“Sons are seldom as good men as their fathers,” #TheOdyssey

 I'll be posting lots of short notes about what I am reading and learning in English Lit as well as World History as those are my main focuses this school year. I will hopefully post a review of "The Odyssey". 

I wrote this after reading books I-VIII. I will post more about "The Odyssey" as I progress through the book, talking about different random things that are brought up.

        “Sons are seldom as good men as their fathers,”  states Athena in disguise as Odysseus’  faithful friend.(191-1t, II-277) From this statement one can draw some interesting conclusions about the Greek culture.  Implying that the good characteristics of parents often were not passed down to their children. This could be, in part because the parents were simply not spending time training and teaching them values. Nurses and servants often spent much more time with the children than the families did.  Another idea is that parents might have been trying to protect their children from the hardships they faced growing up, while actually hindering them from learning valuable and necessary lessons.  Sometimes this happens so much that children never fully mature into strong men and women sure of their beliefs and capable of making the hard decisions in life. Proverbs 22:6 says,  “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old,  he will not depart from it.” This is not to say that one cannot break the mold that his parents helped to form in his early childhood, but  in the culture implied by the Odyssey how one was raised had a gigantic effect on the rest of his life.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 adds to the idea that fellowship and strong discipleship is needed for competence. It says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” This passage also shows us the perfect place to look to for direction, the holy, God breathed, word of God. Deuteronomy 6:6-9  talks about how parents are to be continually teaching God’s word to their children. They are to be examples for their children, but to show them the ultimate example of their true Savior.