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Disobeying God In Hesiod's Works And Days

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In Hesiod’s didactic poem, Works and Days, the reader is introduced to the story of Pandora and the Jar. Written in around 700 BCE, this work shows how disobeying the gods may lead to a series of unfortunate events, while also providing modern society a sample on how ancient civilizations attempted to explain why events come to pass much like how Christianity describes the begging of the world and how disobeying God leads to negative events. Both these works give the people something to believe in. Pandora and the Jar can be seen as Ancient Greece’s version of the Bible’s Genesis.
The story begins with ‘creation’, the god Zeus instructed Prometheus to create man, and Epimetheus to create all animals. By giving almost all the ‘gifts’ (such as swiftness and courage) to the animals, there was none left to man but that of to stand upright like the gods. In the Bible, this is represented by God creating man in His image. So, Prometheus, despites Zeus’ disapproval, gave man fire. Enraged, Zeus decided to create the greatest punishment for man, which was the creation of the first woman. So far this attempts to explain why there are …show more content…

He first created all plants and animals, and separated the earth from the heavens. Genesis not only explains how creatures were created, but how the earth was as well. God separates the land from the water (earth), earth from heavens (space), and light from darkness (day and night). After this man is created to tend the earth, and obey God. While Adam is alone, he does not disobey God and everything is ‘good’. God saw that Adam was lonely, so he created woman from one of his Adam’s ribs. Rather than being a punishment, woman was created as a companion for man (Adam). Both Adam and Eve where allowed to do as they pleased except for one thing. Under no circumstances were they to be permitted to eat from the tree of Wisdom, much like Pandora not being allowed to open the

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God trusted him to take care of the garden and pick the names out for all the animals. God and Adam had relationship with each other. He respected the creator and love him for all the great things God done for him. Adam and Eve wanted to know how it feel to have good and evil (Sharpe.2014. pp.3).

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His punishment was to be eternally bound to a mountain while an eagle fed on his liver daily. Another punishment was the creation of a woman named Pandora who was to be married to Prometheus’s brother. As a wedding gift, she was given a box and told not to open it, which of course, curiously, she did, releasing all the evils in the world today. As she closed the box, only hope remained, locked

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The first sentence of the book immediately stood out because it addresses the stereotype that society put women into at that time, “A woman’s environment was the family dwelling, and the yard or yards surrounding it” (Ulrich 13). The reader now knows that a woman’s duties during this time period were strictly confined to the house and nowhere else. However, it is astounding to realize that a woman can learn most of her trades during this time period from the house. It is true that during this time period women were the epicenter of trade it is even stated in the bible, “She is a skilled manufacturer, ‘She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.’ She is a hard-working agriculturist: ‘With the fruit of her hands she planteth a vineyard.’

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Hesiod and Euripides argue that people worship the gods so that they avoid punishment; however, Hesiod argues that the gods are worth worshipping because they also give good Strife to promote productivity, while Euripides argues that blind faith is ludicrous because it prevents people from developing their own moral compass. Hesiod uses Works and Days to illustrate how the gods marked out meaningful tasks for humans, so that humans could always be preoccupied with something productive. According to Hesiod, this makes the gods worth worshipping, because the gods demonstrate how they have humans in their best interests through giving them good Strife, which makes people more productive within their community. In contrast, Euripides uses Orestes

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These fragments have been harder to read since, the use of words, the logic and sequence of events were not as organized as in Poetics. Personally, the origin and the lineages of the Greek gods is not as interesting and significant as Aristotle’s literature. The Theogony centers on these Greek traditions of assigning gods to explain the unknown and nature phenomena. There’s nothing wrong with it since they didn’t have the resources as we do today in order to understand and explain most of the events of today’s world. There are many ways in which society can go back and analyze past events in order to improve the future, I just don’t see the point of going back and analyze how the origin of Greek gods can improve our society and well-being.

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Genesis mainly focuses on the idea of obedience, with mentions of violence and, the importance of family loyalty. This book tells the story of God creating everything. For example, God spoke light into existence, along with animals, plants and, even humankind. Creating humanity was the culmination of his creation. He wanted someone to help take care of his beautiful creation, but consequences came with that action.

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According to Hesiod the story of Pandora comes with the moral that there is no escape from God’s will. Another moral of the Pandora's Box myth is that one disrespects the gods at one's own peril. Through Pandora's Box, Zeus punishes Prometheus' disrespect. The last moral could be that curiosity overcoming good sense can have devastating consequences. In this case , when Pandora's curiosity made her open the jar and made her disobey Zeus, all the evil escaped into the

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He enticed her that if she would eat from it she would have all knowledge just like God. She did eat the apple then it was so good, she ended up telling Adam about it and she asked him to try it, and he did. He ate a bite of the apple too. Once they both ate the apple their eyes were open and sin was brought into the world.

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In “Pandora” the story begins with Zeus gathering all of the gods to create the first woman (83). This story is infamous for Pandora opening a jar that unleashes everything evil into the world, which was described as sickness, creatures in the sea, and animals on land. Hesiod’s story is the explanation that citizens of Classical Greece used to explain the evil of the world (84). Showing Hesiod and Homer’s use of allusion to the Olympian gods in their writings allow historians to further examine Classical Greece through literature. This epic is able to show the relations with nations at the time, the status in which people were held, and cultural art through the popularity of this work.

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