Why This Cycle
This cycle is about introductions — and where they lead. It is here that we expand our grammar. In Five Dialogues, Plato introduces us to Socrates as he approaches his execution; in doing so, we watch the foundations of Western philosophy take shape. Walton introduces the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmology that dominated the biblical authors’ minds by examining the conversations and traditions they responded to. Homer’s Odyssey — an epic, not a novel — introduces the Greek mythic and heroic imagination that Plato’s philosophy inherits and interrogates.
Dante’s Inferno is the cycle’s synthesis. It shows how thoroughly Greek philosophical thought dominated the early and medieval church: Homer and Plato both appear in the poem; Virgil — Dante’s guide through the underworld, and himself the Latin heir of Homeric epic — is at his side throughout. Walton and others like him stand as a counterweight to the Greek philosophical invasion, offering a reintroduction to the ANE world that the New Testament authors took for granted.
The Four Books
- Philosophy — Plato, Five Dialogues (trans. G.M.A. Grube).
- Theology — John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One.
- Epic — Homer, Odyssey (trans. Stanley Lombardo).
- Poetry — Dante, Inferno (trans. John Ciardi). Inferno alone — not the full Divine Comedy.