Transcript: Teaching Mythology Episode 008: Pandora and Eve

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[00:00:00]Lesli:    Hello, and welcome back to the teaching mythology podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about Pandora and Eve and the first women created in Greek mythology and in the Judeo-Christian mythology.

[00:00:28]What is [00:00:30] really interesting is that. Both of these myths portray women in the exact same way. And you can sum up. The story of Eve and Pandora, by saying that women’s curiosity, curses the world.

[00:00:46]First, I want to start out by saying that. I did not teach the story of Eve in my high school mythology class. It was a little bit too close to home for my [00:01:00] Christian students. And. I myself am a Christian. But I can look at the Bible as a mythology. Which is simply a collection of stories that teach us about man.

[00:01:11] And God, our relationships, they teach us morals and lessons. So it’s not uncomfortable for me to refer to the Bible as mythology and also believe in the Bible. But I totally understand how this might be uncomfortable for others. For the podcast. [00:01:30] I wanted to do a comparison in case you are in a situation to be able to teach both of these texts.

[00:01:36] So let’s start with the myth of Pandora. Pandora was the first woman created in Greek mythology.

[00:01:43]And to kind of put her into her place within the story and to connect with last week story. Prometheus’s created man. Right. He gave them fire and he was cursed by Zeus for this. Well, Prometheus [00:02:00] has warned his brother. Epimetheus to never accept a gift from Zeus. That Zeus could never be trusted. And.

[00:02:10] I mean, I have to say for me, Prometheus, has it kind of right. You know, Zeus. Killed his own father. Right. And Zeus. Fell in love with Metis actually got her pregnant, but you know, we’ll talk about that in a later myth. And then [00:02:30] completely abandoned her. When he met Hara. So, you know, he’s a person who’s, or he’s a God who is prone to follow his own whims.

[00:02:42] His own desires, his own wants his own needs.

[00:02:45]Well, Zeus is bent on revenge for what Prometheus’s does. And he punished his Prometheus’s in his own way. By tying him to a rock and letting an Eagle eat his liver out every day. [00:03:00] But he also is not quite done with revenge. At this point. He hates human beings. He hates that. They have power without him. He hates that.

[00:03:09] They were given fire from. Mount Olympus. So.

[00:03:13]He decides that he needs to punish mankind as well. So he creates.

[00:03:19]The first woman, well, actually Zeus does not create the first woman. It’s actually, Hephaestus, who is the God of fire [00:03:30] and the patron, God of the craftsmen. He asks Hephaestus to fashion a woman. Out of the earth. And.

[00:03:39]Hephaestus does this. And then each of the gods bestows upon this woman who has Pandora. Gifts. Now some gods give her gifts like the gift of beauty. And sweetness and kindness and caring. They also give her gifts like jealousy. And. Insecurity.

[00:03:59][00:04:00] Another gift that is given to Pandora is a jar. Now in HESI odds. Ads version of this story. This jar contains all manner of misery and evil in the world. And Zeus tells Pandora. Do not open this jar. Here’s a gift for you. But do not open this jar. But one of the gifts, the Pandora was also given by the goddess Athena.

[00:04:28] Was the gift of [00:04:30] curiosity. Because, Athena knew that this was a good thing. And a bad thing. And she’s witty and cunning. And she also is very devout and a faithful follower to Zeus. Right. Well, Zeus sends Pandora to Epimetheus who forgets the warning that Prometheus’s gave him to never accept a gift.

[00:04:53] He falls in love with her. They marry.

[00:04:56]Well time. Goes on. [00:05:00] And eventually Pandora opens this jar and out flies. All of the evils, you know, death destruction, hatred, famine, curses, you know, bad weather. I don’t know what all is in this jar. But all of it flies out and she hurries and shuts the jar.

[00:05:19]Trying to stop it, but everything has flooded out. But the last thing to come out. Was a little it’s described as a butterfly. And it [00:05:30] represents hope. That there are still something to hope for in this world. And so not all is lost.

[00:05:38] In another story, there’s actually not evils contained in this jar. But actually blessings. That would have been preserved for the human race. If Pandora hadn’t have opened the jar. So in that version, when she opens the jar, all the blessings reserved for the human race, fly out. [00:06:00] And are lost.

[00:06:01]I don’t really like that version. It doesn’t really fall in line with Zeus revenge, hating mankind, kind of a deal. But it’s there nonetheless. So when I would teach the myth of Pandora in class, we would examine this myth. We would read it. But then I taught students how to make an origami box. And in the box.

[00:06:24]They would put in what they thought were the evils of mankind. And I had them use [00:06:30] moths. To represent the evils of our world. And then a butterfly that represented the hope of our world. And it became a little bit of a social, emotional project. I didn’t mean for it to be personal for students, but so many of them.

[00:06:49] Lesli (2): Would put the evils in as something really personal, so on their moth, they would decorate it,  with what colors or symbols represent that evil. And on the [00:07:00] back. Or on a separate piece of paper, they would write down what the evil was and why they chose it. And so many of them would reference kind of.

[00:07:11] The bad things that had happened in their own lives. And.

[00:07:15]It was heartbreaking. And it really reminded me how much our students go through, even though. My students were only 16, 17 years old. They had been through so much. [00:07:30] So many students would put on. The evils of this world, they would put down. Suicide. And there was. Quite a lot of students in my high school that I taught at who committed suicide a few years ago.

[00:07:45]It was incredibly. Tragic and it impacted the lives of so many of my students. Oh my gosh. I’m going to cry. Just thinking about it.

[00:07:54]And generally for my students, their hope. [00:08:00] Was the future or their hope was their family.

[00:08:05] What was meant to be an exercise in teaching symbolism. And looking at universal themes. And universal. Motifs in our world. Became. This really personal. Activity for some students, not all. But for the majority of them, And. It kind of became a theme in our class to look [00:08:30] for the butterflies.

[00:08:31] To look for the hope. Because it’s out there. And no matter what Zeus does to mankind. And we see this later on in the myths. They prevail. And we only have to look at the hero stories to see how humans are quite remarkable. And that they’re able to overcome. Incredible challenges. Right. And granted, they are blessed by the gods.

[00:08:58] But [00:09:00] there’s something resilient about the human spirit. That allows that to happen. So.

[00:09:05]Well, the myth of Pandora can be kind of depressing. There is still hope in it.

[00:09:13]So let’s switch over to the myth of Eve in the garden of Eden. So Eve is the first woman created in the Judeo Christian. Belief system. And she is actually created from the rib of Adam. And she’s meant [00:09:30] to be a help meet for him.

[00:09:32]And.

[00:09:33]When Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden, they were told that they could eat from any of the trees except for this one. The tree of knowledge of good and evil.

[00:09:43]And it seems like for a time and quite a long time, we don’t know how long Adam and Eve were in the garden of Eden. They didn’t eat from the tree. And eventually. Lucifer or Satan. Talks to Eve. And tempts her. [00:10:00] And she takes the fruit from the tree of good and evil. And eats it. When this happens. Death comes to the earth for the first time.

[00:10:12] Adam and Eve are banished from the garden of Eden and they live their life in toil, working for their bread.

[00:10:20]So it’s really interesting in these two stories that women hold the fate of mankind. They’re the ones that bring [00:10:30] about.

[00:10:30]Bad things to the earth and good things as well. So Pandora brought hope and it’s kind of described that mankind before Pandora lived in, a sort of. An existence without any feeling or emotion, there was no ups in, there were no downs. They just existed almost like. Cattle for the gods, which by the way, that’s how the Egyptians viewed themselves, that they were cattle.

[00:10:56] Of the gods. It’s crazy. So.

[00:10:59][00:11:00] So she brings about evil or kind of the bad things that happen in the world. But she also brings about hope. And for Eve, they also existed in sort of this status that they couldn’t progress. They couldn’t grow. There was no. Happiness. There was no sadness. There was nothing. They just existed in the garden of Eden. But when she takes the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

[00:11:27] That’s quite a handful. Then [00:11:30] she now gains knowledge. And she understands for the first time. That they were commanded to go forth and multiply upon the earth. And so she now understands. That in this existence that they’re in. They can’t have children. And so this brings about the human race. This brings about children. This brings about families, right?

[00:11:55] Does it bring about sin and transgression as well? Definitely. Does it [00:12:00] have. Satan being able to influence people. To do bad things. Definitely. But it also brings about life. As we know it.

[00:12:10]So they’re very, very similar myths. And so let’s talk about some of these other similarities in the way that the ancient world viewed women.

[00:12:20]First the ancient world views women as bearers of life. And you see this across eight gent cultures. [00:12:30] Every culture has fertility goddesses. And every culture has female fertility goddesses. This is very important. But especially in these two myths, women are seen as the bearers of evil that they bring evil into this world.

[00:12:46]Now.

[00:12:47]This evil or the actions of Pandora and Eve are what create the world. As we now know it. But what’s really interesting. Is that both of these stories have women [00:13:00] bringing about evil into the world. Because of their curiosity for Pandora, it was what was in this jar.

[00:13:06]And for Eve it was, what about this fruit?

[00:13:10] What is the taste like? What will happen if I eat it? They’re both tempted. By these things. And they both succumb to those temptations. You could say. That curiosity. Is both of their fatal flaws.

[00:13:28]What’s also [00:13:30] interesting. Is that there’s also the element of revenge in both of the stories.

[00:13:36]So they’re almost mirrors are reflections of each other. Because in the myth of Pandora is a God seeking revenge against humans. Right. Zeus seeking revenge against a man because a Promethease. Zeus wanting revenge because he doesn’t want man to become mighty or great or powerful.

[00:13:57]In Eve story. [00:14:00] This is a story about revenge from Satan. Against God. That Satan is angry that he has been cast out. And he now wants to curse mankind. And stop God’s plan. Right.

[00:14:16]So super interesting. The, both of these have the motif of revenge in it. And unfortunately mankind is the one who suffers the punishment. For other people wanting [00:14:30] revenge for God’s being involved in revenge. And.

[00:14:34]They’re innocent. This is a story that plays out. Across Greek mythology, especially where the gods treat humans. As expendable. That they can do. Whatever they want to humans that they don’t really matter. They turn them into monsters at will. And punish them for the silliest things.

[00:14:57]But ultimately both of [00:15:00] these myths show that their belief systems. are patriarchal systems. They are patriarchal societies and they are patriarchal religious societies. So, what we often see in patriarchal societies is that. Power comes from diminishing the role of women. Or the power of women within that society.

[00:15:25]Or within that culture or within that religion. There are many more [00:15:30] female goddesses in Greek mythology that are powerless. Essentially. Hestia gives up her place on Mount Olympus for a man. We’ll talk about that later. We have Hera who tries one time to overthrow Zeus fails and then never attempts it again and then takes out all of her revenge.

[00:15:51] On humans after that. Right. We have Demeter. Like, they’re kind of. I don’t know, they’re not [00:16:00] as powerful as Aries or Poseidon or Zeus or Haiti’s who have all these strong powers and all this influence.

[00:16:09]Right. And then when we look at Judeo Christianity in both Judaism and Christianity, Especially ancient Christianity. Men were the leaders of the society. And men were also the religious leaders of those of this society. And they only believe in one male, God. So it’s [00:16:30] really interesting how. Ancient cultures.

[00:16:35] Preserved their culture. Through their myths. And their myths reinforced their own patriarchal societies. So it’s cyclical, right? The myth reinforces the culture and the culture reinforces the myth. And it keeps. going. So. That is a myth of Pandora and Eve. I hope you enjoy it. I think the myth of Pandora is [00:17:00] definitely something that should be taught in a mythology classroom. If you want to check out the lesson that I did when I taught the myth of Pandora.

[00:17:09] I put the link in the show notes. You can head over. To teachers pay teachers and buy it if you want. And I hope you find it helpful.

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