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Things You Get Wrong About Adam And Eve

The whole story of Adam and Eve seems like a straightforward case, one that can't possibly get too complicated. But, if you know only one thing about human history, it's that we like to make things complicated. And so even Adam and Eve have been filtered through many different tales.

First, as How Stuff Works notes, there are quite a few creation myths that draw upon the basic themes seen in the Adam and Eve story. A divine force creates a small group of people, humanity somehow messes things up (sometimes with the assistance of a devious non-human figure), and we're thereafter alienated from the divine and condemned to toil and suffer. And, all too often, all of the blame gets pinned on a woman.

In ancient Rome, at least according to the poet Ovid and his predecessors, it was Prometheus who created humans out of dirt and water. And Khnum, the ram-headed god of creation, was said to have formed the first people out of clay, echoing the later use of similar terms in the Bible (via Britannica). And consider, as How Stuff Works reports, that head Greek god Zeus created a woman, Pandora, to inadvertently mess up Prometheus' creation groove, to the point where the ancient poet Hesiod used her tale as an excuse to denounce all women.

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Martina Birk

Update: 2024-05-16