Why Abraham, Not Odysseus, Defines the Western Story

Classical works have largely become a niche interest rather than a shared cultural inheritance. Today, when a classical text returns to public attention, it is usually because it has been adapted into a medium more familiar to contemporary audiences than the written page. Such is the fate of The Odyssey. For many people, Homer's epic entered the conversation only with the announcement of Christopher Nolan's forthcoming film.

Yet never reading a work is not the same as never being influenced by it. Western civilization has been shaped in profound ways by the classical tradition, and Homer's epics have occupied a central place within it. Even if we have never read a single page of The Odyssey, we have inherited a world that bears its imprint.

The very idea of the hero's journey—the archetypal story of leaving home, facing trials, resisting temptation, and returning transformed—owes much to Odysseus. Writers from Virgil and Dante to James Joyce have reimagined his voyage, while countless novels, films, and television series continue to draw on its narrative structure. Expressions such as "an odyssey" have become part of everyday language to describe any long, difficult, and transformative journey. The poem has also shaped enduring ideas about courage, perseverance, hospitality, homecoming, loyalty, and the tension between human ingenuity and fate. Whether we recognize its influence or not, The Odyssey remains woven into the fabric of Western literature, art, and imagination.

Western civilization, however, was shaped not only by the classical tradition but also by the moral and spiritual vision of the Hebrew Bible. As Jews, it's worth noting that several Jewish thinkers who reflected on The Odyssey pointed out that the Torah presents another foundational journey: that of Abraham our Patriarch. In many ways, it is the mirror image of Odysseus's voyage.

One of the most famous comparisons comes from Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), one of the twentieth century's leading philosophers and an observant Orthodox Jew. For Levinas, The Odyssey represents the characteristic movement of Greek thought. After years of wandering, Odysseus finally returns home to Ithaca, and every hardship ultimately serves the restoration of his own life. Levinas saw this as reflecting a broader philosophical tendency: we encounter what is unfamiliar only to understand it, absorb it, and ultimately make it part of our own world. Even "the other" becomes a way of enriching the self.

Abraham's journey represents the opposite ideal. Commanded by God to "go forth" to an unknown land, Abraham leaves without knowing his destination and with no expectation of 

ever returning. His journey is not a circle back to himself but a step into an unknown future. For Levinas, this is the defining contribution of the biblical tradition. Rather than placing self-knowledge or self-fulfillment at the center, it places faith, responsibility, and openness to what lies beyond ourselves.

This contrast extends beyond the two characters. It reflects two very different ways of understanding history itself. For the ancient Greeks, time was largely cyclical. Just as the seasons endlessly repeat, so too does human history. There is no final destination toward which humanity is moving—only recurring patterns and journeys that eventually bring us back where we began.

Judaism presents a radically different vision. History has a direction. Humanity is moving toward redemption, not simply repeating the past. Odysseus's journey is circular: he longs to return to the wife, son, and kingdom he left behind. Abraham's journey is linear. He leaves everything familiar and travels toward a future he cannot yet see, trusting in God's promises rather than in what he already knows.

The two heroes also succeed in very different ways. Odysseus survives largely through intelligence, resourcefulness, and cunning. He overcomes monsters, temptations, and enemies by outwitting them. Although he endures many hardships, the story is not primarily about his moral growth. His goal is to survive, return home, and reclaim what is his.

Abraham's journey, by contrast, is fundamentally spiritual. His greatest trials are not battles or shipwrecks but tests of faith. Again and again he must choose whether to trust God's promises despite uncertainty. He remains faithful, and from that faith a new nation is born.

The idea of the homecoming is deeply woven into Western culture, which is one reason The Odyssey continues to resonate even with people who have never read it. Yet the larger story of our civilization ultimately follows Abraham rather than Odysseus. Few people today believe that history simply repeats itself in endless cycles. Most of us instinctively see it as moving toward a better future—even if we disagree about what that future should look like.

The same is true of our own lives. We may long for the comfort of home, but we rarely think the purpose of life's journey is simply to end where we started. We hope to become wiser, stronger, and better than we were before. We expect our journeys to transform us. That idea is not primarily a Greek inheritance. It is one of the Bible's enduring gifts to Western civilization.