We first had Dr. Louis Markos on the show during Season 2 when we spoke about imagery of Heaven and Hell in Western Literature. He also recently made an appearance on Barfield Month. Today he returns once more to talk about his new book, The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes.
S4E69: “After Hours” with Dr. Louis Markos (Download)
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Timestamps
00:00 – Entering “The Eagle & Child”…
00:12 – Welcome
00:39 – Dr. Louis Markos
07:35 – Quote-of-the-week
08:01 – Drink-of-the-week
08:17 – Discussion: Literary Life
10:52 – Discussion: Why another book?
13:25 – Discussion: Spiritual Reading
19:32 – Discussion: What’s a myth?
22:18 – Discussion: Case Study
28:50 – Discussion: Objections
39:31 – Discussion: Other World Myths
48:01 – Discussion: Marvel Myths
52:33 – Discussion: Owen Barfield
59:10 – “Last Call” Bell and More Information
YouTube Version
After Show Skype Session
No Skype Session today!
Show Notes
Biographical Information
Dr. Markos is a Professor in English at Houston Baptist University, where he holds the Robert H. Ray Chair in Humanities.
Biographical information for Dr. Louis Markos
He first appeared on Pints With Jack in Season 2, Episode 22 to talk about Heaven and Hell in the Western literature, and you heard him a couple of months ago in Episode 61 talking about Owen Barfield and Saving The Appearances.
He is an authority on C.S. Lewis and has written a huge number of books on the Inklings and ancient literature, and at the end of last year he came out with a new book which we’re going to be talking about today, The Myth Made Fact: Reading Greek and Roman Mythology through Christian Eyes.
Chit-Chat
- Dr. Markos spoke about the books he’s been working on:
- From Plato To Christ: How Plantonic Thought Shaped Christian Faith
- Ancient Voices: An Insider’s Look at Classical Greece
- Ancient Voices: An Insider’s Look at Classical Rome
- Ancient Voices: An Insider’s Look at The Early Church
- Dr. Markos and I spoke about engagement with the Early Church and the Pagan world. I mentioned that we’re having Dr. Marcellino D’Ambrosio onto the show later in this season to talk about his book When The Church Was Young.
- When speaking about good teachers, I quoted the Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization in the Modern World):
Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses.
Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi
This quotation originally comes from an earlier address to the Members of the Consilium de Laicis by Pope Paul VI (2 October 1974).
Quote-of-the-week
[God] sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Drink-of-the-week
- The drink-of-the-week for me is a coffee as we’re recording this on a lazy Saturday morning. Dr. Markos was drinking water.
Biography
- For the people who have only recently started listening to us and haven’t heard Dr. Markos’ episode from Season 2, he gave us a quick recap of his literary life.
The Book
- Dr. Markos had written about Pagan myths before (From Achilles to Christ: Why Christians Should Read the Pagan Classics) so I asked Dr. Markos what made write another book about Pagan literature and asked him what makes this book different from its predecessors.
- We then spoke about reading the Bible spiritually and Dr. Markos warned us not to do this at the expense of the literal level (cf Rudolf Bultmann).
- Pre-conversion Lewis said that myths are “lies breathed through silver”, so I asked Dr. Markos for his definition of a myth.
- He spoke about Arche (origins) and Telos (destination) and Etiology.
- Dr. Markos talked us through a couple of key myths to explain what he does in his book.
Objections
- Some people don’t see the value in myth and Pagan literature and they would ask “Can we really do this? Can we say that Christ is not only the New Joshua and the New Moses, but also the New Achilles and New Odysseus? Can we really say that Jesus not only fulfilled the Hebrew prophecies but also the Pagan myths?” Dr. Markos even tells the story of an evangelist who didn’t read any fiction following his conversion! Such an attitude isn’t entirely absent from history, either. The great Church Father and Biblical translator, St. Jerome, famously renounced Pagan literature. I therefore asked Dr. Markos how he would respond to these objections.
Other Myths
- Dr. Markos focusses on Greek and Roman myths (and I recommended the Mythology podcast as an introduction), so I asked Louis whether he thought the same principles could be followed for other mythological systems? I had particularly enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s book on Norse Mythology.
- I’ve often said that superhero movies are our modern myths. I asked Dr. Markos if he agreed and whether we can apply some of the principles from his book to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Barfield
- I asked whether Inkling Owen Barfield has anything to say on this subject.
