In Genesis 3 the Serpent tempts Eve into taking the fruit off the tree, she and Adam eat it and they are cast out of Eden. In persuading Eve and subsequently Adam to eat from the forbidden tree the Serpent is the tempter or trickster. He says that if Adam and Eve eat the fruit “then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” A non-human character that tricks others and as a result opens their eyes, gives them knowledge of good and evil and raises them to the level of gods is not unfamiliar to us. This description sounds very similar to Prometheus.
Prometheus is a cunning, trickster character who due to his tricks leads Zeus to punish all man-kind. In Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound Prometheus claims that “though men had eyes to see, they saw no avail” later he claims that he “cleared their vision to discern signs from flames, which were obscure before this.” Even though Prometheus claims to enable me to read smoke (potentially for purposes of divination) he is claiming to opening men’s eyes; like the Serpent claims to do. When Prometheus gives the gift of fire to men; he gives a gift that only the gods had before. When he steals fire from the gods he makes men like gods, which is one reason Zeus is so livid with him. In this way Prometheus is like the Serpent again. When Prometheus gives men fire and Zeus retaliates by giving Pandora and her jar of evils; men come to learn good and evil. They have the benefits of fire but all the ills of the world as well. As a result of the Serpent tempting Adam and Eve; they were cast out of Eden and became civilised with agriculture and later metal working. There are obvious comparisons with Prometheus giving men fire so that they could be civilised, as a result of this they also get the need for agriculture as a further punishment. It would be also true to show their similarities when looking at the punishments for the Serpent and Prometheus. Both of them are mutilated by the ruling god; the Serpent loses his legs and is made to go on his belly, Prometheus is chained to a rock to have is liver pecked out by an eagle. Now, none of this is a ground-breaking comparison as there are many similarities between Prometheus and the Serpent. I, on the other hand, think there other comparisons to be drawn from these two myths.
In Genesis 2.25-28 God makes the beasts of the Earth. No-one interrupts him or damages his creations; there are as he made them. These animals include the Serpent. Whatever the Serpent did thereafter was because that was the way he was made and he can’t be criticised because of that. In my opinion, Pandora was the same; Pandora and women were criticised for centuries because of Pandora’s actions and attributes. It was not her fault that she was beautiful but had many unpleasant character traits because that is the way she was made. Let’s suppose an alternative Pandora existed. Let’s look at a hideous, undesirable but sweet natured Pandora. She is offered to Epimetheus who rejects her because of her looks. As more men reject her; her sweet nature becomes twisted and as a result she opens the jar which previously she thought she should leave alone. But now as a punishment to men she releases all the ills of the world. Now this is a Pandora to criticise, she turns nasty and purposefully seeks to cause ruin for the world but the actual Pandora didn’t do it intentionally, it was what she was created to do. We don’t criticise a car because it can’t float, most cars aren’t made that way therefore we don’t expect it of them. If we expected Pandora to be a perfect and supportive wife it would be unfair, she was never meant to have that role. Both she and the Serpent were meant to be evil in a way. The Serpent was meant to tempt and trick Eve; Pandora was meant to ruin the advantages of fire.
This leads me to think of why this might be. Zeus’ dislike of men is well documented in Prometheus Unbound. Prometheus claims that Zeus desired “to bring the whole race to an end” and that he alone dared to stand against him. If this account of the myth is to be believed then Zeus had it in for mankind long before Prometheus chipped his two cents worth in. But why would God create an individual that would ultimately end up ruining what he had created. Were humans ultimately set up and meant to fail? Either the snake was meant to turn Adam and Eve away from God’s commands or he made Adam and Eve in such a way that they would easily be persuaded to disobey. If we don’t blame the Serpent as I have previously suggested then the blame does seem to fall more heavily on Eve and Adam. In Genesis 2.28 God makes man to have “dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth”. If Adam had dominion over every living thing and Eve was equal to Adam then surely they could have told the Serpent “no”. In that respect it is Adam and Eve’s fault that men were not able to live in Paradise.
This draws a nice comparison between Eve and Pandora. There is an obvious similarity between them in that they were blamed for “the fall of man”, as it were. They both abused their respective forbidden items, the jar and the fruit which led to life being harder for men. Both Eve and Pandora were created after men, not only does this make them slightly alien but also it reinforces the male dominance of the society that recorded this and the characters in the myth. But I can see a startling difference between both women; Pandora is made to be a punishment and Eve is made to be a helper and companion. Eve does have a rebellious and sinful side which she demonstrates when she takes the fruit well in the knowledge that she shouldn’t. Pandora opens the jar but there is no mention in Hesiod’s account that she was told not to, in fact she was designed to open it. In this respect Pandora is almost innocent of the crimes that she unwittingly committed whereas Eve is defiantly not blameless.
While there may be several characters in both myths that are to blame for the events that harmed mankind there seem to be two who are more at fault than the others; Zeus and God. Even though it was Eve who took and ate the apple; she was made with an inquisitive nature. She should have known better but ultimately if God wanted Adam and Eve to remain in Eden then he wouldn’t have put that side to her personality there. In fact he wouldn’t have put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden at all. What was the purpose of the tree? If God is as all powerful as we are lead to believe then surely he could remember this knowledge and not need to enshrine it in the fruit of a tree. Was the tree a test of Adam and Eve’s obedience and if it was why did God feel it necessary to test them? If he didn’t want this to happen then he shouldn’t have put the tree and the humans with questioning natures in Eden at all. This leads me to conclude that God wanted them to fail. Zeus is at fault because, according to Hesiod, he could see the trick that Prometheus was trying to pull with the sacrifice. In Theogany Hesiod writes “He [Prometheus] spoke meaning trickery, but Zeus whose designs do not fail, recognised the trick and did not mistake it, and he boded evil in his heart for mortal men”. Zeus wanted to make life hard for me so he let events play out and stoked the embers to reach his goal. As far as I can see both these gods are far more to blame than the characters they bent or created.
Bibliography
Theogony
Hesiod (trans. M.L.West)
Oxford, OUP, 1999
Works and Days
Hesiod (trans. M.L.West)
Oxford, OUP, 1999
Book of Genesis 1-4
King James Version
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