Greeks Bearing Gifts
From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics
by Louis Markos
InterVarsity Press, 2007
(257 pages, $24.00, paperback)
reviewed by Ethan Cordray
Achilles—petulant sulker, keeper of sex slaves, merciless rampaging killer, defiler of corpses—may not immediately seem like a good Christian role model. When Homer calls him “godlike Achilles,” we may be tempted to question the poet’s judgment, or else remark upon the qualities of the gods Homer had in mind.
But as Louis Markos presents him, Achilles exemplifies the ancient Greek cultural ideal in all its glory and complexity. As the greatest of the Greeks, he represents the height of pagan humanity, . . .
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