The mission of Issues in Perspective is to provide thoughtful, historical and biblically-centered perspectives on current ethical and cultural issues.

The blockbuster movie of the 2026 summer is unquestionably Christoper Nolan’s The Odyssey.  Over the years I have enjoyed Nolan’s films, for they are not only entertaining; they are provocative and thought-provoking.  For example, Nolan’s Joker in the Batman movies is a classic nihilist who simply ”enjoys seeing things burn.”  Interstellar was a disturbing movie because it focused on questions of life’s meaning and purpose as well as the stewardship responsibility of humanity. His film Oppenheimer caused me to read Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s masterful, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.  But his Odyssey is challenging in other ways.  Let me explain.

First of brief summary of Homer’s classic epic poem, The Odyssey: The Odyssey is an ancient, 3000-year-old Greek epic poem by Homer that follows the hero Odysseus, his long voyage home, and the fight to save his family. It covers a ten-year journey filled with dangerous monsters and angry gods. Odysseus had been a key figure in The Trojan War (see Homer’s The Iliad). He had left his home of Ithaca to fight in the war, which lasted ten years. After the war, Odysseus angered the sea god Poseidon by blinding his son, a Cyclops named Polyphemus. Therefore, Poseidon made Odysseus’s trip home take ten extra years. Along the way, he fought sirens, witches, and giant sea monsters. While Odysseus was gone, dozens of suitors overran his house, seeking to marry Odysseus’ wife Penelope, whom they assume is a widow since Odysseus had not returned from Troy. Odysseus’s son, Telemachus, grows up and goes on a search for his father. Odysseus finally arrived back on his island, Ithaca, as the goddess Athena disguised him as a poor beggar. Odysseus revealed himself, killed those seeking to take over his home, and reunited with his wife and son.

Observation #1: Russell Moore writes that “Some, Christian and other reviewers, have argued that Nolan has made a film that is ‘kinda Christian,’ as one writer put it, softening Homer’s ancient heroism with mercy, guilt, and forgiveness. There’s truth to that observation. But I think the film’s deepest significance lies elsewhere—not in the answers it gives but in the longing it exposes. The Odyssey—the original poetry and the modern film—is not really about adventure, although it has an abundance of it. It’s also not primarily about virtues in some abstract way, whether the kill-your-enemies or love-your-enemies type. The Odyssey is about home. Odysseus wants to return to his place but comes to see that his obstacle is not merely geographical. He must become a different kind of person, the kind of man who can receive home as gift rather than as trophy. And at almost every step of the path, those who imaginatively walk with him can feel the ache.”

“And that’s what makes the Christian story stranger than the pagan ones. Odysseus spends 20 years trying to get back to Ithaca. Jesus has spent 2,000 years (so far) telling us to stop mistaking Ithaca for Eden. The Bible is full of odysseys: Abraham leaves Ur. The Israelites leave Egypt. The apostles set out to “the ends of the earth” (Acts 13:47). When describing examples of faith, the Book of Hebrews says none of them ‘received the things promised’ (11:13, ESV throughout). These pilgrimages were not about answering the longing for home with a return to something past. We want a place prepared for us, a place to belong, a place to be known, a place to be loved. But our longing for that can sometimes leave us nostalgic for the wrong thing. The Israelites hungered in the wilderness. They responded to that with nostalgia for slavery: ‘We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic’ (Num. 11:5). The longing wasn’t wrong. As a matter of fact, God said the hunger was necessary. The emptiness was in order that ‘he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord’ (Deut. 8:3). As C. S. Lewis reminded us, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water.’”

“The Odyssey, Homer’s and Nolan’s, assumes the greatest human tragedy is losing the home you once had. The Bible says Abraham was looking for a city he had never seen (Heb. 11:13–14). The Odyssey doesn’t answer the question; it reminds us how to ask it. And that’s not nothing. But once we start asking those questions, we might find a whole Trojan horse full of meanings about which we could never start to ask or even think (Eph. 3:20). Asking those questions just might lead us somewhere else, to a better story than even Homer or Hollywood can tell.”

Observation #2: Ancient Greek mythology was filled with the warning that there are consequences to defying the gods.  For the ancient Greeks, the world was filled with male and female gods, who were really supermen and superwomen who had the same foibles, same sins and same emotions as humans; they were only more powerful and more vengeful.  The Iliad and The Odyssey are filled with tales of the horrific consequences of defying the gods.

David French perceptively asks, “What really happens when you ‘defy the gods’? Or put another way: Do you believe moral laws exist? . . . But what if you violate the Golden Rule? Is there a consequence for failing to love thy neighbor as thyself? At this moment in American history it seems as if a substantial portion of America’s ruling class is putting all its chips on the answer being no, rules are for suckers. In fact, as far as they are concerned, morality causes problems. In American politics and commerce, complying with something as lame as ‘norms’—even uttering the word in a positive fashion—is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. A president enriches himself at a scale never seen before in the United States. An Epstein class of abusive libertines always seems to evade accountability for its crimes. Government officials break the law with impunity, banking on presidential pardons to excuse their crimes—all while truth is buried under an avalanche of lies, lies that are shared with gusto by cadres of grifters and fools.”

“Without saying one word about modern politics, Christopher Nolan has rebuked the spirit of the age. His retelling of The Odyssey is an admonition: Moral transgressions always carry a consequence. His version of Odysseus is a haunted man. After 10 years of war and 10 long years of suffering on the journey home, he seems broken. He can be ruthless. He can be vicious. But he is also suffering from a profound moral injury; only confession and penance provide pathways to peace. One of the most vivid promotional posters for Nolan’s film features the broken, severed head from a statue of Athena and the exact quote I began with: ‘Defy the Gods’ . . . the severed head of Athena matters to the story, as does Odysseus’s defiance, but there is nothing good or laudatory about it. Instead, the movie centers on a moral code, specifically ‘Zeus’s law,’ [the concept of ‘xenia’] the obligation to treat strangers with hospitality and kindness. The law is rooted in the mythical idea that the gods sometimes travel among people while disguised as mortals. It is in this disguise that they can judge the true worth of a person. Or, as Odysseus says in the film, ‘the clearest view of men is from below.’”

For Odysseus, “the Trojan War wasn’t a great victory conducted in service of a righteous cause. It was a war fought for greed and power under the pretext of fighting to bring Helen of Troy home. And the Trojan Horse? Odysseus’s strategic masterstroke? In Nolan’s depiction, it is essentially a war crime—an act of subterfuge that takes advantage of ancient customs to unleash the horrifying sack of the city after Troy’s army is defeated. Odysseus is determined to get home, but he is also wracked with guilt . . . Ultimately, he doesn’t come home to Ithaca to sit on his throne, but to confess, to rescue his wife from the clutches of evil men and to choose exile. Redemption, for Odysseus, comes from confession and penance, not defiance. And the broken head of Athena is a symbol of his own sin, not a sign of his triumph over the divine . . . But the consequences of violating moral laws are different and more pernicious than, say, defying the laws of gravity. If I step off a roof . . . the consequences are immediate and permanent, for me at least. But I can violate moral laws and prosper, if only for a time. The consequences often radiate out to others. That is why transgression is so seductive . . . It turns out that there are rules for rule breakers, just as there are for everyone else, and those rules have persisted throughout human history.”

Observation #3: Nolan’s film reminded me of the importance of the epic tradition in the ancient world.  For the Greek’s it was the epic tradition of the Iliad and The Odyssey.  For the Romans it was the epic tradition of Virgil’s Aeneid. These ancient epics reflected compelling aspects of the human condition but offered no solutions to the destructive aspects of that condition.  Dov Lerner of Yeshiva University argues that “Where the heroism of Greek myths honors the physical skill and corporal strength to defeat titanic creatures, Biblical heroism hails the power to battle inner demons. It extols the resolve to conquer all impediments to reflection and patience, friendship and self-effacement, penitence and allegiance and care.”

That is why John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost is so important. It retells the biblical story of the fall of man: Satan’s rebellion and banishment to Hell, his temptation of Adam and Eve, and their final expulsion from the Garden of Eden.  Lerner writes: “Milton could see that the epics of the ancient world had cast a long shadow. Homer and Virgil had inspired national poets for centuries to tell tales of great battles and fabled knights.  But no one, he says, had yet penned a great epic that elevated patience or dramatized the unseen world of ego and restraint, instinct and moderation, impulse and spiritual determination. . . . Miton’s aim was to fundamentally revolutionize and reconfigure the epic tradition by deploying a Greek means for Hebrew ends—to tell a great tale of a heroic battle, but to locate that battle within the human heart.”  In Milton’s epic, Satan, the master of duplicity and deception, is eventually defeated and is condemned to hell, where he declares “Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.”

Paradise Lost is the epic poem therefore that offers the solution to the vagaries of the human condition that pervade Homer and Virgil: God’s Son who rescues Adam and Eve and defeats Satan.  Paradise Lost leads to Paradise Regained in Milton’s worldview. For the reason Miton’s epic poem must be combined with Homer’s as depicted in Nolan’s film.  Nolan’s Odysseus, who is wracked with guilt for what he did in the famed Trojan War, can find forgiveness and redemption in Milton’s hero—The Son of God! I would combine Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, with Milton epic, Paradise Lost. The one identifies the destructive woes of the human  condition; the other provides the gracious solution—Jesus!

See Tim Chaffey in Answers in Genesis (24 July 2026); Russell Moore, Moore to the Point (24 July 2026); David French in the New York Times (26 July 2026);and The Jewish Roots of American Liberty, edited by Wilfred M. McClay and Stuart Halpern, pp. 13-28.