This is a very interesting story. Prometheus has pity on humanity and gives it the gift of fire. This angers Zeus greatly. He not only punished Prometheus – sending him to Hades, where an eagle eats his liver everyday – but he also punishes humanity through the medium of Pandora’s box.

This should raise eyebrows in every student of the myths. Here you have Zeus, the archetype of the benevolent God. He is the essence of benevolence. Why is he angry with someone who is basically helping humanity? It doesn’t make sense.

After due meditation on this, it comes to me that Prometheus wasn’t really helping humanity. He was giving them a technology for which they weren’t prepared. They weren’t mature enough to use it wisely as it should be used. Zeus was not against giving fire to humans, only he was waiting for a more propitious time. Giving humans a technology that they can’t handle is a great evil and was destined to cause much damage. It is like giving a gun to an 8 year old, or giving the 8 year old the car. Yes, the technology is marvelous, but if one can’t handle it, it can lead to great evil.

We see this even today. There are amazing technologies waiting in the wings for the human race – things that make computers and artificial intelligence pale in comparison. Yet, the angels who are in charge of these things withhold it for now. Humanity is not yet ready. This is done out of love.

We read of a similar story in the Old Testament. The story of the Tower of Babel. Now isn’t unity – oneness – a great thing for the human race? Aren’t we all striving for this? Why would the Divine destroy the tower – and even further, create different languages and disunity among humans? Again, they weren’t yet ready for this. This unity would only create more evil – they built a tower to challenge the Gods. They would have used this unity to create other evils as well. With one language and one culture, there can arise a global dictatorship. Unfit people in charge of things could inhibit growth and evolution. So, it needed to be stopped until a future time.