No, this is not the book this post is about, but it is an important one nevertheless and seems to go along with a newly published work:
Luz Neira was in charge of the co-ordination and publication of Civilización y barbarie: el mito como argumento en los mosaicos romanos (Civilization and Barbarism: Myths as plots in Roman Mosaics).
A number of specialists in Roman mosaics collaborated on the book, which offers a new perspective in the approach to mythology and its re-use throughout history, which was a result of “a conscious and self-interested phenomenon of re-semantization.”
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/10/2012/mythic-mosaics-conceal-subliminal-messages
Here’s the deal. Dennis MacDonald has suggested (pdf) that a theological crisis involving Homer plagued Mark’s tiny proto-Christian community. Yet, in several recent works, it has become apparent that by the time of the high Empire, the Greek and many of the Roman myths had been lost only to be recovered by the mythographer. Yes, we see Homer (or Aeneid) on mosaics; however, this is little more than patriotic artwork defined not by an acute sense of the meaning of the myth but by the borrowing of the myth to the point that it had become a shadow on the wall. No, Homer does not present the necessary theological crisis for Mark.
As a matter of fact, Homer doesn’t present a theological crisis to anyone – especially since Vergil.
