Don’t Confuse Eve with Pandora

Don’t Confuse Eve with Pandora

By Rev. Lonnie C. Crowe

Hebrews 7:22 (NKJV): “by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant.”

God’s first covenant was with Adam. When Adam ate with the serpent, he entered into covenant with the enemy. Adam’s covenant with Satan brought disease, famine and hardship. However, God stepped in immediately.  In the midst of the curse, He introduced the covenant of grace.  

Genesis 3:13 (NKJV):  “And the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."  The woman recognized the serpent for who he is, a deceiver who seeks to destroy. She recognized the root of the problem. God laid the axe to the root.

Genesis 3:14-15 (NKJV) “So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life. And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

Contrary to faulty Bible exegesis, the woman is not the conduit by which sin and the consequences of sin entered the Creation.  The Bible does not tell us why Adam ate the fruit.  However, it does tell us that Adam was not deceived.  “And Adam was not deceived” 1 Timothy 2:14 (NKJV).  God placed the onus on Adam. ^“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men” Romans 5:12 (NKJV). 

We must be careful not to confuse Eve with Pandora.  According to Greek mythology, the titan Prometheus created men, just males, no females.  He cared for his creation and gave them many gifts. One of the gifts was fire stolen from the gods on Mt. Olympus.  Zeus, the chief of the gods, determined to punish Prometheus by creating a wife for him. 

Zeus commissioned the blacksmith of the gods, Hephaestus, to forge a woman in his smithy.  She was lovely.  All the gods gave her gifts.  Therefore, she was called Pandora which means “all gifts.”  One goddess gave Pandora the gift of curiosity.  Zeus gave her a lovely box as a dowry and sent her to Prometheus.

“Prometheus” means “forethought.”  He thought before he acted.  He saw the lovely woman and reasoned, “Zeus is angry with me.  If he has given me a gift, it must not be a good one.  Therefore, he refused Pandora and her dowry.

However, Prometheus had a twin brother Epimetheus.  “Epimetheus” means “afterthought”.  He acted without thinking.  He saw that Pandora was lovely, gifted and had a dowry.  He married her.  After her marriage, the gift of curiosity stirred within Pandora.  She begged Epimetheus to open the box.  As they lifted the lid to the box, all the evils of the world poured out.  They quickly shut the box before the last thing flew out of it.  They inadvertently shut hope in the box.

In the Greek philosophical mindset, man will always be attracted to woman.  Woman will always bring trouble into his life and this troubled life is without hope.

 

Eve is not Pandora.  She was created as the perfect “help-meet” for Adam. God said that it is not good for the man to be alone.  Woman is his complement.  She completes man.  Because the woman was created from the man, together, they manifest the image of God in the earth.
 

It is the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, the last Adam, who restores us to the relationship first Adam had with God in the garden. When we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, hope is restored.

^”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3 NKJV).