The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark: A Critical Review

Introduction to McDonald's Thesis

Dennis McDonald's The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (2000) is a book that was always guaranteed to upset orthodox Christian theologians and biblical literalists everywhere, since its main thesis holds that the author of the first gospel used the Iliad and the Odyssey as literary models. McDonald compares Mark to the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, a Gnostic book, and describes it as a "hypotext" that "relies somehow on a written antecedent" (McDonald, p. 2). Specifically, he argues that Mark used Books 22 and 24 of the Iliad as models for the death and burial of Jesus — passages in which Achilles brutally kills Hector and then releases the body to his father, King Priam of Troy. Hector's soul went to Hades and never returned, but Jesus, of course, was resurrected on the third day, even if his rather dim disciples in Mark initially failed to recognize him.

The Iliad was one of the most familiar texts in the ancient world, at least among the educated elite, and McDonald attempts to make the case that Mark must have borrowed from it. He maintains, however, that the Odyssey was the more important model, with Jesus playing the role of King Odysseus and his disciples representing the frightened, confused, and not terribly bright crew of his ship. When Odysseus finally arrives home after many adventures in the Aegean Sea, he finds that the suitors of Penelope have been eating him out of house and home while he was off fighting the Trojan War. In Mark, these suitors represent the evil and corrupt Temple authorities in Jerusalem — the scribes, priests, and Pharisees who collaborate with the Romans and conspire with Pilate to have Jesus executed. Jesus takes direct action against them when he drives the moneychangers out of the Temple, though he naturally does not employ the same lethal force as Odysseus. Mark's Jesus is described as "more compassionate, powerful, noble, and inured to suffering" than the Greek warrior-king (McDonald, p. 6).

Chapter-by-Chapter Summary of Key Parallels

Chapter 1 is the most important in the book, in which McDonald explains his central thesis about the Gospel of Mark being a hypotext modeled on the Iliad and the Odyssey. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, however, the parallels "are seldom word-for-word" but are more related to plot, context, and background. McDonald admits that he has no direct evidence that Mark ever read these Greek classics and does not even attempt to speculate about Mark's true identity or location when he wrote the gospel. He does deny, however, that Mark was simply a "passive transcriber" and editor of the Q Source (Quelle) and the parables and oral traditions about Jesus (McDonald, p. 3). He points out that later Christian writers and apologists like Clement and Augustine regularly referred to classical Greek and Roman literature, mainly to criticize the pagan gods and heroes for "their adulteries, murders, lies, and thefts" (McDonald, p. 2). Other scholars have attempted to demonstrate that Mark had various literary models, such as Plato's account of the death of Socrates, Jewish martyr traditions, and Greek tragedies. In the Homeric literature, gods have sons on earth, regularly perform miracles, raise the dead, and feed multitudes, but Mark makes Jesus "more powerful and virtuous than Odysseus and Hector" (McDonald, p. 3).

In Chapter 2, McDonald notes that Odysseus was also a carpenter who suffered many hardships and even made his own furniture and doors. Homer described his hero as "a man of many sorrows" and "ill-fated above all men," who, like Achilles, was born of the god Zeus (McDonald, p. 16). Like Jesus, Odysseus was stoical, courageous, and persistent, and was opposed by Poseidon, Circe, and Calypso, just as Jesus was perpetually opposed by demons and the Temple rulers. Odysseus did not openly claim to be the Son of God, and when he returned home, most people in Ithaca did not recognize him — just as more than most of the disciples failed to recognize the risen Jesus. In Chapter 3, McDonald notes that most of the disciples of Jesus were "fearful, unfaithful, and uncomprehending," including one who betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver and another who denied him three times (McDonald, p. 20). When Jesus walked on water, they were frightened that he might be a ghost, just as all of Odysseus's men were also inferior to their leader — as illustrated by the young man Elpenor, who fell down drunk and broke his neck.

In Chapter 4, two of the disciples earned the nickname Sons of Thunder (Boanerges), which Jesus probably did not intend as a compliment. McDonald contends that this was another classical reference that would not have been typical for a Jewish peasant, since Boanerges was one of the names for the Heavenly Twins, Castor and Pollux. Castor was a sailor who "died a violent death, yet was granted eternal life" (McDonald, p. 32). In Chapter 5, Mark's murderous usurpers were the Jerusalem Temple authorities, while in the Odyssey they were the loutish suitors of Penelope, who would have happily killed Odysseus had he ever appeared in Ithaca. For Mark and all the other canonical gospel writers, the Jewish priests and scribes were the "most determined and dangerous opponents of Jesus," far more so than Pilate and the Romans (McDonald, p. 35). Although the hesitant, Hamlet-like Pilate portrayed in the gospels is almost certainly a fiction — given what Josephus and Philo of Alexandria reported about his corruption, ruthlessness, and brutality — Mark and the other early Christian writers were determined to absolve Rome for the execution of Jesus and place the blame on the Jewish authorities.

Penelope's suitors also plot to kill Odysseus's son Telemachus, just as the Jerusalem authorities constantly conspire to trap Jesus into some damaging statement that can be used against him. In Chapter 6, McDonald compares the hidden nature of the Messiah to Odysseus returning to his kingdom disguised as a beggar, with the suitors murmuring that he might be "some god come down from heaven" (McDonald, p. 44). In Chapter 7, McDonald argues that Mark relates Jesus to the sea and boats far more than any other gospel writer, and only Mark mentions that four of the disciples were fishermen. Odysseus is obviously a nautical figure, as is his son Telemachus, who acquires a boat to search for his father (McDonald, p. 55). Like the men of Odysseus, the disciples also tend to fall asleep at critical moments — as in the Garden of Gethsemane.

When not in conflict with the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus struggles with casting out demons, and McDonald compares this to the battles Odysseus fights against sirens, cannibals, and the Cyclops on his return to Ithaca. In Chapter 8, McDonald argues that the exorcism of Legion from the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1–10), in which the demons bargain with Jesus to be relocated into a herd of swine, was borrowed directly from the Odyssey rather than being a symbolic reference to the Roman Empire. Circe the witch also "turned Odysseus's soldiers into swine," and he had to find a counter-charm to transform them back (McDonald, p. 64). McDonald further argues that in no other exorcism in the New Testament are demons given a name, which leads him to conclude that this puzzling narrative must have been borrowed from a classical pagan source — just like the obscure reference to the Heavenly Twins. He acknowledges, however, that Bronze Age Greeks would not have described their soldiers as a "Legion," since that was a Roman term.

In Chapter 9, McDonald finds a parallel between Mark's account of the beheading of John the Baptist and the Odyssey. He doubts the historicity of the story that Herod was so pleased with the dance of Salome that he granted her the Baptist's head, or that he executed the prophet solely for insulting his wife Herodias. According to Josephus, Herod feared John primarily because of "the seditious potential of his fiery sermons," which was also why Pilate and the Temple rulers feared Jesus (McDonald, p. 78). McDonald believes that Mark reworked this story from the assassination of King Agamemnon by his wife and her lover — a tale Agamemnon himself recounts to Odysseus during his visit to Hades. They had invited the king to a feast and "then cut me down as a man cuts down some ox" (McDonald, p. 79).

In Chapter 10, Mark's accounts of the two miraculous feedings of thousands may have been based on popular legends, the miraculous feeding of the Israelites in the desert, or the miracles of Elisha, but McDonald also finds parallels in the great feasts of King Nestor at Pylos and King Menelaus at Sparta, which Homer likewise presents as a doublet. Mark also intended the feedings to contrast with the "boorish greed" of Penelope's suitors (McDonald, p. 85). In Chapters 11 and 12, McDonald traces parallels between other miracles of Jesus and episodes in the Odyssey. In the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John witness the true nature of Jesus alongside Moses and Elijah — a secret hidden from all others. Similarly, when Odysseus returned to Ithaca, only his dog Argus and his nurse Eurycleia recognized him, though he later undergoes a miraculous "transfiguration to his son Telemachus" (McDonald, p. 92). Jesus's healing of two blind men in Mark, which he uses to comment on the spiritual blindness of his disciples, is compared to the story of the blind seer Tiresias in the Odyssey, who tells Odysseus that "you have sight, but cannot see what trouble you're in" (McDonald, p. 98).

In Chapter 13, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey, just as Odysseus enters the city of the Phaeacians, and his cleansing of the Temple resembles Odysseus's slaughter of the suitors. In Chapter 14, a woman anoints Jesus with oil and dries his feet with her hair, just as Eurycleia washes the feet of Odysseus and "anointed him richly with oil" (McDonald, p. 119). In Chapter 15, Jesus tells his disciples to follow a man carrying a jar of water, who will lead them to the upper room for the Last Supper. McDonald notes that Jesus already knew Judas had gone to betray him as soon as the woman anointed him with oil from the alabaster jar (McDonald, p. 120). In Odyssey 10, Odysseus followed a girl drawing water, only to discover that his men were about to be eaten by cannibals. When he returned to Ithaca destitute, he encountered a woman washing clothes and received her help. In Chapter 16, the Last Supper finds its parallel in the Odyssey when Odysseus ate with his men before descending temporarily into Hades (McDonald, p. 129).