Punishments From The Gods In The Biblical Book Of "Genesis" & Homer's "The Odyssey"

Many different authors utilize the religious beliefs of their culture through literature. The deities that are in the Biblical books of Genesis and Homer’s The Odyssey contemplate the nature of their gods in their respective societies. Through the readings of both Genesis and The Odyssey we see actions in which Adam, one of the main characters in Genesis, and Odysseus, the main character in The Odyssey are punished by God/gods and denied from their homeland. Both characters perform actions which then lead to conflict with the biblical God and the gods that are in The Odyssey.

The conflict that these characters face puts them in a situation where they realize that their actions would furthermore lead to consequences. It was on the sixth of the creation story when God decided to create mankind in his image, he created male and female in the image of God. Both male and female were blessed. After days of creation the Lord took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden so that he could be the caretaker. The Lord than pursued to give the man this order, “ You are free to eat from the any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat: when you eat from it you shall die”.

At this moment the man whose name we find out is Adam knows that if he disobeys God’s instruction there will be a punishment with a major consequence of death. While Adam was sleeping God decided to make a woman out of one of Adam’s ribs. Now, we meet the snake, the most trickiest animal that God has made. The snake asked the women, “Did God really say, You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The women answered to the snake saying they were only allowed to the fruit of the trees and specifically not from the tree which was located in the middle of the garden. She knew that the punishment was death and she told the snake, but the snake who was cunning replied by saying, “ You will certainly not die! God knows well that when you eat of it yours eyes will be opened and you will be like the gods who know good and evil”.

The women fell into the trap of the snake and listened. She decided to to eat the fruit from the tree and gave some to her husband, Adam. Due to their rebellious action against God, He came and told Adam he can not eat from the tree no longer. “ Cursed is the ground because of you! In toil you shall eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you and you shall eat the grass of the field. By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; from you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Adam obeyed the voice of his wife rather than listening to the Lord.

The consequences he faced were serious. The ground was cursed and now Adam had to work hard to get his food. Adam was punished for his disobedience and all of mankind shared the same punishment. Odysseus was a Greek hero from the Trojan War in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. When he was fighting against the Trojans he had to use his cunning personality to trick the Trojans. In doing so he had a big wooden horse made and hid his men inside of the horse. The Trojans fell for the trick and took in the wooden horse through the gate entrance. Late at night the men escaped from the horse and attacked the Trojans, defeating them in the war. Unfortunately for Odysseus this caused Poseidon to hate him because Poseidon sides with the Greeks.

On the way home from Troy and the Trojan War, Odysseus landed on the Island of Cicones. He urged his men to take what was needed , but they did not listen to him, instead their greed had kept them on the island. While looting, the Cicone Army attacked the men and his men were fighting bravely, but were losing. Six benches of men from the ship had died. Due to Odysseus’s poor sense of direction he landed on the Island of the Lotus Eaters. The Lotus is a plant that puts you in a daze and makes you lose a grip on reality. Once the plant is eaten, the eater does not know anything or doesn’t care for anything other than eating the plant. Odysseus sent two of his men to look around the place, when they didn’t come back , he went to go look for them. He found the two men eating the lotus plant resulting in Odysseus tying the men up and bringing them back to the ship to sail away.

Odysseus then decides to sail away and ends up on the Island of the Cyclops. The men are in serious need of food and water. They find a cave with cheese and wine, but little do they know the troubles facing them ahead. “ Strangers! He thundered out, ‘now who are you?” The men ran into a cyclops named Polyphemus who lived in the cave. Odysseus gave him an answer to why they were in the cave in the first place and Polyphemus wasn’t having it. “ Not a word in reply to that, the ruthless brute. Lurching up,he lunged out with his hands toward my men and snatching two at once,rapping them on the ground he knocked them dead like pups”. Due to his anger he ate two of his men. Using his cunning personality Odysseus tells the cyclops his name is nobody and intoxicates him so that he says that nobody attacked him.

Before escaping the cave Odysseus and his men stabbed the cyclops with a sharp stick. “ I dragged it from the flames, my men clustering around as some god breathed enormous courage through us all. Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point, straight into the monsters eye they rammed it hard”. When leaving the cave Odysseus finally revealed his name which was a big mistake. Unfortunately Odysseus didn’t know that Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea. The cyclops called upon his father to wreak vengeance on Odysseus for injuring him. With Odysseus revealing his name, Poseidon knew exactly who to target. Odysseus's journey home didn’t go exactly as planned. As Odysseus was traveling home on his makeshift boat, Poseidon whom was still mad at him, destroyed his boat by sending several storms through the sea, to make it even harder for him to travel home.

Fortunately for Odysseus, he was able to stay alive and he washed onto the shore of Phaeacia. There he is helped into a palace where he is welcomed by King Alcinous and Queen Arete and tells them his story, they are left in awe and offers him a ship. Odysseus is finally ready to sail back home to Ithaca. After twenty years Odysseus is finally home. With the book of Genesis being in the Bible Adam truly offended the Lord God from his actions. God put him on the earth for one reason and it was to cultivate and care for the garden and not to eat the fruit from the tree in the middle, but instead he disobeyed God’s command and decided to eat from the tree in the middle. God acted the way he did because He specifically gave Adam instructions and told him if he broke the instructions he will suffer. God manifests the emotion of disappointment with him for disobeying Him and listening to his wife over the man who put him on earth.

The action of Adam is divine because it was from an act of God that produced effects in the world. The reason of this action was as an act from God to show us that if we do something wrong from God’s point of view we will get punished. Since God simply told Adam what not to do, he deserved the right punishment. The punishment could have been death, but instead God made him work hard for his food instead of getting it handed it to him from the trees. Odysseus simply had offended Polyphemus and Poseidon. With Odysseus performing his actions against Polyphemus, his dad Poseidon got mad for him tricking and blinding his son. Poseidon acts the way he does against Odysseus because he has had enough of him and is very angry with the actions performed against his son. The actions from Odysseus are divine in the case because it lead to nature producing effects of a storm in the sea which lead to him having a difficult ride home.

Odysseus was fortunate enough to be alive in this situation. His punishment was bad which was traveling through a storm in the sea, but it could have been a lot worse. Through both of these books we see ways in which the main characters Adam and Odysseus perform actions that lead to them to face consequences. We see actions of divine that the gods create due to their poor decisions which eventually hurt them in some way. From both of these readings we can compare the punishments performed by the gods from the poor actions from Adam and Odysseus and see how the are similar in some sort of way.