Not even truth in advertising

I don’t even know what to say about this.

Lake Oswego’s downtown movie theater regularly enjoys attention for the cheeky and pointed messages it posts on its marquee. But its latest signage has baffled passersby—and drawn allegations of antisemitism, both on social media and in more than 100 emails to the business.
The marquee at Lake Theater & Cafe reads, “Before there were the Jews, there was…The Odyssey.”
That message has been met with bewilderment on social media threads, given that there’s not an obvious connection between the events of Homer’s poem and Jewish people. (Odysseus and Moses both wandered for a long time.)
Theater manager Jordan Perry tells WW over email that his intention was not antisemitic but rather a commentary on the timeline of human mythology. The Greek poet Homer wrote The Odyssey around 750–650 B.C., with the formal founding of the Jewish religion following a couple of centuries later during the Babylonian exile (586–538 B.C.). That date is debatable, though, since Jewish people existed before the concept of formal religion, but that’s neither here nor there.

Yeah. I know the history of the Jews is probably a lot more complicated than the Bible would have you believe, but at least there’s archaeological evidence that “Israel” was considered a thing in the Middle East by the 9th century BC, and possibly as early as around 1200 BC if this thing actually does refer to “Israel”, which would actually place it around or even before the traditional date of the Trojan war… to say nothing of the traditional late eighth century date of when the Odyssey and Iliad were finally committed to writing. Quite apart from Perry’s promotional idea being inherently odd, it’s not even accurate. I wish I understood what he was thinking, but I’m not sure he does himself…