Comparing Ovid And The Bible

When critically interpreting Roman and Biblical works as pieces of literature, rather than viewing the religion, stories within The Bible and Tales From Ovid can be perceived as parallels of one another. In a more precise manner, the myths of creation, rise and fall of humanity, and the great flood show how Zeus and The Lord act in identical patterns as mirror images of one another. Beginning with Tales From Ovid, Hughes represents the world in its premature beginning where in the depths of chaos lay nothingness, no earth to spin around the sun or stars to hang in the skies, simply an all consuming darkness that lined the atmosphere. It was from this disorder that Zeus brought about the first metamorphosis of the world as he sorted the lightness

The description found within Genesis shows that before the Spirit of God intervened, “the earth was without form, and void; and the darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2 King James Version). Just as the introduction of creation within the Tales From Ovid told the story of how Zeus had pulled the world from darkness and produced the first instances of life, in Genesis there was a void of nothingness that filled the spaces of the world and allowed chaos to reign before God constructed light and divided it from darkness. From this point, God creates the world in all its beauty and the life upon it, and eventually the arrival of man. The continuous metamorphosis of the world from good to evil shown in Tales From Ovid resembles the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. In this manner, the earliest stage of humanity in Roman literature began in a golden era just as Adam and Eve began their journey in the Garden of Eden. God created man and woman and placed them in a holy place of purity granting them access to anything they desired, but commanded them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if they did “thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 3:17 King James

After the first bite, their eyes were opened to a new perception of the world, now understanding the concept of good and evil. This was the first step to humanity understanding the insight of the gods, just how Zeus witnessed as men began to see themselves as superior beings to the gods. The balance in the chain of creation was disrupted, and Adam and Eve hid from God. The Lord was angered by their disobedience, banishing them both from the golden era of Eden, and multiplying their sorrows.
Steadily, the offspring of Adam and Eve began the same journey from gold, to silver, to brass, then iron as time advanced. Wickedness consumed the world as families began to slaughter one another, and voices that once carried hymns of praise were replaced by the screams of battle cries. God watched, seeing that “the wickedness of man was great on earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5 King James Version). Only one family still held the fear of God within their hearts, and the Lord took pity upon them warning them of the flood to