Adam and his Family- Noah and his Family

Chapter three talks about when Eve is talked into eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by the snake, the ‘most subtil [of] any beast of the field’. Both her and Adam eat of the tree and so they can know the difference between good and evil, and they can also realize they are naked, a factor which they take care of by sewing ‘fig leaves together, and [making] themselves aprons’. Then Lord God finds out and punishes the snake for taking them to their ‘evil sides’ (by making them eat the fruit), punishes the woman by making her suffer when giving birth and gave her husband power over her, and kicks man and woman out of the Garden of Eden.

In this chapter I see god represented in a very humane way, he strolls through the garden, gets angry at Adam and Eve for disobeying him, and gets, dare I say it?, jealous of them becoming his equal, or having the knowledge to do so, therefore he does what he can to keep them from the tree of life and to keep them from becoming immortal and gods. I think most of us have an image of God as always good and peaceful, always in control and almighty, so I think that once you analyze these chapters you realize that he is not at all portrayed like that. This might be yet another false interpretation the Church has engraved in our heads, and it can be quite faith-shattering for some.

Another thing I noticed of this chapter is the ridiculous amount of sexism expressed in it. What is this all about how being punished by God was the woman’s fault, and how women made the first sin? I won’t deny it: yes, Eve ate of the tree that God had forbidden, but I didn’t see Adam very reluctant to try it, or contradicting her judgment. Eve was merely seduced by the snake’s promises of knowledge and it also in part Lord God’s fault, he deceived them by telling them ‘Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ Just to keep them inferior to Himself.

We again see God’s human side in chapter four, when he gets angry and curses Cain for killing his brother, Abel. He is cursed ‘sevenfold’, which I think means for seven of his generations since the chapter also talks about the sons and sons of and sons of several generations following Cain. It is explained how of every son, a new kind of people, you could say, was born. There are nomads, musicians, farmers, engineers, and finally men who believed and followed LORD God, Christians and Jews among them. In this chapter we also see male chauvinism occur, it only says ‘then began men to call upon the name of the Lord’, never including women.

There is some kind of fascination with family trees, and with ages of grandfathers, because there are a lot of parts where that is all we hear about. However, I find it peculiar how some men mentioned live up to nine hundred years, such as Adam, and some lived as few as seventy years, like Cainan. I wonder if this has any story behind it, and you could say I was hooked.

Chapter six, seven, and eight are the story we all know about Noah’s Ark, god sends flood upon the earth but first tells Noah to save himself and his family, and two animals of every species, upon a giant ark. But here we see something that, I at least, had never seen before: why God decided to destroy the world. What I understood is that Lord God saw that people were evil and he thought ‘Oh, I screwed up. Let’s kill everybody!’ This to me shows another very human characteristic of Him, redundantly a bad characteristic. It shows that God saw something He didn’t like, a mistake He had made, and without even attempting to solve it just decided to destroy it. It is like what a lot of people do, wipe a clean slate, turn over a new leaf, but in most cases people at least try to solve it. I don’t like the way God is being portrayed; it makes Him seem inferior to humans morally. But then again, we never know! I would have liked if it was explained why God chose Noah, why ‘found grace in the eyes of the Lord’.

In chapter nine this story is continued, telling how God did basically the same thing he did to Adam to Noah and his sons, gave them power over the earth and every living creature in it, as he had done a long time ago. It is exactly a new start for the world, the same story but different characters in it.

Creation- First Draft

Today we started reading the Bible, the King James Bible.
Chapter one of the Book of Genesis talks about the first six days in which god created Earth and Heaven and everything in it.
Chapter two talks about the seventh day, when He decided to rest, and created man and then created the world for him.

I find these first two chapters kind of confusing, because even though it seems like chapter two is a continuance of the first chapter, it is a completely different story. It describes creation basically in the opposite order of the first version we are told, the former one states that God first created light, Day and Night, then oceans and land, trees and plants, then sea and flying creatures, then land animals, and finnally men. He then gave men power to reign over everything, all this in six days. In the second story God rested on the seventh day and then he created men and all of the creatures to keep him company, including creating a woman out of Adam's own rib.

While reading these stories I don't know what to think, for they sound as if they were the only thing that was true but at the same time they contradict each other. I am also not quite so comfortable analyzing such a religious and known text as the Bible, but it will be a new and different experience.

Phaeton is Back, and Shorter!

Well, the title says it all:

My father lent me his prized chariot.
I lost control, the world perished a lot.

- Daniela Berenguer and Amber Clower

Same Old, Same Old

The story of Baucis and Philemon is one that has been very common in different times and for different purposes, the one I know the best is a story in the Bible.

It's about these two gods who want to test and 'see what people [are] really like'. So they disguse themselves as beggars and knock on 'a thousand doors... and a thousand doors [are] slammed on them'. They get to this shabby looking house just before giving up and are tajen in and fed by an old couple who doesn't have much, but what they do have they use it to help others. Then the gods reveal themselves as who they truly are and the couple is rewarded for their goodness.

This is a touching story, it really is, and it has a very clear message that most everyone can understand, which is probably why it is used and adapted so much and in such different ways. The message that we get is that while everyone else, those who had things to help, rejected these two people in need, these other people, Baucis and Philemon, who had almost nothing, opened their arms wide and welcomed these two stranders into their home and into their lives. This kind of thing can only be described as pure goodness of the heart, and it is admirable.

We also see something that we see in most of the stories in the play: the bond of love. Love is represented towards these two perfect strangers when they are taken in by Baucis and Philemon, and towards each other. When the gods reveal themselves and they offer Baucis and Philemon anything they want, the first thing that comes to their minds and what they both ask for is that they both die at the same moment. Even when they culd have had anything in the world, riches, money, food, they choose a life and a death in love with each other. They cannot imagine the grief of one of them having to live forever without the other one and at the end, when they turn into a tree, blended together, they pass on to eternity with each other, in a loving embrace.

This is a great story, but what depresses me is how unlikely something like that is today. Overuling the obvious flaw thet now-a-days we all live in apartments or would most likely never let a random, and poor, at that, person into our houses, nobody of today's time would be that nice to someone they didn't know. It is horrible to say, but in today's society, class means everything, and you always see people turning away from crippled people in the street, or closing their windows to the people who are begging for change. If we can't even look at peole who are dirty, or people who don't look the same as us, do you really think that we are going to invite them over for dinner at our homes?
Another thing that is probably lost over time is that strong bond of love, or the value of materialistic things. If you asked ten people what they would wish for if they could have one thing, I'm sure at least seven would ask for something related to money or richness. The whole sanctity and integrity of love is gone, replaced by all the fool's promises of greatness achieved by money. It is a sad and horrible idea, but it is probably true.




I really liked this play, and it has started many insightful thoughts inside my head!

Psych Majors

We start reading the story of Phaeton, the son of Apollo, the god of the sun, by hearing him speaking with a psychologist. I myself wondered if therapists even existed at that point in history, but that's beside the point. So what screwed him up so much that he needed a shrink? You might wonder. Oh, he merely lit fire to the Earth, literally, and 'completely and utterly destroyed' himself. It was 'O-V-E-R' for him. And our good friend the therapist links it all back to premature parental neglect. Let's retrace the story:

Phaeton's mother has a one night stand with Apollo, the sun, and out comes Phaeton. Apollo can't be with his son, for obvious duty-related reasons and so Phaeton grows up without a father. Nobody believes him that his dad is the god Apollo so one day he decides to go to him and prove it.
After a hard journey he gets to his father temple, ‘this passage is never easy’ says the therapist, referring to reforming the bond between estranged father and son. Apollo feels terrible for his son and offers him a gift, anything he wishes for. And what else should our rash and youthful youth want, other than to drive his father’s carriage and light up the sky? After all, ‘it’s [his] turn’.
Although Apollo knows it can have horrible consequences, ‘[he] promised’, and so he reluctantly hands over the keys. All the way that Phaeton flies, Apollo is yelling advice, ‘Don’t fly too high, nor too low, stay in the tracks, go slantwise.’
Of course Phaeton ignores him, and he quickly loses control of the reins and of the carriage, it was ‘as if no one was driving’. We know what happened then: he set the earth on fire and fell from the sky.

I think that the fact that this story is played by a young, arrogant boy, who probably had more attention than normal because of his father not being present, has an important meaning. It shows the irrationality of the favor he asks of Apollo, the feeling of superiority, which was really just immaturity, which makes him think he can do his father’s job as well, or better, than him. It is how many teenagers feel, or at least how other people portray them, that they are better than everyone else, that they can do anything that is given to them, and that they have more rights than others to do what they want.

The story also shows that a lot of the times, we don’t know what our actions will lead to, how grave the consequences might be. In this case, Phaeton is seeking proof that his father is the sun, which by the way I find kind of selfish, and decides to do something that seems cool to him, never realizing that his mistake could end as an end to our world.

The story of Phaeton captures perfectly what is sometimes called ‘teenage rebellion’, but one that brought grave consequences to the whole world.


The story of Eros and Psyche tells about Eros, known as Cupid, son of Aphrodite, and his wife Psyche. Theirs was a strange marriage, for they have never seen each other and never should. One night she decides to go see him while he is asleep, for she believes that he is a monster, a belief triggered by ‘her jealous sisters’. While she is spying on him, Eros wakes up and sees her doing so. Aphrodite decides to punish Psyche by sending on impossible and terrifying tasks, but out of her love for Eros, Psyche she fulfilled everything Aphrodite threw at her. In the end, Psyche was turned immortal by Zeus and she and Eros stayed happily married forever.

I think this story shows us the complexity of a human personality, and it shows both good and bad qualities of it. At first we see the impatience and mistrust from Psyche towards her husband whom she supposedly knows, trusts, and loves. She lets herself be influenced by other people into believing things for herself, and that is how she gets into the big mess in the first place. However, we also see her perseverance at making things right. This shows us how strong the bond of love is, and how she realized her mistakes and was willing to go to extreme measures to make them up. And we can see that all her efforts paid off, they both end up getting their Happily Ever After.

Incest!

The story of Pomona and Vertumnus was totally unpredictable to me. Actually, I think it was the story of Myrrha and her father, Cinyras, which surprised me. Again we find ourselves in the circumstance of there being a main story and a story within that one. The big story was about a god called Vertumnus who was desperately in love with Pomona, a wood nymph whose only care was that of the plants and trees and who ‘kept aloof from any suitor’. He dressed up as anything he could think up in an attempt of getting her to fall in love with him, but he failed each time. Once, while dressed up as an old lady, he sat her down and proceeded to say how foolish she was to ignore Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and to tell her the story of Myrrha:

Myrrha was a young girl who, like Pomona, had many suitors but ignored every one of them. One day Aphrodite, tired of being disregarded, cursed Myrrha with an undying passion for none other than her father, Cinyras. The girl suffers from this, thinking that just thinking about it is an unholy crime. Finally, she can resist it no more and with the help of a nursemaid convinces her father to be blindfolded and do it with a ‘pretty girl [who] adores’ him, without knowing that it really is his daughter. After repeating this three times, Cinyras grows curious and takes of his blindfold. When he sees who it is, he looks at Myrrha for a long time, as if refusing to believe it, and then tries to drown her. She escapes and suffers an unbelievable amount, she prays to the gods to ‘change [her]; make [her] something else; transform [her] entirely’. Some say that she turned into a tree, others that she gave birth to a boy named Adonis, others say that she dissolved into tears and into the river.

When he finishes the story, Pomona seems unmoved, but she tells Vertumnus to ‘take off that idiotic dress’ and ‘that ridiculous wig’. Then she goes of with him in his natural form, no disguises needed.

From the mini-story of Myrrha and her father all I can say is how unfair it was for Myrrha. The only reason she was cursed with this was because she didn’t respond to any of her suitors or to Aphrodite’s offers. I think this only reflects on today’s society, where being single or not having a boyfriend is so frowned upon. I find this totally ridiculous, and I find even sadder that you hear so many beautiful, young girls lying or feeling ashamed about not having someone, even though it doesn’t make you a better person, a worse one, or has any difference in you whatsoever. It is perfectly okay to decide for yourself if you want to love somebody or if you don’t, and you shouldn’t let yourself be affected by what other people think or what they say is right. In the story, Myrrha believes that what she wants is so wrong because ‘we have laws’, I find this totally wrong even though, in this case, I agree that incest love is not so normal.

The main story I think has one lesson: be yourself no matter what (and no matter how cliché and self-help book-y it sounds). Pomona paid no attention to Vertumnus when he was wearing all those disguises and acting like all those different people, but in the end she gives him a chance when he is just being himself. No disguises needed.

Back to the Basics

The story of Erysichthon (what a weird name, by the way) is about a guy who didn't believe in the gods, or respected anything that was sacred or related to them. One day he cuts down a tree sacred to the goddess Ceres and she, for revenge, sends Hunger upon him. He starts to eat, and eat, and eat but his hunger doesn't end. He ends up selling his own mother in exchange for some food, but he remains starving. Finally, he destroys himself, his hunger being so urgent that he starts to eat himself.

If you think about it, Erysichthon brings this punishment of eternal hunger upon himself. He disrespects the gods and makes fun of their sacredness and their rituals. I mean, it's okay not to believe in something, which is very common in religion, but what need does he have of mocking the gods, of undermining the system? He thinks he is almighty, and that nothing can affect him, we see this after the tree says 'you will never get away with this' and he sarcastically responds 'Oh, now I'm really frightened' . He speaks to everyone as if they were inferior and he thinks the world of himself, this we can see when the narrator warns him that the tree was sacred to Ceres and he rudely shoves him away and calls his a 'pious son of a bitch'.

I think that in this story, the huger that Erysichthon has is a creative punishment, and a great way of torture, I would say, after seeing what it leads him to do. The hunger could also be a form of greed, it never ends and no matter how much he has he always wants more, 'I need more! I must have more!' 'I WANT MORE!' Erysichthon exclaims. In fact, this undying hunger, or greed, leads him to sell his own mother and to eat his own foot! The saddest part is, I don't think that Erysichthon even realizes what he did to earn this, he is too blinded by his needs to think of anyone else, which is how he always was.

Inside this story there is the story of his mother, which shows a totally different morale than Erysichthon's story. She is sold by her son to a boat man, just so that her son could have more to eat. While she is being forced to row in the man's boat at her old age, she prays to Poseidon the god of the seas, 'Poseidon, if you remember me, come and save me now'. He hears her prayers and brings her into the sea, turning her into the little girl she was before and setting her free to play at his shores. I think that Poseidon helped her because of her good spirit, when she was a girl and she 'gave him praise... shouting as she ran among the waves'. She must have done good deeds in her life because it says that 'that is the kind of sweet, unbidden praise the gods adore and do not forget'.

I think it is really interesting how two stories so controversial as these can take place in one same story and between such, supposedly, close characters.