Christopher Nolan's Odyssey: What If the Hero Is Lying? with Jessica Hooten Wilson

Good Faith

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS

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Summary

The Odyssey Isn't About Monsters. It's About Trust.

Before Christopher Nolan brings The Odyssey to the big screen, Curtis Chang and Jessica Hooten Wilson revisit Homer's ancient epic to ask what the story is really about: monsters, homecoming, and the search for truth among intentional lies. They explore why reading The Odyssey still matters in the age of film and AI, how Odysseus forces us to ask who we can trust, and what Christians can learn from Greek myths and pagan gods about the one true God revealed in Scripture.

03:53 - Reading the Homer vs. Watching Matt Damon

05:38 - When to Read the Book First?

11:06 - How "The Odyssey" Changes with the Reader

13:32 - Did A Woman Really Write The Odyssey?

16:50 - What Is The Unreliable Narrator?

23:23 - The Psychological Impact of an Unreliable Narrator

31:27 - A Christian Approach to Greek Mythology

34:37 - Understanding The Greco-Roman Culture of Jesus

41:36 - The Irreplaceable Human Elements of Teaching Literature in the Age of AI

Mentioned in This Episode:

Homer's The Odyssey (Stanley Lombardo's translation)
Homer's The Iliad
Nadya Williams's Christians Reading the Classics
Yann Martel's Son of Nobody
Yann Martel's Life of Pi
Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology
Natalie Haynes's Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
Christopher Nolan's Memento (trailer)
David Fincher's Fight Club (trailer)
An Introduction to 1 and 2 Samuel (The story of King David)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Zeus is the king of the gods. I think he's a pale reflection of our God who is king.
0:07.0	And then you see Athena, she's the goddess wisdom, also in our God. And so what you see is that they couldn't have one God, but they have lots of pale reflections that all find like a fulfillment in God. And so you can take these like small
0:23.8	caricatures that help you understand a little bit about wisdom and a little bit about omnipotence
0:28.5	and things like that. It's so amazing that our God has all of that in him. And he isn't made up
0:35.1	of a combination of all these other gods. He's the one god,
0:38.4	which is the way he referred to himself, even to the Jews, is like, I'm the one god. I'm not all
0:42.8	these little gods. I'm so far above them. And I contain all of them. And I'm bigger than all of them. Welcome to the Good Faith podcast where friends who follow Jesus help each other make sense of the world.
1:08.1	I'm your host, Curtis Chang.
1:09.8	This podcast is produced by a nonpartisan
1:12.4	501c3 organization. The most important cinematic event of the year is about to happen. The release of
1:21.5	Christopher Nolan's movie adaptation of The Odyssey. The Odyssey is, of course, one of the most influential works of literature in the Western world.
1:31.7	Will this movie do justice to that book?
1:35.1	What might we get out of reading the book that only can be delivered via reading?
1:40.3	What are key themes that we should look out for when watching the movie?
1:44.9	These and other questions prompted me to reach out to Jessica Houton Wilson.
1:50.1	Jessica is the Fletcher Jones Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University, and she is my
1:54.9	go-to person to help me appreciate great literature.
1:59.2	Every conversation with Jessica brings me new insights, inspiration to
2:03.8	read, and just plain fun. And I think you'll benefit in the same way. Here's my conversation with
2:10.4	Jessica. Jessica, welcome back to the Good Faith podcast. It's been too long. Thank you. I'm excited. We're going to talk about books again.
2:19.5	We are. And before we begin the actual conversation about the book itself, I need to begin with a personal confession of mind to the audience.
2:31.6	So when Professor Wilson here put the Odyssey on the syllabus and she put on the
	...

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