Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 168 as they explore Homeric theology, ancient dream narratives, Paul’s rhetoric, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: The Morlocks and the Basketball Buzzer
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 168 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean depths of Vomitorium South—the hermetically sealed bunker beneath the RHB bookstore and coffee shop—your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, return to the microphones.
Recording on a blustery, mid-December afternoon, the hosts reflect on the comforting thermal properties of their windowless bunker. Dave compares their subterranean existence to the Morlocks, the fictional underground cave-dwellers from H.G. Wells’s classic science fiction novel, The Time Machine. Jeff agrees, noting that retreating into the cozy, climate-controlled bunker is far more conducive to intellectual conversation than shivering out in the frozen Michigan parking lot.
Despite the physical warmth of the studio, Dave admits his mind is currently troubled by a recent traumatic event. A few weeks prior, he was volunteered to run the buzzer and scoreboard for his daughter’s homeschool basketball game. Handed a complex remote control after a mere thirty seconds of hasty instruction, Dave faced the absolute nightmare of simultaneously managing the game clock, tracking points, and sounding the horn for various timeouts and substitutions. Dave notes that navigating the digital “tens place” on a scoreboard requires far more than a grade-school education, describing it as the longest twenty-four minutes of his life. To make matters worse, whenever his daughter made a good play, Dave would become so distracted as a proud father that he completely forgot to stop the clock. Deeply scarred by the experience, Dave concludes he would much rather retreat to his classical comfort zone to parse the irregular, defective Greek verb deiknumi than ever operate a basketball buzzer again.
Housekeeping: The Ratio 4 Giveaway
Before diving into the academic material, the hosts address some critical podcast housekeeping. They are currently running an extended giveaway for a brand-new Ratio 4 coffee machine.
To enter the drawing, listeners must send an email to Dave. However, the hosts issue a stern warning regarding spelling. A new listener named Logan recently reached out to complain that he searched for the podcast online and was subjected to ten minutes of explicit, horrifying content. Dave realizes Logan spelled the podcast title with a “u” rather than the proper Latin “v” (Ad Navseam), accidentally stumbling into a completely unrelated, non-family-friendly show.
To win the coffee machine, listeners must email dave@adnavseam.com (utilizing the proper spelling) and include the secret Latin code word in the body of the text: quattuor. Dave spells the word out on the air (Q-U-A-T-T-U-O-R), noting that while a slight misspelling won’t technically disqualify an entry, the hosts will be deeply displeased and might resort to publicly doxing the offender on the next episode.
The Justice of Zeus: Bearing Reality
The primary focus of Episode 168 is the second half of a two-part series exploring the secondary literature that profoundly shaped the hosts’ development as classicists.
Dave begins with his first selection: The Justice of Zeus by Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, published in 1971. Recommended by a former colleague with the initials USD, Dave read this book right before a sabbatical in 2011, finding it indispensable for understanding the theology of the Homeric epics.
Dave explains that modern readers—especially Christians operating in a post-Augustinian context—often struggle to comprehend the ancient Greek gods. Lloyd-Jones masterfully unpacks this tension, noting a sharp theological divide between Homer’s two great works. In the Odyssey, there is a domesticated rejection of the idea that a god would suggest a wicked action to a mortal. In the Iliad, however, the gods routinely suggest foolish and evil actions to the minds of characters like Paris and Hector. Crucially, Lloyd-Jones points out that the human agent in the Iliad is still held fully, morally responsible for their actions, even if a god ultimately caused them to perform it.
Furthermore, the book highlights that Plato represents a massive theological watershed. Prior to Plato’s philosophical reforms, the Greek gods were not models of perfect morality; as the Professor Richard Wevers used to say, Zeus was simply a “big brute that refuses to die”. Lloyd-Jones concludes his book with a profound observation: the early Greeks were capable of their unique architectural and literary achievements largely because they could “bear very much more reality than most human beings”. Dave interprets this to mean that the Greeks possessed a tragic vision that honestly acknowledged the pain and inconsistencies of the human condition without demanding a sanitized utopia.
The Greeks and the Irrational: Dreams and the Dionysian
Jeff’s first selection is E.R. Dodds’ highly influential 1951 book, The Greeks and the Irrational. Recommended by his dissertation advisor while Jeff was studying the mystery cults in Apuleius’s Metamorphoses, this text fundamentally shifted how modern scholars view the ancient mind.
Dodds opens his book with an anecdote about a young man in the British Museum who confessed that Greek art left him entirely cold because it was all “so terribly rational”. Jeff notes that by the mid-20th century, the academic perception of the Greeks had fossilized. Classicists viewed the ancients purely through the lens of the expressionless Apollo Belvedere—calm, logical, and entirely devoid of deep, subconscious mystery.
Dodds wrote his book to drive a truck through that purely rational thesis. Jeff specifically highlights Dodds’s serious treatment of ancient dream narratives. While modern critics lazily dismissed the prophetic dreams in Homer as mere “poetic convention” or “epic machinery,” and post-Freudian readers viewed dreams merely as the archaeology of the self, Dodds recognized that the Greeks took these visions seriously. For the ancients, a dream was an objective, physical visitation from a god or a ghost standing at the foot of the bed to deliver a command. Furthermore, Dodds explored the necessity of the Dionysian impulse—the chaotic, irrational, ecstatic reality portrayed in Euripides’s Bacchae—as the essential, balancing counterpart to Apollonian logic.
The Theology of Proclamation: Paul vs. the Pagans
For his second pick, Dave selects Duane Litfin’s 1994 book, Saint Paul’s Theology of Proclamation. Recommended by a preacher friend, this text profoundly altered Dave’s perspective on Christian communication.
Dave shares a bit of personal autobiography. When he first began preaching in a local church at the age of 24, he relied heavily on his graduate training in classical rhetoric. He meticulously structured his sermons following the pagan models of Cicero and Demosthenes, utilizing the traditional exordium, narratio, confirmatio, and peroratio. Over the next twenty years, Dave grew increasingly disenchanted with this highly rhetorical, performative style of preaching, but he lacked the historical foundation to articulate exactly why it felt wrong.
Litfin’s book provided the missing piece. Analyzing 1 Corinthians 1-4, Litfin argues that the Apostle Paul explicitly and deliberately disavowed the methods of the Greco-Roman orator. The pagan rhetorician actively sought to induce belief and persuade the audience to action through sheer performative skill; as Plutarch noted, when Cicero spoke, it was as if “lightning flashed from his fingers”. Paul, however, viewed his role as a proclaimer. Litfin argues that Paul believed the creation of pistis (faith) was the sole province of the Holy Spirit, rendering the manipulative tactics of pagan rhetoric completely inappropriate for the Christian pulpit.
Dave notes that the early church took this distinction so seriously that ministers actually sat down in a cathedra (chair) while the congregation stood, a deliberate physical choice designed to remove the performative theatricality of the standing pagan orator and elevate the authority of the Word over the speaker.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Realizing they only made it through three books, the hosts promise to return to the rest of the list in a future episode before thanking their generous sponsors.
- Ratio Coffee: Following a personal phone call with the entrepreneur Mark Helweg, Dave praises Ratio Coffee for bringing excellent, automated pour-over brewing to the masses. The flagship Ratio 8 utilizes a brilliant Fibonacci showerhead to execute a perfect bloom stage, entirely eliminating the brackish tang associated with cheap plastic machines. The hosts also eagerly anticipate their new Ratio 4 models. Visit ratiocoffee.com and enter the promo code ANCO5P (the “P” stands for Platypus) to receive 15% off your entire order.
- Hackett Publishing: For 54 years, Hackett Publishing has kept the literary torch burning by providing attractive, high-quality scholarship at incredibly affordable prices. From C.D.C. Reeve’s translation of Plato’s Republic to the works of Descartes and East Asian studies, Hackett threads the academic needle perfectly. Build your personal library at hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2024 to receive a 20% discount and free shipping on your entire order.
- LatinPerDiem & MossMethod: For listeners inspired by these foundational texts to master the Latin language and ancient Greek, Dave offers highly accessible, self-paced courses. Visit mossmethod.com to go from neophyte to erudite in Greek using adapted texts from Herodotus and Thucydides, avoiding the brutal, rote memorization of the ancient world. Alternatively, explore latinperdiem.com/llpsi to conquer Latin via Hans Ørberg’s brilliantly designed Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To officially close out Episode 168, the hosts extend their immense gratitude to Mishka the sound engineer, and to the talented musicians Ken Tamplin and Scott Van Zen for providing the screaming, bluesy guitar tracks and bumper music.
Dave then delivers the Gustatory Parting Shot, courtesy of the famous Cajun chef, Paul Prudhomme.
Regarding the absolute essence of a great meal, Prudhomme offers this highly unpretentious observation:
“You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food.”
Jeff completely agrees, noting that a filet mignon tastes just as good whether it is consumed with fine silverware or a childhood spork.Check out the “Lurch with Merch” section on the website to grab a QVAE NOCENT DOCENT t-shirt, beware of losing the batteries to the basketball buzzer, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
