The relationship between Genesis and Hesiods Theogony

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Religion

Document 1

Greeks, on the other hand, have their firm belief in Hesiod’s Theogony. The two theories have sharply divergent opinions based on their beliefs. Even with the stark difference between the two beliefs, there are a couple of relationships between them. The correlations range from the origin of life, the cultural views God, the existence of heaven and earth, supreme beings, the worth of people, the nature of the universe as well as its future. Thus understanding the relationship between the two beliefs is essential. From the theory, Gaia and Uranus became husband and wife thus giving birth to a couple of children starting with mighty Titans, then Cyclops's and later hideous Hecatonchires (Brown 33). Similarly, Genesis story of creation on the other hand talks of an existence of a supernatural God who created the heavens and the earth (Scult, Michael & Kenneth 124).

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The Genesis Theory explains that God created everything by word of mouth. After the creation of the earth, God commanded everything else to come from the ground including human beings. The connection between the two theories is strong based on the fact that all the created things came from the earth. In the Biblical Genesis story about creation, the bible as well mentions the existence of heaven and earth (White 32). The book of Genesis says that God created the heaven and the earth in the beginning. Before creating the heaven and the earth, there was just a void space with darkness filling the whole space. It means that the face of the deep that was filled with darkness according to the bible is directly relating to the Khaos (air) that was filled with darkness (Erobos) in the Theogony.

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Both accounts thus confirm the existence of heaven and earth. According to Genesis, the Supreme Being is God who dwells in heaven. Other supreme beings mentioned are the angles and the spirit of God. The book of Genesis also gives an account of different foreign gods that were believed to have powers by different communities. The other gods include Baal, Ashtoreth, Asherah, Chemosh, and Molech (Lurker 12). Even though in the scripture according to Genesis the Supreme Being is God, some communities could still acknowledge their gods over God. He named the woman Eve. Even after the fall of man, God still gave the man the power to hard labor and ensuring that he provides for the family. Theogony also illustrates the domination of authority as belonging to the man.

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Hesiod’s Theogony says that it is the man (Zeus) who makes major decisions as well as doing significant duties (Press 220). The duties done by Zeus according to Hesiod were appointing Muses and also assigning Muses different privileges. Eve also deceived her husband Adam until he ate the forbidden fruit. Cain after killing Abel knew precisely where his brother Abel was for Abel had murdered him but goes ahead to deny telling God when he was asked the whereabouts of Abel (Carr 34). He was deceiving himself assuming that God did not know what he (Cain) had done to Abel. The sons of Jacob also lied to their father about the whereabouts of Joseph while they knew that they sold him into slavery.

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Joseph himself hides his identity for his brothers in Egypt. Many chapters in the book of Genesis talk about revenge by both Cain and Lamech (Carr 29). Vengeance is also significantly shown in the Hesiod's Theogony. After Uranus had imprisoned several sons of Gaia the goddess, she (Gaia) rebelled against the husband (Uranus) by siding with Zeus to kill Uranus. After that, Zeus himself was also binding the sons of Gaia. Those who were being bond were Titan sons in Tartarus. From the book of Genesis, a story of some pre-Flood link persons has been recorded. The persons mentioned above are significantly related to the story in the Hesiod's Theogony. They are called the sons of God. The Book of Genesis says that the sons of God were involved in the sexual relationship with the daughters of men.

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Most bible scholars and other Christians believe that the sons of God are the fallen angels (Staubli 464). Both the Book of Genesis and Hesiod’s Theogony have a common argument that women brought curses in the world. In Genesis, after God had created man in His image, he placed man in the Garden of Eden. He, therefore, told the man not to eat fruits from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The woman Eve went ahead and took the fruit and later on passed it on to Adam thus bringing curse into the world. Rebecca, the mother of Jacob, deceives Isaac to bless Jacob instead of Esau. Several marriages have been recorded after the first marriage. The marriages recorded include the marriage between Isaac and Rebecca, Noah and the wife, Lot and his wife, Abraham, and Sarah among many other marriages.

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The book of Genesis also illustrates the marriage between Jacob and his two wives. Hesiod also says in his account that it is good for a man to acquire a good woman. There are several marriages between the gods and the goddesses in his depiction. The Bible began to give an account when God began creating the universe so forth (Krauss 15). In the same way, Hesiod’s Theogony does not explain the origin of Chaos. It just states that in the beginning, Chaos existed and through Chaos, Gaia and Uranus came forth. It is from that point that other beings emerged. There is ultimately no explanation on where Chaos was before the beginning (Drozdek 21). The major themes that are put forth in both the theories are similar.

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The themes might have taken different means of explanation but the underlying concept is similar. The subjects of marriage, the origin of the earth, the unknown origins of the supreme beings, and the societal morals among other major themes have similar directions of establishment. With this focus, the relationship between the theory of Genesis and that of the Hesiod’s Theogony is wide. A closer look at the depth of the religions portrays a clear similarity in the major themes with different approaches of understanding. "A Universe from Nothing: What was there before the beginning of the universe. Lurker, Manfred. A Dictionary of Gods and Goddesses, Devils and Demons. Routledge, 2015. Parker, Robert. "Genesis and power: An analysis of the biblical story of creation.

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