The Book Of Genesis: An Ex Nihilo Creation Myth

So the story goes— God says, “‘Let there be light.’ And there [is] light,” he says “‘let the dry land appear.’ And it [is] so.” The book of Genesis outlines an ex nihilo creation myth, the narrative of God bringing the world from nothing. This cosmogonic myth addresses a question crucial to human existence: Where did we come from? It also addresses another human universal: Why are we here? We came from God and we are here thanks to Him, alive to serve Him, to be the “good” that God so hoped humanity would be. As Robert Segal writes, “[t]here is no study of myth as myth”. In this paper I will examine myth according to two perspectives (one of myth as a prescientific science, the second as a psychological point of view) and through two religious lenses (the Christian creation myth of Genesis along with the Hindu Rig-Veda hymns “The ‘Golden Embryo’” and “‘In the Beginning…”) as I explore the religious functionality of myth, and what that functionality indicates on a greater human scale.
A myth is, by broad definition, a story of significance. Whether that significance is spiritual, cultural, or individual, it is a

significance that transcends narrative with its time-tested themes and addressing of those human universals that permeate our day-to-day. The importance of a myth is a placed importance, there because the audience or the speaker recognize the story as a method of understanding an otherwise unknowable reality. This reality that myths present is one separate from direct consciousness, and thus the truth that is embedded within mythic narration is a metaphorical truth. Myths don’t require concrete fact to still retain their significance. When discussing myth, a working definition of “truth” is necessary— as the writer, I will ask that the reader shift the question of factuality as a necessary facet of truth to the side. For the purpose of this paper, we must agree that myth exists within “its own mode of reality”. Mythic stories approach reality allusively— though mythic origins lay in a lack of understanding, created as a mode of explaining natural phenomena, myths have since evolved to a place where they stand as a presentation of virtue and of morality.
Creationism and evolution seem to stand at odds— the idea that our world is God’s creation, that we are humans made in God’s image as opposed to the formation of man by nature, made to be the humanity that we are today through systematic mutation; and yet, it is possible to be religious and still believe in evolution. The interaction of myth and science is one that can be understood through a questioning of natural phenomena. Primitive mythology sought to apply order to a world they had only one way of understanding— through a conception of some divine force that powered the Earth’s functioning. The natural world works in such flawless harmony that, without science, it is easy to understand how prescientific cultures would be pushed to explain it through a conscious understanding of the sacred. Creation stories were written in an attempt to answer basic human universals: Why are we here? How did we get here?
The mythological answers to these questions were prescribed to for so long that such myths remain crucial to our understanding of religion and of humanity— mythical symbols and the beliefs that myths perpetuate create a divine reality that runs parallel to ours and aids the believer in understanding both the history of her religion and the mythical reality that spirituality exists within. While science and the empirical evidence that came with scientific discovery disproves the literal or directly historical reality of many religious myths, it is possible for religion and science to coexist. By the time evolution had empirical evidence, biologists were ready to escape the doubt that the divine foundation of their studies cast. Upon Darwin’s discoveries of natural selections, biological scientists had grown “self-conscious[…] over their continued reliance on miraculous explanations at a time when natural laws had supplanted divine activity in virtually every other area of science”, but many biologists still placed their belief in Genesis and in divine creation. The open-ended and figurative nature of creationism allows room for scientific beliefs and ascriptions— the pastor and the scientist need not be at odds.
As myths were written in attempts to place order on a seemingly orderless universe, they are a conscious representation of steps toward human understanding. Their truth here is irrelevant, especially when considering myth from a Jungian psychological standpoint. Psychologists recognize that “the subject matter of myth is symbolic[…] but the literal or historical level need not be true to manifest the psychological level”; the creation and acceptance of myths are indication enough of the psychological standings of believers and mythic storytellers, along with the idea of a collective subconscious that Jung presents in his studies of myth. In Jung’s theory, myths stand as a representation of human beings’ collective fantasies and archetypal ideals. Sri Aurobindo also identifies the collective unconscious as it is represented within Hindu mythology, stating that while myths probably had “a naturalistic and astronomical origin[…] their original sense had been supplemented by a psychological symbolism”. This idea of the collective subconscious is exemplified in the similarity of myths across cultures and religions with classic plotlessness and archetypal characters. As a psychological tool, myth is an indication of a human implication toward both certain narrative formations and questions that seem to be unanswerable.
“Was there a below?

Was there an above?” the Rig-Veda asks, “Who knows truly? Who can here declare it?” In the scheme of human universals, the Rig-Veda asks the most abstract. What was there before there was humanity? From where did our existence come and why do we continue to exist? Myth answers some questions and asks other. Myth allows us to both question our beliefs and solidify them, build new ideologies and reinforce preconceived notions. God is great, God is good; when God says there is light, there is light— when he names the darkness night we ascribe a human construct to the divine. When we ask of the Gods, what came before? What will come after? They have no answer but the myths they’ve written through our hands and told through our tongues. Through myth we’ve codified a theological language and transcribed our beliefs to narrative

form.
Myths explain and rationalize. They are stories of significance that have been built across the millennia of human existence, that stand on a foundation of universalities. Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is truth really? Myths attempt to answer questions while at the same time asking new ones; myth challenges and supports; myth approaches a reality that is not entirely within this plane of existence. Myth is not only a mode of religious belief— it stood for centuries as a way of understanding the workings of the world before empirical evidence existed to support any claims of mutation or genetics or the Earth moving at thirty kilometers per second around the sun; it indicates an inherited general subconscious that humanity may not be distinctly aware of. Myth is scientific and it is psychological. Whether from a Christian perspective, seen through a Hindu lense, or from the point of view of a Buddhist, myth is significant and it is important— for understanding our own ignorance, and for finding truths where otherwise there would be nothing.