Welcome back to the Iliad!
And you probably thought I forgot in the haze that was Christmas and New Year's - nope!
Still reading the thing, and finding fun crossovers with scripture stories in the process.
Book 8 of the Iliad - Zeus Flexes His Muscle Before the Gods
Today I'm reading Book 8 of the Iliad, which begins with Jove (another name for Zeus) calling a meeting on Olympus and forbidding the gods to interfere with the war between the Trojans and the Greeks anymore, and promising them they'll regret it if they do:
"Celestial states! immortal gods! give ear,
Hear our decree, and reverence what ye hear;
The fix’d decree which not all heaven can move;
Thou, fate! fulfil it! and, ye powers, approve!
What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance, or but wills to yield,
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven,
Gash’d with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven;
Or far, oh far, from steep Olympus thrown,
Low in the dark Tartarean gulf shall groan,
With burning chains fix’d to the brazen floors,
And lock’d by hell’s inexorable doors;
As deep beneath the infernal centre hurl’d,
As from that centre to the ethereal world.
Let him who tempts me, dread those dire abodes:
And know, the Almighty is the god of gods.
League all your forces, then, ye powers above,
Join all, and try the omnipotence of Jove.
And when Jove talks about the Tartarean gulf, he's not talking tartar sauce.
Tartaurus is the Greek version of Hell.
Basically, if the gods interfere again for their favorite humans, they're going to their room (i.e., chained in the bottomest bottom of Hell.)
Even if they all join together and gang up on him, he's stronger than all of them.
Zeus is showing off his power, which is truly massive.
Book of Mormon - Ether 1-3 - God's Encounter with the Brother of Jared
In the Book of Mormon, we also get a sense of the power of God, but not in such a confrontational way. More in a useful and cooperative way, through the story of the brother of Jared.
In this story, found in the beginning of the Book of Ether, Jared and his family have left the Tower of Babel, where in the Bible the languages were confounded by God and the people were scattered.
Made me think, does mankind really need dramatic lightning bolts to be scattered and brought to their knees? The Lord did it at the Tower of Babel by confounding language so the people couldn't communicate. I mean honestly, does anyone remember what COVID - a minuscule virus - did to everyone's lives in 2020?
But I digress...
Jared asked his brother, who was a prophet, to pray that their family's language would not be confounded, and the Lord blessed them that they kept their language intact. Jared and his family left for what the Lord promised them would be a new land, and they traveled until they came to an ocean.
At that point, the Lord told them, again through the brother of Jared, to build boats to cross the ocean - boats like no one had ever seen before.
They were round and smooth, fully contained with two fasteners on the top and bottom for air, but they were dark inside. How would they cross the ocean in the dark? How would they survive that?
The brother of Jared took the problem to the Lord - the great God Omnipotent - and told Him what the problem was.
The Lord said at the end of Ether 2:23-25,
"What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels?
For behold, ye cannot have windows,
for they will be dashed in pieces;
neither shall ye take fire with you,
for ye shall not go by the light of fire.
For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea;
for the mountain waves shall dash upon you.
Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea;
for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth,
and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth.
And behold, I prepare you against these things;
for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea,
and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come.
Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you
that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?"
Probably the brother of Jared hadn't thought about any of those things - mountain waves, great whales, which way the wind was blowing. He wasn't even a sailor as far as we know.
But the Lord knew, and the Lord could take care of all those things.
So why did he tell the brother of Jared to work on the light problem himself?
It's an interesting question, but my assumption is that the brother of Jared, like all of us, was a child of God, and God was teaching him and training him as they went along into a strange new land, not knowing what was facing them.
He would take care of what his children couldn't handle, but He also expected the children to work hard and try their best to solve their own problems when they arose.
Certainly God could show off His power - anyone remember the end of the Book of Job? - but He's not interested in impressing us with His power so much as teaching us and training us to become like Him - like any father would do.
Eventually, in Ether chapter 3, the brother of Jared comes up with a pretty clever solution, but if you haven't read it, I encourage you to see what he did - this story is one of my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon.
