXXV) and BENJAMIN MARRA (Night Business, Terror Assaulter: O.M.W.O.T.).


Epic

Epic

Author: John Eldredge

Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc

Published: 2007-03

Total Pages: 113

ISBN-13: 0785288791

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Eldredge uses stories from movies and literature to illuminate the epic story of God.