The illiad was brought up in the context that it's just as old a book as the bible (actually, even older), and that the two share quite a good deal of similarities in how and why they were written - and that both pretend to present historical reality (and both have been confirmed right on many points), yet people believe the one (Illiad) and not the other (Bible).

IIRC the specific reason for bringing this up was the last, to combat the point some people have tried to make "Well, the bible was right about a few things, so why can't we accept it's right about everything?" by pointing out that the Illiad is right about a few things (existence of Troy, which people didn't believe in until it was confirmed by archaeology ; war over Troy).

The same could be said of the Nihon-shoki (essentialy the Japanesse Shinto equivalent of the Hebrew pre-Christian bible) - just because we know some of what's written in there is true doesn't mean all of it is.