From Promethues to Adam and Eve - the story of human evolution

Fire has played a crucial role in not only the development of our civilization but our evolution as a species as well. It was the consumption of cooked food that allowed humans to digest foods which were impossible to do so otherwise which in turn allowed our bodies to absorb a multitude of much more complex nutrients. Some say that it was these nutrients which led to the evolution of the human brain in its present form. The brain which made us the dominant species of this planet – the rulers of Earth.

According to Greek mythology Prometheus and Epimetheus were two Titan brothers. Prometheus (whose name means foresight) convinced his brother Epimetheus (meaning hindsight) to side with the Olympian gods in their war against the Titans and thus became a few of those rare Titans who found favour with the gods. Prometheus tricked the gods during an arbitration between them and the mortals. Zeus saw through this deception and was enraged and as a result he decided to withhold the gift of fire from mankind. Prometheus managed to steal the fire from the gods and gave it to mankind which of course made Zeus even more angry.


Prometheus being someone who had foresight warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept any gift from the gods since he knew that the gods would not let the stealing of fire go unpunished. However Epimetheus being hindsight personified never learnt anything until after he had suffered the consequences, hence he accepted happily Pandora - the first mortal woman. Pandora was accompanied by a box which contained gifts from the gods. Curious to know what the box contained she opened it and released vice, passion, labour, old age, sickness and other innumerable evils which would forever cause misery to the mortals.


Although there are slight differences in the story of Adam and Eve in the Judaic, Christian and Islamic tradition, especially as Islam rejects the concept of the original sin, by and large the facts of the story are the same. Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge (the forbidden tree according to Islam) which caused them shame and subsequent expulsion from Eden and the sufferings of mortal life on Earth.


What I find fascinating is how the Greek mythology and the monotheistic religions both seem to be pointing at the same thing albeit from completely opposing directions. The very thing that makes us human i.e our capacity to think is what causes us so much misery and pain. Animals operate on instinct and although we do find emotions present in animals, it is only the human race who feels guilt, lust, anger, emotional pain, depression etc. All these emotions are a result of our ability to process thoughts, in other words result of the advanced human mind.


As I mentioned earlier the role of fire in the evolution of the human mind has been critical, hence the result of the stealing of fire by Prometheus did perhaps open a Pandora’s box in a way. In the monotheistic traditions, even though there is no mention of fire, but again it was the result of eating the forbidden fruit which led to all present day human woes. Perhaps in these traditions we are not talking about the cause i.e. fire but the effect which was the development of the human mind as a result of the food we started eating. Or perhaps the very act of defiance was the first step in being human i.e. Adam and Eve took a decision, a very human characteristic.


In any case it seems that human beings realized early on that the very thing that makes us God’s ‘supreme creation’ is also what makes us most vulnerable to pain. The more we quest knowledge the more we realize how little we know, the more we have the more we want, the more pain we are in the more we crave to be happy, the gap between what we have and what we want seems to be never ending and ever widening and it is this gap which is at the source of our unhappiness.