Discuss Plato’s view of creation. Keeping your focus on human identity, compare and contrast his vision with the other visions presented in this unit. Once again, are enough common elements present in these stories to allow us to speak of a European view of human identity? Explain. Finally, compare and contrast the view/views you found in Europe with a vision from Africa and a vision from the Near East.

Timaeus.pdf

     I found that Plato's Timaeus, as our professor indicated, was a challenging read. But it hit me, the second time into it, that the opening dialogue, where Socrates is describing how the “State” should be organized, can be interpreted itself as an allegory for creation. Socrates and his cohorts are almost “playing God” in their analysis of how society should function. They've decided on a division of labor (husbandmen and artisans vs. the warrior/defender class); an acknowledgement of women's functions and the need for these to be “in harmony with those of men”; a surprising suggestion that the magistrates (governing officials) arrange covert matings between disparate members of the population, and disperse the offspring based on their potential (much like how evolution works); and perhaps most revealing, Socrate's desire to see these various members of the State “in motion, or engaged in some struggle or conflict”. This echoes how the gods of Mount Olympus often amused themselves by testing humans under various situations.

     It's interesting to me to see these insights into earlier forms of government (which the U.S. among others borrowed heavily from) and how religion influenced them. It is also impressive to see the amount of logic that was applied by the Greeks in this analysis. Although Socrates at least purports to believe in the gods himself, the discussion has a very scientific discipline about it, focusing on cause and effect- the physics of how the cosmos works.

     My choice for a Greek creation story was“Hesiod: The Five Ages of Man” (Sproul 166-8). Hesiod acknowledges the gods on Mount Olympus in his first sentence, then gives a very cleverly symbolized history of the different “ages” of man that these gods created. By pairing them with grades of metal, each age of man is a de-evolution; each successive one being less pure, more unrefined. And so the first race of men were golden, and lived in a near-paradise. But the gods decided to turn them into guardian spirits, and so replaced them with a silver race of men. These men had long childhoods but when grown led “brief, anguished lives, from foolishness” (167). This experiment didn't suit the gods either. Next came the bronze age of man, a fierce and war-mongering breed who “died by their own hands” (167).

     The fourth age of man enjoyed an elite, demi-god type status- they were heroes, and some even fought at the battle of Troy, but now the remainder live remotely from mortal men, Finally, we come to the current race of man, which is considered the iron age. The description of man in this phase is very bleak, and stresses all his faults and sins. It's a strong analogy throughout, and again reflects a similar scientific mode of thought that we encountered in Plato's Timaeus.

     I chose “From the Soothsaying of the Vala” (173-6) for a northern European myth. Like the Greeks, the Scandinavians had a concept of the “fates”, female deities that could direct the course of mens' lives. But otherwise this Celtic mythos is quite different than the Greek or Roman pantheon, and cast with dwarves and giants. I have to admit my main fascination with this story: I saw at least ten names that appear in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings series. I had read before that he was influenced by the Poetic Edda that this story came from, so I enjoyed seeing the source.

     I had to think quite a bit about how the Greeks, Romans, and other Europeans compared to the African and Near East creation stories. It's a lot to consider. But to choose one basic difference, although all three areas had multiple gods, there's a sophistication in the European gods that the others lack. The lineages of the gods are more specifically accounted for, the stories about them more detailed. It reflects the evolution of scientific thought and inquiry that this area of the world was a cradle for.

     The human identity in the European stories is one where man is at the mercy of the gods, a pawn sometimes in their games. I think that is prevalent enough to claim a consensus of European view on man's place. The Near East creation myths are more kindred, with their similar ranking of man as powerless against the gods, than the African stories where man sometimes drives gods away. The similarities probably result from the proximity the two regions were to each other, compared to Africa's isolation.

Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World. Comp. Barbara C. Sproul. New

            York: Harper One, Harper Collins. 1991. Print.