Regarding This Node:

What follows is an edited version of an essay I wrote for a university Classical Studies paper. Please note that for ease of comparison, Genesis is treated as a myth (but it is equally important to note that 'myth' does not imply fiction in its original Classical understanding). Footnotes have been shifted to become endnotes. This essay is intended to be an examination of the fall of mankind through the motif of the deceptive gift, comparing Genesis with the Hesiodic myths regarding the Titan Prometheus and Pandora; it does not necessarily represent my views. I've chosen to node it in a scholarly form, as the topic best befits such a presentation. While I was writing it, several people approached me and expressed interest in the topic, so I thought I might node it, as I also found the topic to be very thought-provoking. ^_^

Topic:

Examine the sequence of myths concerning Prometheus' trick of the sacrifice, his theft of fire and the creation of woman (Hesiod, Theogony 535-616, Works and Days 42-105), considering the following issues:
How are these myths related thematically to each other?
And in particular:
How do they collectively define and justify the relationships between men and gods, men and animals, men and women?
Compare and contrast what you consider to be the purpose of these myths with that of the myth of Eden and Adam and Eve in Genesis.

The works of Hesiod regarding the trick of the sacrifice, the theft of fire and the creation of women have long been regarded by analysts as being thematically linked through the concept of the deceptive gift, the fall of mankind from an era of utopia and the establishment of relationships. In a purposive analysis, it is equally possible to compare these myths and that of Adam and Eve in the Eden of Genesis, with a number of striking parallels and contrasts occurring. This essay will attempt to account for the above thematic links, and draw conclusions regarding the state of mankind in Greek and Hebrew thinking.

Thematically, the myths found in Theogony 535-616 and Works and Days 42-105 are interwoven, and it is generally accepted that the differing versions of the trick of the sacrifice, theft of fire and creation of woman (and the ensuing results of this line of events) are complementary, and that each myth elaborates the barely-mentioned elements of the other. Three major themes which are found in these myths are those of deceptive gifts, the gradual fall of mankind, and the establishment of relationships between gods, men, women (once created), and animals. Regarding the theme of deceptive gifts, it is possible to discern a pattern which runs through the myths in question, namely that each event is triggered in response to a trap, trick or deception, finally establishing social norms and causing humans to suffer more grievances than in the past.

Although the different versions of the myths (Theogony and Works and Days) do not agree whether men and gods begin in a state of harmony or opposition¹, both versions agree that a state of tension between Prometheus and Zeus occurs when the Titan attempts to publicly deceive Zeus² during the sharing of ox portions. It is the deceptive gift offered by Prometheus to the father of the gods - bones, not meat, concealed under fat - that sets in motion a series of events that will have serious ramifications for social hierarchies and ritual practices; additionally, in allotting the various shares of ox for both gods and men, men and gods are finally split from an age where they dined together in harmony.

The theme of the deceptive gift is developed further in the myths, with Zeus no longer giving (I.e., hiding³) fire from the mortal men on earth, who have benefited thanks to their protector's "tricking" of Zeus. It is through this action that men are reduced to a state of primitive bestiality, in that they are no longer able to cook meat (thus eating raw meat, the practice of omophagia, just like animals) and can no longer communicate to the gods through sacrifice. Not on par with gods in that they cannot breach the gap between mortality and immortality, men are no longer stationed above wild beasts, but are their equal. This lowering of status is reversed by Prometheus, who steals fire and carries it to give to men by hiding it in a fennel stalk⁴, infuriating Zeus. In a way, however, the gods also benefit from this theft, as they may now receive once more the smoke of the burnt sacrifices.

The final deceptive gift is the woman created by various gods on the command of Zeus - Pandora, "all-gifted"⁵, as she is named in Works and Days. Created from the earth by Hephaestos and animated by the power of the gods, Pandora is not just given the face of a goddess and the body of a beautiful virgin girl, but she is also given the talents of deception, of lying, of consuming both food and sex⁶, yet contributes nothing to the household. Pandora is the ultimate dolos (trap), as she is irresistible, quite literally: not only is she physically attractive to men, they must marry for if they do not, then they are doomed to a miserable aged existence. With the face of a goddess, Pandora is linked to the immortals; with the "morals of a bitch" (Hesiod, Works and Days), she is linked to animals. Thus, as with man, woman is given a social status halfway between the gods and the beasts that walk the earth - not quite either, but a complex mixture of both. It is the human condition, then, to be apart and ambiguous.

Marriage, sacrifice and ills that plague mankind are the by-products of the standoff between Prometheus and Zeus. Marriage, a crucial institution, governs the relationship between men and women⁷, and is the second evil that Zeus sends to men as a punishment, simultaneously to the giving of Pandora – in the very best scenario, marriage is described by Hesiod as being a mixture of good and evil. When Prometheus' foolish brother Epimetheus (ignoring his older brother's warning to accept nothing from Zeus) accepts Pandora, he sets the precedent for marriage, which is considered to be unprofitable - indeed, it is a liability. Pandora is portrayed as a gaster⁸, a stomach which is never satisfied. She has a relentless appetite for food (and implicitly, sex), yet contributes nothing to the household⁹. Even the children which she may bear are ambiguous in nature: on the one hand, they will care for their parents during their old age; on the other, the division of the estate may occur if there is more than one heir (it could also be insensitively argued that if a child dies, then they may be considered to be an economic loss to the household). Beautiful on the outside, internally Pandora is worth no more than the dirt from which she was formed, and exists solely to make the lot of men harder in life. It is thus that she is a deceptive gift, and that the relationship between men and women are defined - this relationship is one of hardship.

The communications between gods and men through the newly established ritual of sacrifice (the product of Prometheus' trick at Mecone, and final splitting of men from the gods) is another relationship set up due to the sequence of events told by Hesiod in these myths. In apportioning the shares of ox, men and gods are irrevocably split. Yet more curiously, however, is the fall of mankind, a theme which finds parallels in the myth told in Genesis. Pandora carries with her, or within her, a pithos (jar¹⁰) which contains all the evils of the world in addition to the enigmatic elpis (hope). It is these evils, when released by Pandora, which further contribute to the degeneration of the state of man (as well as a women, now that they exist), and this theme is analogous to that of Adam and Eve. Moreover, hope is now the perpetual state of human existence, and also defines man as being halfway between gods and animals: "Whoever is immortal, as the gods are, has no need of Elpis. Nor is there any [... for beasts who are] ignorant of their mortality."¹¹

Genesis begins, as Hesiod, with a utopian setting, the Garden of Eden, where man rules over animals, yet is lesser than God. Woman, Eve¹², is created not as a deceptive gift to punish man, but as a companion for Adam¹³ - unlike Pandora who is "unquestionably inferior"¹⁴ to men. Despite this contrast between the myths, a parallel lies in the fact that in both cases, it is woman who directly causes the fall of mankind, ignoring the progression of preceding events. Pandora wilfully opens the mysterious jar (any admonition that she should not do so has either never existed, or has been left out by Hesiod on the assumption that the audience would know of the jar and its significance), causing evils to roam the earth by night and day, harming humans forevermore - no longer do men die peacefully as they once did before the advent of woman. This releasing of evil is comparable to Eve partaking of the fruit¹⁵ on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Although forbidden to eat this fruit, Eve does so, and additionally encourages Adam to follow suit. Upon eating the fruit, Adam and Eve lose their state of child-like innocence, and become aware of their nakedness - this fall from innocence compounds to be a fall from a blissful existence, when the couple are banned from the Garden of Eden and punished further by God's decree.

The punishments of Adam and Eve - to have to work hard to gain sustenance (Adam), and to bear children with hard labour (Eve) - correspond to the punishments on humans which resulted from the original Promethean trick of the sacrifice. Henceforth, men must work hard to obtain food from the ground which had once simply given grains without any difficulty¹⁶. Agriculture has been established, another point of differentiation between man and beast, who does not cultivate, but kills at random. Not only must the ground be ploughed in order to gain anything worthwhile, but the fertile ground of Pandora must also be seeded in order for children to eventuate, a necessity ordained by Zeus - if man has no children, then his estate will be in jeopardy in the future, and he will have nobody to look after him in his old age. Like with Pandora, Adam and Eve are forced to have children by God's decree "...in labour you shall bear children." (Genesis 3:16)

The concept of the deceptive gift may also reside in Genesis - why is the tree of knowledge of good and evil placed in the Garden of Eden in the first place? Yet the more prominent parallel theme to that of the Hesiodic myths, aside from the fall of mankind, is the establishment of relationships. Adam, like Pandora, is a creation of earth - God forms him, animates him, and places him in charge of the animals in Eden, as shown by the fact that Adam is able to name them (and thus hold mastery over them). Adam is thus subordinate to God, yet above animals. The situation with Eve is more ambiguous: it is interesting to note that after their fall from grace, Adam names Eve, perhaps implying mastery. This viewpoint has been questioned, as discussed earlier in the essay.

The sequence of myths in Hesiod regarding the trick of the sacrifice, the theft of fire and the creation of woman are thematically linked through relationships, deceptive gifts and the fall of man from a state of near-perfect existence. A parallel to this set of myths may be found in Genesis, in the myth of Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden. In both, man originally exists in a world without trouble; after the creation of woman, humans begin to suffer as the woman in question (either Pandora or Eve) sets in motion events which lead to a worsened situation and future. Additionally, these myths show that man holds a tenuous and ambiguous position between the gods and beasts, and lives in a possibly unequal partnership with his wife. The establishment of important social customs such as marriage, agriculture and sacrifice are the direct result of the original deception of Prometheus. In sum, the myths contained in Theogony, Works and Days, and Genesis are thematically intertwined, all explaining why humans stand alone between immortality and bestiality, why they must suffer, and what roles both sexes must play. This is perhaps best summarised by Jean-Pierre Vernant, who said

Henceforward, there is a reverse aspect to everything: contact can only be made with the gods through sacrifice which at the same time consecrates the impassable barrier between mortals and immortals; there can be no happiness without unhappiness, no birth without death, no abundance without toil, no Prometheus without Epimetheus—in a word, no Man without Pandora.¹⁷

Endnotes:

1. In Theogony, men and gods are still united when they meet to share the ox, whereas in Hesiod's Works and Days, the scene is different, apparently a confrontation in metis (wisdom) between the Titan Prometheus (representing men) and the Olympian Zeus (representing the gods).
2. It has long been a point of scholarly contention as to whether or not Zeus was fooled by Prometheus at this point. Zeus, embodying wisdom, technically cannot be tricked according to Hesiod, who says that "...there is no way to flee the mind of Zeus..." (Hesiod, Works and Days). Others argue that this is simply a glossing-over, and that Zeus has been fooled, exactly like his father and grandfather before him.
3. That the text uses the word "giving" is significant, as it links in with the theme of gifts: "He bore the trick in mind, and would not give, / To wretched men who live on earth, the power / of fire, which never wearies." (Hesiod, Theogony)
4. It has been argued that gift giving is a cultural refinement of the act of taking, and that in giving a gift, social obligations are imposed (refer to Nagy, p. 191 for further discussion). Here, Prometheus takes what is not given, then gives it through deception (hiding it in the fennel stalk).
5. Hermes names Pandora this as she receives a skill, item or element from many different gods. It is interesting to note that "Pandora" was also a title connected with the concept of the earth mother, in that the earth gave life to all. Hesiod does not recognise this connection, nor does he recognise that men henceforth are from women born - Pandora is said to be the progenitor of the female "race" – "From her comes all the race of womankind..." (Hesiod, Theogony).
6. For further discussion of the concept of Pandora as an economic liability to men, refer to Zeitlin, pp. 49-55
7. It is additionally a point of separation between men and beasts, who often mate somewhat at random. For the purposes of this essay, I defined 'marriage' in a traditional way.
8. This word corresponds to the gaster in which the ox meat is hidden during the trick of the sacrifice.
9. Hesiod choses to ignore the fact that Athena is said to have taught Pandora how to weave.
10. The jar has long been under academic scrutiny. Many analysts believe it to represent female sexuality, and yet others connect it to the general concept of fertility. For further discussion of these matters see Reeder, pp. 195-99 and Powell, pp. 121-23.
11. Vernant, p. 184
12. Eve means "mother of all", a link to the earth goddess connections regarding the name Pandora.
13. It has long been a matter of debate as to whether Eve, created from the rib of Adam, is subordinate to him or not. Although traditionally regarded as such, it has been argued that "...the woman is created as the man's full, equal partner..." O'Brien and Major, p. 92
14. Reeder, p. 278
15. Long regarded as being an apple, the more general word 'fruit' has been used to acknowledge the belief of several academics that this naming is formed merely from the fact that in Latin, the word malum is used to mean both 'apple' and 'bad'.
16. In Hesiod's Works and Days, the situation is given at the trick of the sacrifice that men and gods are already split, as the gods are portrayed as having hidden bios (grains) from humans. This may be considered to mean that the ability to easily gain food by cultivation is no longer an option for men.
17. Vernant, p. 185

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:
• References to Hesiod (Theogony 535-616 and Works and Days 42-105) and Genesis are from my Classics lecture handout - sorry, I can't give specific bibliographic details.

Secondary Sources:
• G.S. Kirk, Myth – Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures (London, 1970) pp. 172-251
• G.S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth, 1974) pp. 136-143
• J.F. Nagy, 'The Deceptive Gift in Greek Mythology' in Arethusa Vol. 14 (1981) pp. 191-204
• J. O'Brien and W. Major, In the Beginning – Creation Myths from Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Greece (1982) pp. 80-122
• B.B. Powell, Classical Myth (Upper Saddle River, 2004) pp. 111-23
• E.D. Reeder, 'Pandora' in Pandora – Women in Classical Greece, ed. E.D. Reeder (Baltimore, 1995) pp. 277-279
• E.D. Reeder, 'Women as Containers' in Pandora – Women in Classical Greece, ed. E.D. Reeder (Baltimore, 1995) pp. 195-199
• J-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, trans. T. Lloyd (Brighton, 1980) pp. 168-85
• F.I. Zeitlin, 'The Economics of Hesiod's Pandora' in Pandora – Women in Classical Greece, ed. E.D. Reeder (Baltimore, 1995) pp. 49-55