Did Homer Plagiarize? The Odyssey, the Ifa Tradition, and the African Roots of Greek Mythology

With the release of Christopher Nolan's film The Odyssey (2026), Homer's ancient epic has returned to global popular culture. This article examines the African origins of the Greek gods, drawing on Herodotus's Histories, the scholarship of Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannan and Martin Bernal, and the documented antiquity of the Ifa tradition of the Yoruba people. It presents structural correspondences between the orishas and the Olympians — Shango and Zeus, Olokun and Poseidon, Oshosi and Artemis/Apollo, Eshu and Hermes, Orunmila and Tiresias — arguing that the divine archetypes of Homer's epics existed in African spiritual science centuries before Homer composed his works in the eighth century BCE. Published by Orisha University (OrishaUniversity.com).