Narnia as a Supposal of the Bible
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The Magicians Nephew is a Supposal of the Creation Myth in the Old Testament, but a few incongruencies exist.
In the Magicians Nephew, Aslan the Lions role shifts from that of a Christ-figure to that of the Old Testament God. The book is the story of how Narnia was created. From nothingness, Aslan created light. (Lewis 100). The story follows very closely with the Old testament version of the creation myth. Aslan creates a firmament between heaven and earth, then light is created. Water runs through the land, and soon trees and grass are growing, next animals are there, and lastly some of the animals are given the gift of speech. A few incongruence exist, however. The children, the cabby, and the witch all exist before the beginning of Aslans world. They are there in the nothingness. Man was created last in the bible, and created in Gods image. Man in Narnia is not created in the image of Aslan.
The most vitally different part of the Narnia creation story is Lewiss removal of some of the unpleasantness of the story of Eden. The original sin never actually occurs in Narnia. Digory falls to temptation in Charn. “Strike the bell and bide the danger” says the inscription “or wonder til it drives you mad” Digory cant resist striking the bell (Lewis,50). He claims that it was the inscription that had him under a spell just as Eve blames the snake: “The serpent deceived me” says Eve (Genesis, 2:13). Digory places blame not on himself, but on temptation. In Narnia, however, Digory admits to Aslan that he was only pretending he was enchanted by the inscription. Falling to temptation was his own fault (Lewis, 135)
The Witch is the only one who eats forbidden fruit. Digory does not fall to the witchs temptation a second time. The Witch eats the apple off of the tree of life, not the tree of knowledge. (Lewis, 161) In the biblical story, the reason Adam and Eve must be expelled from the garden is that if they eat from the tree of knowledge they have the capacity to do evil, and if they had then eaten from the tree of life, they could be doing evil forever. The Witch, who acts as the first entrance of evil into Narnia, like the snakes introduction of Eve to the idea of eating the apple, exists before Narnias true existence. Lewis may be making a point about paradise here, can a truly pure clean