School of Suspicion

Tag: Proving Paternity

A child’s father, often a god, is doubted or disputed, and the story turns on proving, hiding or accepting who he is.

  • Ion — The Patriarchal Blessing and the Father of a Nation

    Ion — The Patriarchal Blessing and the Father of a Nation

    Apollo forces Creusa in a cave under the Acropolis, has their son raised in his temple at Delphi and hands him to her husband as the husband’s own. Euripides’ Ion beside Joseph and the supposed father of Luke’s genealogy, the boy Jesus in his Father’s house, Rebekah and Jacob, and the question Athens put to…

  • Phaethon — Chariot of the Sun

    Phaethon — Chariot of the Sun

    Epaphus tells Phaethon that his father is a picture his mother made up, and the boy goes to the Sun for proof. Read beside Herod’s oath, the chariots of the sun that Josiah burned, Plato’s Egyptian priest and Peter’s fire, with Lucian’s boatmen on the Eridanus, who had never heard of him.

  • Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Cain and Abel — The Farmer and the Shepherd

    Eve says she has gotten a man from the LORD. He ploughs, his brother keeps sheep, and God looks at one offering only. Read beside Josephus on the plough, the Targum’s argument in the field, the smiths called Cain and Romulus at his wall, with the prodigal’s elder brother, seventy times seven and Pilate’s basin.

  • Sons of God, Daughters of Men, and Nephilim – The beginning of Ancient religions

    Genesis 6:4 ends with a phrase that belongs to Homer more than to Moses. The children born to the sons of God by the daughters of men, it says, became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. That is heroic vocabulary. It is the language a poet uses of Achilles or of Gilgamesh,…