God and Human in Paradise
There are many stories about paradise and creation of humanbeings in different religions and cultures. I will focus on two stories, one is Genesis, and the other one is Ovid’s Metamorphose. These two stories reveal many differences, but both Genesis and Ovid agree that the human is the leader and keeper of paradise. Here I want to develop the idea of relationships between god and the human in paradise.
From Ovid’s narrative, I regard God as the creator of humankind. God needs a ruler in paradise. After he created everything, then he created humans and gave them the intelligence to rule the paradise. The paradise, which is the first period of human history, is defined as a “Golden Age” by Ovid. Ovid said: “As yet there was no animal capable of higher thought that could be ruler of all the rest. Then Humankind was born” (Ovid 2). God created everything first and created human last, and let them balance and lead all the rest in the paradise. God trusted and believed humankind had the ability to rule the world, because god gave them intelligence. At this point, I think god created humans to complete almost perfect paradise. God had confidence in humankind and let it be. From Genesis’ narrative, god is not only the creator of humankind but also the teacher of humankind. It is different from Ovid’s narrative; God “prepared” every living thing in his mind in Genesis 1, and bring it into physical form until Genesis 2(Lee)”. Genesis 2 said god made human first, and then “God planted a garden in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed” (Genesis 2:8). The Garden is considered as the paradise by Genesis. At the same time, “Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is good for food” (Genesis 2:8). Like all the other animals and plants, a place to live and food are the most basic elements to keep humans alive. But, god made the first command to the man: “till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). God commanded the man to control and lead the most basic environment he needed. Also, god limited him not to eat the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15). Then, to improve humankind to a higher level, god thought the man should not be alone (Genesis 2:18). “He formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them” (Genesis 2:18). The second direction from god was asking the man to name animals that the man would live with. God considered animals as humans’ friends, and humans would be trained as the leader of them. From my point of view, naming and leading animals were more difficult than tilling and keeping the living place and trees. It was a step by step learning process for the man. Next, God took out one of man’s ribs to form woman (Genesis 2:18). The woman came from the man and had the same intelligence as the man. Genesis called the woman as the man’s wife. So, it was a much higher level of learning for human. From Ovid’s and Genesis’ narrative, both of them mentioned paradise was a place of bliss, felicity, and delight. There was no difference between humans and the other animals if they don’t have knowledge. Humans needed to learn the skills, rules, and responsibilities to rule the world. Therefore, humans in paradise were like newborn babies; they needed to be taken care of. A comfortable environment like paradise was perfect for humankind to grow up and learn the new world. From Ovid’s notion, god provided humans a comfortable place to live and gave them intelligence so that they could learn by themselves. Genesis’s story implied that god provided a paradise for humans and taught them to learn the world step by step. On one hand, I considered that the intelligence mentioned by Ovid was more similar to an