The Bible And Ovid Analysis

Roman and Biblical works are often divided into specified categories of beliefs and religion. However, when critically interpreting these pieces as literature, stories within The Bible and Tales From Ovid can be perceived as parallels of one another, and in a more precise manner, prove how Zeus and God act as mirror images of one another. Both myths depict these powerful rulers of the sky in identical patterns most significantly through the tales of creation, rise and fall of humanity, as well as the great flood. Beginning with Tales From Ovid, Hughes represents the world in its premature beginning where in the depths of chaos lay nothingness, no earth to spin around the sun or stars to hang in the skies, simply an all consuming darkness that lined the atmosphere. It was from this disorder that Zeus brought about the first metamorphosis of the world as he sorted the lightness from dark and “gave to each its place” (4). Before the creation of all
Only the ark remained upright and protected, holding on to the last of the world’s living things as the rest had drowned. The wickedness of humanity was demolished as the remnants of the corrupt men and women died similar to how Zeus had commanded, their “limbs outspread, / like a plague of dead frogs” (21). Depicted in stories from The Bible and Tales From Ovid the mirrored roles that The Lord and Zeus play in the creation and destruction of mortals can be best understood from the beginning of creation as the world was molded from darkness, the development of mankind from a golden age of purity and innocence, the downfall of humanity as wickedness outweighed belief, and finally the destruction of sin within the world by means of a flood. Although Roman and Biblical beliefs vary when faced with the argument of religion, when viewed solely as works of literature the parallels between God and Zeus become