Comparison of Genesis with Other Creation Mythologies
We all know that our mothers and fathers gave us birth, and grandmothers and grandfathers gave our parents birth. However, what about the beginning? What does the beginning look like? Who created the sky, the earth, the mountains and rivers, the plants, the animals, and the human beings? How was the world created? What happened to the creator? These questions have puzzled and are asked by every people. However, no one has yet found the answers, and I have heard people saying that the creation of life is as impossible as the natural creation of an airplane from a stack of waste. With the willingness of knowing the self, ancient people tried to create mythological stories about the creation. One of the most famous accounts of creation is presented by the Hebrews in the Book of Genesis. Besides Genesis, almost every culture has its own creation account. Some are remarkably similar and some are contrary, but all are attempts to answer the above questions.
Narrations of creation presented a variety of scenes before the beginning. Most accounts emphasis the nothingness, darkness, and chaos. Genesis describes that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Genesis 53). It implies that God was the only "thing" present in the beginning and nothing else. Also, the first created earth was dark with only water. The nothingness in the beginning is also found in the Rig Veda of the Indians : "The even nothingness was not, nor existence. There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it. What covered it? Wher...
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...al stories. But, there is some confusion. Two similar, but somewhat different, creation stories are jammed into the Book of Genesis because people are not sure of how they are made. Rig Veda recorded that "But, after all, who know, and who can say whence it all came, and how creation happened?...Whence all creation had its origin, he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, he, who surveys it all from highest heaven, he knows--or maybe even he does not know" (Genesis Project). Out of confusion, people created these stories about creation. Their focus are the same, what the beginning looks like, who created everything, and how.
Works Cited
Genesis. The Norton Anthology of World Literature: Expanded Edition. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.
Lin, Yang, and Mei Lu. Myth Stories. Hubei, China: Hubei Juvenile Pub, 1993.
The second creation myth I will examine in this essay is of Greek origin and is known as The Five Ages of Man. This myth begins wit...
Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. "Genesis." The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
...nt in both style and content. Where Genesis I portrays a creation in which an omnipotent God forms order from chaos and places mankind at the center of this new world, Genesis II delves deeper into the roles and origins of man and woman and their reason for existence. This juxtaposition of simple story and deeper meaning further illustrate the Hebrew culture's societal evolution and its conscious shift to a patriarchal system - a parallel transition from chaos to order.
The very early creation legends are difficult to trace to their original sources, since they were passed along by word of mouth from one generation to the next. There are many different legends about the origin of the earth, some similar to those told in other cultures. It is interesting that most of these legends can be tied together in one or more ways. The Greek and Inuit tribe versions of early existence are related in many ways.
The account of creation is found in the book of Genesis. Chapters one through eleven tell of how and when God created the Earth, the Heavens, all forms of life and everything else in the Universe. Genesis also tells stories Adam and Eve as well as all of their descendants. Genesis is part of the living Word of God, providing details of the character of God, the principles of man, and man’s relation to God. Most importantly, Genesis offers teachings on the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization.
As human beings, we are designed to belive in something. Although the belief in a higher power or religion is diverse, many theologies share common themes. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and the Hebrew book of “Genesis” are seemingly polar opposites. Christianity, demonstrated in Genesis, is monotheistic, and the Hebrews base their faith on their relationship with God. On the other hand, Sumerian philosophy, found in Gilgamesh, is polytheistic, and the Sumerian people base their theology on fear. Ancient polytheistic literature forms an archetypical pattern of the mortals trying desperately to please the gods. A mortal’s entire existence rests in the hands of the sometimes childish gods. In spite of this, these two stories
The two creation myths chosen to compare and contrast focuses on the Norse culture of Iceland Vikings and the Genesis creation of the Hebrew origin of Christian culture. Both creation myths begin with an empty void where chaos or conflict develops. The Norse myth narrates a conflict between the fiery realm of Muspell and the dark, cold realm of Niflheim within the emptiness called ginnungagap and where nothing could grow. The Genesis conflict was between God and nothing, loneliness, and the need to create something beautiful.
The creation myths that I have studied are similar in many ways. They also have differences that show an inherently different way of thinking about the world. All have creators-gods that make the world into what is now. There are conflicts within their world, and these conflicts change the face world. God to god or human to god maybe be involved in these conflicts. Their bloody struggles prove who is more powerful, causing change in the control of the world. Some gods are beneficial to man and others are self-serving, using man only as a tool.
Throughout the world there are various cultures with varying religions and creation stories to explain the creation of the Earth and it’s inhabitants. Of these creation stories two with similar and also different characteristics is the Creation story in the book of Genesis which is a part of the 1st Testament in the Hebrew Bible and explains the creation of Earth and humans, and the Theogony which is the greek creation story that describes the origins of the Earth and the Greek Gods. Both the Theogony and the Creation in Genesis show nature as a blessing for humans but it can also affect them negatively, However the myths differ in the ways that the Earth and humans were created and how humans interact with the deities of the creation stories.
There is one question that almost every human being has asked throughout his or her lifetime ask. That question is who created everything? Each culture throughout time has usually produced some sort of creation myth. One popular creation myth that is still being followed today comes from the Book of Genius. Another popular creation myth that is not really being followed today but is still well known is Greek mythology. Both creation myths have similarities, difference, and explain several natural phenomena. Both myths have or had many people that followed, lived, and value these myths daily.
As the first book of the Old Testament convey, Genesis, and its Greek meaning “in the beginning,” life originated with God in the Garden of Eden. Accor...
When the modern person ponders the formation of human beings, our mind automatically goes to Adam and Eve, whom were the first man and woman created by God according to the Book of Genesis. Before there was Adam and Eve, diverse cultures came up with myths about the construction of humans. These myths included: “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, An African Creation Tale, From the Popol Vuh, and A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” Each one of these legends gives a diverse perspective on the creation of human beings.
Throughout history many civilizations and cultures have had their own ways of explaining the world and its creation. Each of these civilizations has created unique descriptions and accounts of such events. However, when comparing them to each other, are they really different? Look at the ancient Greco - Roman creation myths as told by Hesiod in his Theogony and Works and Days and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when compared to the creation myths as seen in the Old Testament’s book of Genesis they may not be as different as one would think. Taking a more in-depth look at both Genesis and Hesiod’s and Ovid’s work more closely, the reader can see that on multiple occasions the myths have almost identical similarities which reflect their views in society. The similarities in particular are the myths of the creation of man, women with their subsequent role of evil in ancient times, and the great floods. These similarities prove that even though these two scriptures were centuries apart, the concepts presented in each myth were almost identical to one another.
Within the texts of Genesis which belong to the biblical scriptures of the Hebrews, and the myths of Egyptian origin, there are a multitude of similarities and differences. When compared side by side, the most obvious factor of both texts is that a single God was the creator of all that we know today. In Genesis that creator is simply referred to as God, while in Egyptian mythology, the creator is known as Neb-er-tcher. Both creators have striking resemblances, such as the ways they went about the production of the world.
Genesis is the first creation story. God creates, establishes, and puts everything into motion. After putting all of this in motion he then rests. He creates everything on earth in just seven days. Before creation Gods breath was hovering over a formless void. God made earth and all of the living creatures on earth out of nothing. There was not any pre-existent matter out of which the world was produced. Reading Genesis 1 discusses where living creatures came from and how the earth was formed. It’s fascinating to know how the world began and who created it all. In Genesis 1 God is the mighty Lord and has such strong power that he can create and banish whatever he would like. His powers are unlike any others. The beginning was created from one man only, God.