But I would wonder, therefore, about the works influenced by the Odyssey: Virgil comes to mind. If we didn’t have extant texts of the Odyssey, we’d still have Virgil. Would we make the same assumptions of truth regarding the Aeneid? Mayhaps there are extant texts that record the predecessors to the Odyssey? Or not? Does that prove or disprove? What about the mythological roots (in Babylon, Egypt, Greece) to the Gospel or other scripture stories?

I’m with you both on “True Myth”. I believe in it 100%

And I don’t think we can easily sort the True stuff out from the Made Up stuff - and I think both can be equally inspiring (and inspired).

But I was trying to point out that, our modern English aside, (where “myth” means “lie”) I don’t see the sharp dichotomy in the Biblical Text. The dichotomy is there in *our* minds, but the meanings of the Biblical words are much more shades of grey than the Black and White of English.

Fortunately, as archeology matured (and historical textual studies), increasing evidence as to the veracity of Ulysses and the authorship of Shakespeare came forward. This is not to say that everything in the Odyssey can be shown to be “true”, since Ulysses is recording oral tradition. And, it is doubtlessly true that the various conversations recorded were “tightened up” and maybe even gaps “filled in.” And there is certainly a large amount of pure legend in the work. Nevertheless, the Odyssey is “true myth”, recording the main events and motivations of a fraticidal war of long ago.

Of interest to me is that recently some astronomers with a literary bent even calculated a probable date for the killing of the suitors by Odysseus based on star charts and an eclipse recorded from the oral tradition by Ulysses. And the date even tallies with the general date of the war!

You can see the obvious parallels to Scripture and recorded oral tradition–although I would generally make some additional claims for Scripture.