James Weldon Johnson’s poem, “The Creation,” is a poem from the Harlem Renaissance that portrays the events of Creation in a spirited manner. However, I disagree with Johnson’s portrayal of Creation and his view of being created in the image of God because it doesn’t reflect a true understanding of Genesis one through two, which was written by Moses and inspired by God. Johnson’s view has the potential to be misleading, and undermines God’s sovereignty. Johnson was not a Christian, and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance was often expressive, which could be why his poem doesn’t reflect Moses’ portrayal of Creation perfectly. If understood from a figurative perspective, the poem can be useful for those familiar with Creation in Genesis chapters …show more content…
Also, God is omniscient and omnipotent, so he likely did not have to think, as we understand thinking, while creating Adam. These small details might seem minor, but actually undermine God’s authority and power. In this way, acknowledging the accuracy of Genesis one and two is important. From the perspective of a Christian, Moses’ account of Creation is authoritative and should be the baseline truth of what the events of Creation are and how they are described. Adding events to the truthful account of Creation in Genesis chapters one and two can hinder one’s understanding. In addition, I find that Johnson’s poem hinders understanding of Creation in a literal sense because it describes God’s actions in a way that can be misleading. First, Johnson uses vivid imagery of how God created each element of Creation, which is wonderful in an artistic sense, but adds faulty details not found in Moses’ account. For example, Johnson describes God flinging the moon into the darkness (line 20), hurling the world (line 24), and spitting out the seas (line 37). Genesis chapters one through two don’t go into detail on how God created these …show more content…
To begin, God is described in the poem as feeling lonely (lines 3 and 69), which was His reasoning for creating the world and humankind in His image. However, Genesis chapters one and two make no mention of God feeling any loneliness. Even so, if the poem is taken from a figurative or artistic perspective, God’s loneliness can highlight His desire for a relationship with His Creation. Additionally, Moses never gave us a reason for why God decided to create the world and humankind, since it is probably a reason beyond mankind’s comprehension. Assuming that we can understand God’s reasoning undermines His almighty power and role. Moreover, Johnson describes God as having limitations on His power, while Genesis chapters one and two describe God as being omnipotent. In line 5 of the poem, Johnson states, “And as far as the eye of God could see.” One of God’s major characteristics is his sovereignty, and Johnson places a limit on God’s sovereignty by suggesting that He does not have the power to see over everything. Nonetheless, the addition of this detail adds a creative nature to his portrayal of
Have you ever wonder how the universe was created? Some people believe in the Earth creation by the Supreme Being, some believe in the scientific explanation of Big Bang explosion theory. Every civilization in the world has its own story of how things are created. Each story reflects how people see and think the world at their time. In this essay, I am going to compare two myths of how man was created – the creation tale of Mohawk Tribe and the Hebrew Bible creation story. There are a lot of similarities as well as differences between these legends. While some differences between the two tales are the development of the stories and the meaning behind the stories, the similarities between them is the concept of creationism.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
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.
The Biblical account in Genesis, probably written by Moses around 1500 B.C., and the story of creation and flood in Ovid's Metamorphosis, written somewhere between 8 and 17 A.D., have weathered the criticism and become the most famous. The Genesis account, however, may be the most prominent of the two accounts. Within these accounts, are many similarities, as well as differences, which make these two writings well respected, while holding their own in the literary world. Though both accounts of the creation and flood are well respected on their own, when compared side to side, they are drastically different.
In The Battle for the Beginning, MacArthur directs believers to recognize the scriptural claim that first three chapters of Genesis concerning creation are the record of a literal and historical event. MacArthur senses a growing shift amongst modern evangelical believers who seek to revise or interpret the events of creation in a non-literal or naturalistic way. Macarthur reasons that a non-literal or naturalistic interpretation discounts what the scriptures says, and ultimately undermines Christian theology. For MacArthur the Bibl...
Moreover, Stern’s explains how God is the creator of all things he is the uncreated [author’s italicization]. Furthermore, he gives in details God’s unfailing love for his creation by showing creation right from wrong. “According to the New Testament, he is love. His love is expressed, in part, in providing law
John H. Johnson was born January 19, 1918 in rural Arkansas City, Arkansas. His parents were Leroy Johnson and Gertrude Jenkins Johnson. His father was killed in a sawmill accident when little John was eight years old. He attended the community's overcrowded, segregated elementary school. In the early 1930s, there was no public high school for African-Americans in Arkansas. His mother heard of better opportunities for African-Americans in Chicago and saved her meager earnings as a washerwoman and a cook and for years until she could afford to move her family to Chicago. This resulted in them becoming a part of the African-American Great Migration of 1933. There, Johnson was exposed to something he never knew existed, middle class black people.
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.
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.
John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910), p. 267.
First, let us analyze the particulars of the Christian Genesis story as to begin formulating the basis of comparison and contrast. We shall look at the two parts of Genesis, the first discussing the formulation of earth and its inner particulars, in concert with the first few verses associated with the second part of Genesis, which touches on the creation of the first man and woman:
This essay will compare and contrast Greek mythology’s The Theogony by Hesiod and the Babylonian creation story found in the Enuma Elish. Both creation myths start off with an empty universe in a formless state. Two chief god entities materialize from this state of nothingness, one represented as a male and the other as a female.
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.
Intro An 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 the stories of 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.
When you read chapter one of Genesis you have the feeling that God is perfect. God holds all power and control. God turns chaos into order. "God said 'Let there be light.' And there was light, And God saw the light, that it was good" (Gen 1. 3). God's word is action, God's word is law in the universe. When God creates something, he ends it with God seeing that's its good. This is in effect giving support to the perfect nature that is God and the creations God has made. "God does not play dice" (Armstrong 9), God has order and a purpose for what he makes. An important aspect to God is seen while he is creating the world. He separates water from land. Light from Darkens, Day and Night, Male and Female. This shows that boundaries are important to God. We see examples where God put boundaries on mankind with their language by mixing the language up so confuse man and killing off the evil from the good.