Episode 3: Iliad, Book 2

In this episode of Christ & Classics, Devin and Colton explore Zeus’s reasoning and will to dupe Agamemnon in a dream, which then results in Agamemnon seeking to deceive his own troops. Why is this? How does this relate to Book 1 and the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon?  Also, Devin and Colton take on the “Catalog of Ships” and question its literary purpose within Homer’s Iliad. Why would Homer spend such detail cataloging all the Greek vessels and the city-states they each represent? How does this relate to Zeus’s vow to Thetis to exalt Achilles over the Achaeans (mainly Agamemnon)? And might the literary function of the “Catalog of Ships” compare to the genealogies we read in the Old Testament?