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I was just reading some from the site, Popular Archaeology, and I saw an article which talked about an inscription referring to the “House of David”. Apparently before this inscription was found in 1993, there was a feeling among many academics that King David from the Old Testament was a made-up construct, owing to the fact that there had not been any known references to David outside the bible. Once the inscription was found, scholars had the evidence they needed to conclude that David must have been real.I'm wondering where these scholars thought that such a precedent could have come from. Can you think of any examples from ancient history where a constructed human figure has been inserted prominently into an actual historical account? I suppose in Greek and Roman mythology, gods and goddesses are inserted within the stories of human history (e.g. the Trojan War), but those constructed figures were also given superhuman attributes. In the case of David, he was not given any such qualities.
Isn't Homer a construct? There is no evidence I know of that points to Homer as an actual historical figure. In fact, most of what I have read says he is a construct to put a face on what came down through oral tradition.
Now that you say it, I think I have heard that, but for some reason I have the vague notion that scholars have gone back and forth on that. I may have to check it out, unless someone else knows what the current view of Homer is.
All I have learned is there is no known historical Homer. It's just tradition that he is the composer.
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