Joshua’s Miracle of the Sun: Appropriated in ‘The Iliad’

 

by

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

The fictitious Greek king, Agamemnon, appears in Homer’s The Iliad, in at least one notable instance, like Joshua, praying for the Sun not to set so that Agamemnon might be victorious.

 

“Zeus, most glorious, most great, the one of the dark clouds, that dwellest in the heaven, grant that the sun set not, neither darkness come upon us, until I have cast down in headlong ruin the hall of Priam … burned with consuming fire”. (Illiad II:412-415)

 

This is not the only instance in which The Iliad has borrowed from colourful biblical events. See e.g. my:

Judith the Jewess and “Helen” the Hellene

https://www.academia.edu/24417162/Judith_the_Jewess_and_Helen_the_Hellene

 

Moreover, the famous standoff between Agamemnon and Achilles, also in The Iliad, reminds me of the hostile encounter in the Book of Judith (chapter 5) between the bombastic “Holofernes” and his subordinate, “Achior” (a name not unlike Achilles).

And I have previously provided abundant evidence for the use of the books of Tobit and Job in Homer’s The Odyssey.

 

Yet we constantly read statements such as: “Western civilization begins with the two greatest books of the ancient world, the Iliad and the Odyssey by the Greek poet Homer”.

https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/classical-studies/iliad-odyssey-complete-set/

 

The crucial Hebrew inspiration behind all of this usually goes completely unacknowledged.