Humanity vs. Divinity One definition of myth is defined as a widely held but false belief or idea. When discerning the bible and its contents a novice reader tends to think that its stories and characters are myth. The book of genesis can be considered a myth but not in the sense that it holds a false belief or idea. It can be defined as a myth because it contains a story of origin that pertains to a certain event, the creation of life. In Genesis 1-11 we see this story of origin and its transcending affect in the relationship between divinity and humanity. The two primordial stories that focus on the changing relationship between God and man are the garden of eve story and the flood story. These stories will provide pivotal points that forever …show more content…
change the symbiosis between God and man. In traditional Jewish groups it is common to designate a book title by its opening phrase. Genesis in Hebrew ‘is called Bereshith, “In the Beginning”… in Greek genesis means ‘origin’, ‘beginning’, or ‘creation’” (Davidson 3). From the beginning of the Tanakh we are hinted towards a creation of some sort. In Genesis 1:1 - 2:4 we see that God creates light, darkness, land, waters, and sky as well as every living animal that inhabits the earth. Up until this point in Genesis there is no man to rule over the animals and to tend over the vegetation. God creates man and woman in Genesis 1:27 in His image to rule over the fish, birds, the whole Earth, etc. It is vital to note that in this specific verse God creates man and woman simultaneously. This is a Priestly source point of view because of the pairing of man and woman. As well as the way in which the author of the P source uses language to make God create man and woman out of what seems to be thin air. We see a change of authorship in Genesis 2:8, where God this time makes man with his bare hands from the dust of the earth. It isn't later that he creates woman in Genesis 2:22 after creating all the wild beasts and birds in the sky. This is a Jawwistic source because it coins the traditional "Garden of Eden" story. In the J source we see a more anthropomorphic God that cares about his creation. God provides for man by giving him nutrition of every kind. God also lives in the garden with man and talks to him. However, this initial relationship changes due to the man and woman's future actions. In the J source as well, language is used more as a social tool by man to give names to God's creations. It is in this source that human action determines boundaries between God and man. In the J source depiction of the creation of man, it is essential to note that God creates man and gives him a command in Genesis 2:16-17, "And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for as soon as you eat of it, you shall die.'" .
It is after that God creates the wild beasts, birds in the sky, and finally woman. It is made clear within the timeline of Genesis 2:16-25 that God commanded man when woman was not yet created. How could woman have known not to eat from the tree of knowledge if God had not commanded her to do so? Perhaps, man told her or she assumed on her own. In Genesis 3, the snake approaches the woman and fools her into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge. It is at this point that the woman relies on her sense of sight, because she was not told and did not hear the commandment she is left relying on her eyes. The woman uses her eyes and desires for the fruit eventually giving some to her husband (3:6). The tree of knowledge contained the understanding of good and evil which God had, but man and woman did not. Since woman and man ate of the tree, God saw fit to curse them and ban them from the garden so that they would not eat of the tree of life and live forever. It is at exactly this spot where a division between humanity and divinity is made in the garden. A relationship that was symbiotic is no longer present and distance is created physically between God and man. It is vital to reveal that it is God who creates this distance in consequence to the actions that woman and man took in eating of the tree of knowledge. In Genesis 3:23-24 we see the physical separation, "So the LORD God banished him from the garden of Eden , to till the soil from which he was taken. He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life". God
feared that man would attain both knowledge and eternal life if he stayed in the garden. If man had ate from both trees he would have become God-like. This would have made God an equal and the boundary between humanity and divinity would have been forever crossed. Another primordial story found in Genesis 1-11 is the flood story. The flood story is a combination of the Priestly and Jawwistic source. The Jawwistic source however contains a more anthropomorphic God that expresses his feelings. In Genesis 6: 6-8 we see this depiction of feeling, "And the LORD regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened. The LORD said, "I will blot out from the earth the men whom I created- men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of the sky; for I regret that I made them." But Noah found favor with the LORD." God feeling regret and sadness are characteristics of human nature but are an emotional result of the wickedness of man. In Genesis 6 we begin to see a separation between God and man, except for Noah who found favor in God's eyes. In the flood story we see a separation between God and humanity because of the wickedness that was on earth. That wickedness in part had to do with the Nephilim. The Nephilim are according to biblical scholar Rachel Havrelock "the sons of God [who] procreate with the daughters of man" (Havrelock 13). In Genesis 6: 1-4 the Nephilim appear on earth and bear offspring with women. This created a lineage of humans that could outlive the one-hundred and twenty year limit that God had established. Havrelock states, "scholars have suggested that the subsequent flood in Genesis is aimed at silencing the noise of these unions and purifying this divine–human sexual intermixing" (Havrelock 13). Havrelock makes a valid point. Why else would the authors include the beginning of chapters six? Perhaps the Nephilim caused God to destroy the earth with a flood, or mans pure intentions and sinister ways, or both. The physical separation that we see take place in Genesis is brought by water. In the P source we see a burst of water break through the ground, whereas in the J source the waters come as rain. In both sources the water is used not only to create a boundary between God and man but to purify the land from the wickedness. The waters bring about destruction and purification at the same time. It is evident that God at one point forgets about his creation, it is seen in Genesis 8: 1, "God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark, and God caused a wind to blow across the earth, and the waters subsided." By using the word "remember" the author is insinuating that God forgot about his creation for a certain amount of time. It is when God remembers that he stops the waters from flowing on earth and allows for the waters to subside. God is in clear charge of the change in the relationship with humanity. The big difference that we have in the flood story is that after the flood God makes a covenant with Noah and his family. The covenant is seen in Genesis 9:8-11, "And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "I now establish My covenant with you and your offspring to come, and with every living thing that is with you- birds, cattle, and every wild beast as well- all that have come out of the ark, every living thing on earth. I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth". In verses eight through eleven we see God establish a new relationship with man in the form of a covenant. The covenant that God established was a reciprocal one where man and God depend on each other's terms. The structure of society completely changes with the flood because only Noah and his family are left to establish lines of descendants. In analyzing both the garden of Eden story and the flood story there seemed to be many similarities and differences in the way God establishes his relationships and divisions with man. In both stories he physically creates distance between himself and his creation. In the garden of Eden story he banishes Adam and Eve from the garden to station them east. He provides even more security by placing a cherubim with a sword to stand guard. In the flood story he creates a barrier between himself and creation through the use of water. In the flood story, the exception is Noah and his family as well as the animals that were saved. In both stories the initial relationship differs. In the garden story we see a more caring and involved God, where as in the flood story, God only sees mans wickedness. Both stories also have the same agent of change, God. God creates change in both stories through the use of banishment and destruction. The garden of Eden story shows him moving man and woman out of Eden banishing them from the garden. The flood story shows God destroying the land in order to create and establish a new relationship. God is the one who initiates the waters to flood the earth. I saw great similarities in the effects after the banishment and destruction. Both Adam and Noah were no longer provided with nourishment. After the change that manifests from the flood and banishment both men are left to fend for themselves. Adam is no longer provided with vegetation to eat from but now has to grow and care for his own food. It is evident in Genesis 3: 23 , "So the LORD God banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which he was taken". Noah immediately after the flood tilled the soil and planted a vineyard. It is written in Genesis 9:20, "Noah, tiller of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard". Exactly after God banishes and destroys, the men tend the soil to provide for themselves and their family. After both the banishment and destruction we see how the author preoccupies himself with the genealogy of both Adam and Noah's descendents. The last similarity I noted was how quick man reacted towards sin. Immediately after the banishment from Eden Adam's son, Cain kills Abel perpetuating the cycle of sin. In the flood story Noah's son, Ham perpetuates the cycle of sin by seeing his father's nakedness. It is striking the similarities that both stories had with one another. To conclude, it hopefully has become apparent that humanity and divinity have at certain places in biblical text crossed boundaries. Boundaries that specifically were not meant to be crossed by humanity. As a result we have seen the banishment of Adam and Eve and the destruction of humanity in the flood story. It seems that these two stories can fill an entire book but only fill the first third of Genesis. The similarities that both stories had with one another was remarkable. In my reading of these stories it has become clear that humanity aspires to be like God but ultimately cannot achieve to be like Him. The sooner man learns this the less humanity has to suffer.
Creation myths, cosmogonies, explain the beginnings of the universe. The book of Genesis, the Hebrew story of creation, tells of a supreme being who brings light unto the darkness, moves the waters from the land, and gives life (Leeming, 24-25). Mabel, the main character in “The Odor of Chrysanthemums”, finally begins to live her own life after being rescued from dark, murky water by a man who can give her everything she needs (Lawrence, 9-10). Flood myths help to explain events which cannot be controlled, such as natural disasters. The Hebrew flood myth tells of a man named Noah, who is selected, along with his family, to survive an epic flood.
A myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. Each civilization has its myths about the creation of the world and its human race. Most speak of “gods” who perform feats far beyond that of humankind. Most are legends passed down through oral tradition, and embellished along the way. The book of Genesis is one of the most significant books in the Bible and is sacred scripture for Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. The Babylonian epic, Enuma Elish, is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview. Hesiod’s Theogony is a poem describing the origins and genealogies of
Paul Tillich’s description of the original understanding of the word myth as an account of an interaction between the human and the divine are that myths are symbols of faith, which tell stories to portray situations of ultimate concern. Myths may be ‘broken’ or ‘unbroken.’ Unbroken myths are myths which are accepted as literal statements of reality. Broken myths are myths which are interpreted as myths, as symbolic statements of reality.
Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomena in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life sprouting from a seed.
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.
Over the recent centuries, the definition of myth has decayed into a word synonymous with falsehoods and lies. This idea of myths being completely false and therefore useless is a fairly modern one. To combat the rise of empirical science in the 1900s, theologians brought the idea of wholly literal, fundamental religion into being to combat ideas that did not perfectly align with the tenants of the religion (May 24). This was the final death blow to the idea of the metaphysical myth that was already wounded from thousands of years of being denounced as pagan or barbaric. The rise of empirical science also lent to the decay of the meaning of myth. Science was able to explain the natural world far better than a myth ever could; however, it lacked the metaphysical aspect. Due to these rising ideologies, myths hav...
Where Genesis I describes a more ordered creation - the manifestation of a more primitive cultural influence than was responsible for the multi-layered creation in Genesis II - the second creation story focuses less on an etiological justification for the physical world and examines the ramifications of humankind's existence and relationship with God. Instead of Genesis I's simple and repetitive refrains of "and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25), Genesis II features a more stylistically advanced look at "the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (Gen 2:4). While both stories represent different versions of the same Biblical event, Genesis II is significantly more complex than its predecessor and serves both to quantify the relationship between God and his creations and lay the foundation for the evolving story of humankind as well.
Now, to the untrained eye, it may be possible to interpret the aforementioned text as having certain "scheisty" tendencies coming from both the serpent and, believe it or not, God himself. As possible as it may seem, the main theme of the passages of Genesis are not trying to show God as being greedy with the knowledge of good and evil. It isn't like God was worried that Adam and Eve would gain knowledge that would empower them and make them as gods. That is almost preposterous to think that God, the almighty creator of heaven and earth, would be worried about two mortals obtaining a little bit of information. In all actuality, that idea is incredibly far from the truth. God gave Adam and Eve the world, literally. This perfect world, a "heaven on earth", was just given to them out of the goodness of his heart. All they had to do was look over God's creations and enjoy true eternal bliss. As a matter of fact, the only rule that God gave to Adam and Eve was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All they had to do to live in the eternal paradise, with all the cookies and milk they could stomach, was to follow that one freakin' rule. Acknowledging the fact that the serpent (a.k.a. Satan Incarnate) did do its part in persuading Eve to eat the fruit and to give the fruit to her husband. Even still, Eve should have realized that she was risking eternal happiness for the words of a snake.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
The sin stories in the Book of Genesis address theological, cosmic, social, and ethical questions. These sin stories, The Fall of Man, Cain and Abel, and Noah and the Flood, and The Tower of Babel show the functions of myths and demonstrate man's likeliness to sin. These myths let the readers learn of the culture, beliefs, and foundation of the time.
In this paper I will discuss three similarities and four differences between Enuma Elish-The Epic of Creation (King,1902) and Genesis 1:1-3:24 as described by Michael Fishbane (Fishbane, 1979). These writings are selected to describe the story of creation of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth. However, each author has a very different view and way of explaining what they have interpreted the sacred texts to mean.
There are many strange similarities between ancient texts of different cultures. Within these narratives, there are different trappings, but many of the stories remain eerily similar across cultural boundaries; within The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament of the Bible, for instance, there are a number of different stories that are remarkably similar. The story of Gilgamesh and the plant of eternal life are very similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, perhaps the most similar of the stories contained within the Gilgamesh epic and the Old Testament of the Bible is the shared stories of a Flood. Even the Qu’ran, another ancient text from the same region shares a great flood story with Gilgamesh and the Old Testament, however, this discussion will focus on Gilgamesh and the Old Testament, and the various similarities and subtle differences between the texts.
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.
Every ancient society and civilization has creation myths that were passed down and keep alive throughout the passing of time by word of mouth. These myths are the world’s oldest stories and are vital to these cultures because they explain their beginnings and give purpose to their existence. By analyzing and interpreting different creation myths it becomes easier to understand different cultures and their connections and relationships with heir beliefs and god(s).
The relationship between God and his creations humans can be said to be a very complex relationship. Genesis shows us many examples of God's interaction with humans and human's interaction with each other. From the creation of Adam and Eve and all the events that follow afterwards, I shall show what the relationship tells us about the nature of God and mankind.