The Homeric epics as understanding-consolidating influence

After I finish Vanity Fair (which I will) my next book is going to be the Iliad and the Odyssey (seventh reading). Homer is a powerful influence. Awhile back I said I was reading Ames' Marrow of Theology as a consolidating influence at the end of all my theological study, but the fact is Homer works for that as much as with any kind of end of stage study and subject matter. Homer is the ultimate consolidating influence. It consolidates understanding. This is the Homeric epics' primary use and value (when you define them in practical terms which, of course, are not the only terms you can define them in).

The metaphor and higher visual language in general (and underlying, foundational structural language) in the Homeric epics is the most powerful and deep and awakening you can have in you to use. The Bible is similar, but very different. The Homeric epics are compact enough to be used to a more practical degree than the Bible for this purpose, and the Bible just is a different influence with different purpose. The Bible regenerates you and builds you up and forms you. The Homeric epics are more of a sharp ethic that infuses Biblical-direction power and understanding into you (usually from memory).

The more accessable contained parameters of the Homeric epics also is what orders influence and impressions you have inside you. The Homeric epics order disparate, scattered influence and impressions and ideas and so forth that you've picked up and puts them into an internal order by sorting them and attaching them, so to speak, to each of the ordered parts of the unity that the Homeric epics form once they are inside you.