Homer is the vehicle not only for the story of Troy, but also for much of what is known about Greek mythology, prehistory, geography, religion, and the arts. To abjure the last 2,500 years would be to lobotomize his enterprise. One might compose music in the late twentieth century for Renaissance period instruments, but it would always be, like theme park castles, a replicated rather than authentic air. If David's psalms give individuals language for emotions and obligations and joys and predicaments predicated upon the Fall of Man and the Law, then Homer's poem is of the other eternity. There, gods are just like men who live forever, and can do what they please.
Nobody knows what they have in mind.
The godlike heroes do what they must, and die. Unlike the psalms, however, the Iliad takes no sides. Laurance Wieder is a poet and writer.