‘The Odyssey,’ the Jews and a history lesson for an Oregon theater

(RNS) — Remind me once again not to rely on movie theater marquees for my education in ancient history.

Lake Theater & Cafe, a small independent cinema in Lake Oswego, Oregon, advertised Christopher Nolan’s new film with this line : “Before there were the Jews, there was … ‘The Odyssey.’” (Full disclosure: I have not seen the movie yet, and I am quite eager to do so.)

It stayed up for days, on both sides of the building, while the Jewish community of greater Portland asked, rhetorically: What does this have to do with the Jews?

The theater manager told the Portland Tribune the marquee message was meant to be an “intentionally subtle” way of saying he believes antisemitism is “exaggerated, mostly as a defense for Israel’s actions in the Middle East and its involvement in our politics.”

It’s also historically inaccurate.

Homer’s “Odyssey” describes events that happened at the close of the Trojan War, around 1200 B.C.E. The poem itself is generally dated to the eighth or seventh century B.C.E. Two different centuries, about 400 years apart, and neither of them is “before the Jews.”

By 1200 B.C.E., when Odysseus was supposedly island-hopping his way home to Ithaca, the…