Popol Vuh And Genesis Comparison Essay

In the stories the Popol Vuh and Genesis, the gods punish their creations because they “regret” it, but the punishment is very different in each story.

In Popol Vuh, the gods destroyed one of their own creations, the creation of wood people: “Then came the end of the effigies carved of wood, for they were ruined, crushed, and killed. A flood was planned by Heart of Sky that came down upon the heads of the effigies carved of wood. The body of man had been carved of tz'ite wood by the Framer and the Shaper” (Popol Vuh 121-124). In Genesis, Yahweh also decided to destroy his own creation, the creation of man: “And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and

the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them” (Genesis 6:7). The similarities are that, in both stories, the gods punish their own creation by destroying them; the gods regret of their own decision of creating people and severely punish them.
On the other hand, there is a big difference in the types of punishments in those two stories.

In Popol Vuh, the gods created the mud people to have them worshipping the gods, “Thus, let us try again to make one who will honor us, who will respect us; one who will be a provider and a sustainer” (Popol Vuh 89). However, the mud people had no knowledge while speaking; they could only look in one direction, and they could not worship the gods. Because of that, the gods punished the mud people by toppling them, “Therefore they undid it. They toppled what they had framed, what they had shaped” (Popol Vuh 94). Nevertheless, in Genesis, Yahweh created humans, so they would be happy. The only thing He asked them was to not disobey Him, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16,17). Because they disobeyed Yahweh, they were punished by having to leave the garden and “suffer.” The differences in the types of gods punishments is that, in Popol Vuh, they punished the mud people because they were not capable of worship them; it was the gods’ fault in creating people like that. In Genesis, Yahweh punished Adam and Eve because they chose to disobey him, and not because Yahweh created them

“wrong.”
The Mesoamerica destruction story is told that way to pass a lesson for the people like: we all make mistakes (even the gods); sometimes mistakes are good, and sometimes mistakes are necessary to improve our creations.