Similarities Between Popol Vuh And Genesis

Every religion has its own way of describing how life and earth came to be. It is a very disputed topic. The stories Genesis and Popol Vuh are two religions way of explaining this controversial idea. They come from the religions Christianity and the Quiché Maya. There are many differences between the two tales; however, there are also quite a few similarities. One of the main similarities between these two stories is the fact that there are god(s) involved in the creation of life on earth. Even though Genesis says that there is one god and Popol Vuh says there are many, both stories are about the trial and error the gods face while trying to create humanity. The god in Genesis makes the mistake of letting Adam and Eve roam free in the Garden of Eden assuming they will not eat from the tree of knowledge. Of course, they eat from the tree, with encouragement from a serpent, and were banned from the garden. Later on in the story, “God saw the wickedness of man”(Genesis 70), and so there could be a fresh start, God decided to kill all humans, besides Noah and his ark, with a flood.

In Popol Vuh the gods try many times to create the perfect human. When they used mud, their creations dissolved into the water. When they used wood, their creations could speak, “But there was nothing in their hearts and nothing in their minds, no memory of their mason and builder”(Popol Vuh 81). The gods were angry about this because if the wood people could not remember their creators, the gods would not be worshipped. They destroyed these creations in very gruesome ways, one of the methods of destroying them being a flood. The flood in both these stories represent a fresh start because the flood is the way for the gods to have a clean slate. It also shows that even the gods have flaws and make mistakes, even though they are often portrayed as