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90-541: The Genesis creation narrative is the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity , told in the Book of Genesis ch. 1–2. While the Jewish and Christian tradition is that the account is one comprehensive story modern scholars of biblical criticism identify the account as a composite work made up of two stories drawn from different sources. The first account, in Genesis 1:1–2:3,

180-495: A Canaanite myth in which God creates the world by vanquishing the water deities: "Awake, awake! ... It was you that hacked Rahab in pieces, that pierced the Dragon! It was you that dried up the Sea, the waters of the great Deep, that made the abysses of the Sea a road that the redeemed might walk..." The first creation account is divided into seven days during which God creates light (day 1);

270-401: A plot and characters who are either deities , human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore ('at that time'). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for

360-539: A classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types: Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber , a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion. An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes

450-597: A common origin in the eastern Asiatic coastal region, spreading as peoples migrated west into Siberia and east to the North American continent. However, there are examples of this mytheme found well outside of this boreal distribution pattern, for example the West African Yoruba creation myth of Ọbatala and Oduduwa . Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in

540-499: A female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the beaver , the otter , the duck , and the muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island. In a similar story from the Seneca , people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief's daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but

630-457: A firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.' 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. On day two, God creates the firmament ( rāqîa ), which is named šamayim ( ' sky ' or ' heaven ' ), to divide

720-564: A hole opening to the underworld to stories about their subsequent migrations and eventual settlement in their current homelands. The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fish in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically . In both cases emphasis

810-690: A king, God has merely to speak for things to happen. On day one, God creates light and separates the light from the darkness. Then he names them. God therefore creates time. Creation by speech is not found in Mesopotamian mythology, but it is present in some ancient Egyptian creation myths . While some Egyptian accounts have a god creating the world by sneezing or masturbating, the Memphite Theology has Ptah create by speech. In Genesis, creative acts begin with speech and are finalized with naming. This has parallels in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. In

900-463: A large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce a single law code accepted by the entire community. According to this theory, there were two powerful groups in the community, the priestly families who controlled the Temple, and the landowning families who made up the "elders," which were in conflict over many issues. Each had its own "history of origins," but

990-443: A literary bridge at Genesis 2:4 , "These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created." This echoes the first line of Genesis 1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth", and is reversed in the next phrase, "...in the day that the L ORD God made the earth and the heavens". This verse is one of ten "generations" ( Hebrew : תולדות toledot ) phrases used throughout Genesis, which provide

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1080-696: A literary structure to the book. They normally function as headings to what comes after, but the position of this, the first of the series, has been the subject of much debate. The overlapping stories of Genesis 1 and 2 are usually regarded as contradictory but also complementary, with the first (the Priestly story) concerned with the creation of the entire cosmos while the second (the Jahwist story) focuses on man as moral agent and cultivator of his environment. Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for Jewish mythology . Both sources behind

1170-408: A man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by waterfowl . A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on

1260-498: A more "scientific" model as imagined by Greek philosophers, according to which the Earth was a sphere at the centre of concentric shells of celestial spheres containing the Sun, Moon, stars and planets. The idea that God created the world out of nothing ( creatio ex nihilo ) has become central today to Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – indeed, the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it

1350-465: A myth is not a defining criterion. Although Orthodox Jews and "fundamentalist Christians" attribute the authorship of Book of Genesis to Moses "as a matter of faith," the Mosaic authorship has been questioned since the 11th century, and has been rejected in scholarship since the 17th century. Scholars of biblical criticism conclude that it, together with the following four books (making up what Jews call

1440-795: A number of codifications were developed, such as the Twelve Tables of Roman law (first compiled in 450 BC) and the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian, also known as the Justinian Code (429–534 AD). In India, the Edicts of Ashoka (269–236 BC) were followed by the Law of Manu (200 BC). In ancient China, the first comprehensive criminal code was the Tang Code, created in 624 AD in the Tang Dynasty. The following

1530-439: A rational explanation of deity." While creation myths are not literal explications , they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They provide the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world , to any assumed spiritual world , and to each other . A creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality,

1620-448: A repetitious structure of divine fiat and fulfillment, then the statement "And there was evening and there was morning, the [ n ] day," for each of the six days of creation. In each of the first three days there is an act of division: day one divides the darkness from light , day two the "waters above" from the "waters below", and day three the sea from the land. In each of the next three days these divisions are populated: day four populates

1710-463: A sense of their place in the world and the regard that they must have for humans and nature. Historian David Christian has summarised issues common to multiple creation myths: How did everything begin? This is the first question faced by any creation myth and ... answering it remains tricky. ... Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. ... Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses

1800-435: A separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as Sky (usually male) and Earth (usually female), who were so tightly bound to each other in the primeval state that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as

1890-460: A series of statements of what did not exist at the moment when creation began; Enuma Elish has a spring (in the sea) as the point where creation begins, paralleling the spring (on the land – Genesis 2 is notable for being a "dry" creation story) in Genesis 2:6 that "watered the whole face of the ground"; in both myths, Yahweh/the gods first create a man to serve him/them, then animals and vegetation. At

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1980-511: A single God whose power is uncontested and who brings order out of chaos. Creation takes place over six days. The creative acts are arranged so that the first three days set up the environments necessary for the creations of the last three days to thrive. For example, God creates light on the first day and the light-producing heavenly bodies on the fourth day. Each day follows a similar literary pattern: Verse 31 sums up all of creation with, "God saw every thing that He had made, and, indeed, it

2070-476: A staged ascent or metamorphosis from nascent forms through a series of subterranean worlds to arrive at their current place and form. Often the passage from one world or stage to the next is impelled by inner forces, a process of germination or gestation from earlier, embryonic forms. The genre is most commonly found in Native American cultures where the myths frequently link the final emergence of people from

2160-426: Is also seen in the Genesis flood narrative , where God uses wind to make the waters subside in Genesis 8:1. In Enuma Elish , the storm god Marduk defeats Tiamat with his wind. While stories of a cosmic battle prior to creation were familiar to ancient Israelites (see above ) , there is no such battle in Genesis 1 though the text includes the primeval ocean and references to God's wind. Instead, Genesis 1 depicts

2250-415: Is ambiguous and can be translated in other ways. The NRSV translates verses 1 and 2 as, "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void   ..." This translation suggests that earth, in some way, already existed when God began his creative activity. Biblical scholars John Day and David Toshio Tsumura argue that Genesis 1:1 describes the initial creation of

2340-606: Is from what scholars call the Priestly source (P), largely dated to the 6th century BCE. In this story, Elohim (the Hebrew generic word for " god ") creates the heavens and the Earth in six days, then rests on, blesses, and sanctifies the seventh (i.e. the Biblical Sabbath ). The second account, which takes up the rest of Genesis 2, is largely from the Jahwist source (J), commonly dated to

2430-476: Is largely from the Jahwist source (J), commonly dated to the 10th or 9th centuries BCE. The two stories were combined, but there is currently no scholarly consensus on when the narrative reached its final form. A common hypothesis among biblical scholars today is that the first major comprehensive narrative of the Pentateuch was composed in the 7th or 6th centuries BCE. A sizeable minority of scholars believe that

2520-491: Is likened to the act of giving birth. The role of midwife is usually played by a female deity, like the spider woman of several mythologies of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Male characters rarely figure into these stories, and scholars often consider them in counterpoint to male-oriented creation myths, like those of the ex nihilo variety. Emergence myths commonly describe the creation of people and/or supernatural beings as

2610-637: Is mentioned 35 times, "heaven/firmament" and "earth" 21 times each, and the phrases "and it was so" and "God saw that it was good" occur 7 times each. The cosmos created in Genesis 1 bears a striking resemblance to the Tabernacle in Exodus 35–40 , which was the prototype of the Temple in Jerusalem and the focus of priestly worship of Yahweh ; for this reason, and because other Middle Eastern creation stories also climax with

2700-537: Is no complete combat myth preserved in the Bible. However, there are fragmentary allusions to such a myth in Isaiah 27:1 , Isaiah 51:9–10 , Job 26:12–13 . These passages describe how God defeated the forces of chaos. These forces are personified as sea monsters . These monsters are variously named Yam (Sea), Nahar (River), Leviathan (Coiled One), Rahab (Arrogant One), and Tannin (Dragon). Psalm 74 and Isaiah 51 recall

2790-555: Is no trace of the resistance to the reduction of chaos to order (Greek: theomachy , lit. "God-fighting"), all of which mark the Mesopotamian creation accounts. The gods in Enuma Elish are amoral , they have limited powers, and they create humans to be their slaves . In Genesis 1, however, God is all powerful. He creates humans in the divine image, and cares for their wellbeing, and gives them dominion over every living thing. Enuma Elish has also left traces on Genesis 2. Both begin with

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2880-476: Is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths. According to Gudmund Hatt and Tristram P. Coffin , Earth-diver myths are common in Native American folklore , among the following populations: Shoshone , Meskwaki , Blackfoot , Chipewyan , Newettee , Yokuts of California, Mandan , Hidatsa , Cheyenne , Arapaho , Ojibwe , Yuchi , and Cherokee . American anthropologist Gladys Reichard located

2970-536: Is pre-existing within the unformed void. In creation from chaos myths, there is nothing initially but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word "chaos" means "disorder", and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to "order" ( cosmos ) which

3060-469: Is referred to as " Elohim " (the Hebrew generic word for " god "), whereas in the second story, he is referred to with a composite divine name; " L ORD God". Traditional or evangelical scholars such as Collins explain this as a single author's variation in style in order to, for example, emphasize the unity and transcendence of "God" in the first narrative, who created the heavens and the earth by himself. Critical scholars such as Richard Elliot Friedman , on

3150-402: Is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss. One example is the Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis . There are two types of world parent myths, both describing

3240-540: Is used to describe the desert wilderness. Bohu has no known meaning, although it appears to be related to the Arabic word bahiya ("to be empty"), and was apparently coined to rhyme with and reinforce tohu . The phrase appears also in Jeremiah 4:23 where the prophet warns Israel that rebellion against God will lead to the return of darkness and chaos, "as if the earth had been 'uncreated'". Verse 2 continues, " darkness

3330-616: The ruach of God [Elohim] moved upon the face of the waters." There are several options for translating the Hebrew word ruach ( רוּחַ ). It could mean "breath", "wind", or "spirit" in different contexts. The traditional translation is "spirit of God". In the Hebrew Bible, the spirit of God is understood to be an extension of God's power. The term is analogous to saying the "hand of the Lord" ( 2 Kings 3:15 ). Historically, Christian theologians supported "spirit" as it provided biblical support for

3420-604: The Chukchi and Yukaghir , the Tatars , and many Finno-Ugric traditions, as well as among the Buryat and the Samoyed. In addition, the earth-diver motif also exists in narratives from Eastern Europe, namely Romani , Romanian, Slavic (namely, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belarusian), and Lithuanian mythological traditions. The pattern of distribution of these stories suggest they have

3510-455: The Mesopotamian theology of creation: Genesis affirms monotheism and denies polytheism . Scholarly writings frequently refer to Genesis as myth, a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is in contrast to more vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the veracity of

3600-514: The Rig Veda , and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In most of these stories, the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator's bodily secretions. The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is "from nothing" but in many creation myths the line is blurred whether

3690-510: The Torah and biblical scholars call the Pentateuch), is "a composite work, the product of many hands and periods." The creation narrative consists of two separate accounts, drawn from different sources. The first account, in Genesis 1:1–2:3, is from what scholars call the Priestly source (P), largely dated to the 6th century BCE. The second account, which is older and takes up the rest of Genesis 2,

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3780-498: The creative word : "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" ( John 1:1 ). When the Jews came into contact with Greek thought, there followed a major reinterpretation of the underlying cosmology of the Genesis narrative. The biblical authors conceived the cosmos as a flat disc-shaped Earth in the centre, an underworld for the dead below, and heaven above. Below

3870-502: The 10th or 9th centuries BCE. In this story, God (now referred to by the personal name Yahweh ) creates Adam , the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden . There he is given dominion over the animals. Eve , the first woman, is created from Adam's rib as his companion. The first major comprehensive draft of the Pentateuch is thought to have been composed in the late 7th or

3960-410: The 6th century BCE (the Jahwist source) and was later expanded by other authors (the Priestly source ) into a work much alike to Genesis as known today. The authors of the text were influenced by Mesopotamian mythology and ancient near eastern cosmology , and borrowed several themes from them, adapting and integrating them with their unique belief in one God . The combined narrative is a critique of

4050-517: The Creation to the Flood and its aftermath. The two share numerous plot-details (e.g. the divine garden and the role of the first man in the garden, the creation of the man from a mixture of earth and divine substance, the chance of immortality , etc.), and have a similar overall theme: the gradual clarification of man's relationship with God(s) and animals. Genesis 1–2 reflects ancient ideas about science: in

4140-511: The Earth were the "waters of chaos", the cosmic sea, home to mythic monsters defeated and slain by God; in Exodus 20:4, God warns against making an image "of anything that is in the waters under the earth". There were also waters above the Earth, and so the raqia ( firmament ), a solid bowl, was necessary to keep them from flooding the world. During the Hellenistic period , this was largely replaced by

4230-491: The Genesis creation narrative were influenced by Mesopotamian mythology , borrowing several themes from them but adapting them to their belief in one God , establishing a monotheistic creation in opposition to the polytheistic creation myth of ancient Israel's neighbors. Genesis 1 bears striking similarities and differences with Enuma Elish , the Babylonian creation myth . The myth begins with two primeval entities: Apsu ,

4320-435: The Hebrew bara' , a word used only for God's creative activity; people do not engage in bara' . Walton argues that bara' does not necessarily refer to the creation of matter. In the ancient Near East , "to create" meant assigning roles and functions. The bara' which God performs in Genesis 1 concerns bringing "heaven and earth" from chaos into ordered existence. Day disputes Walton's functional interpretation of

4410-463: The Memphite Theology, the creator god names everything. Similarly, Enuma Elish begins when heaven, earth, and the gods were unnamed. Walton writes, "In this way of thinking, things did not exist unless they were named." According to biblical scholar Nahum Sarna , this similarity is "wholly superficial" because in other ancient narratives creation by speech involves magic : The pronouncement of

4500-546: The Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text. The creation narrative is made up of two stories, roughly equivalent to the two first chapters of the Book of Genesis (there are no chapter divisions in the original Hebrew text; see " chapters and verses of the Bible "). In the first story, the Creator deity

4590-494: The construction of a temple/house for the creator god , Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a description of the construction of the cosmos as God's house, for which the Temple in Jerusalem served as the earthly representative. The opening phrase of Genesis 1:1 is traditionally translated in English as " in the beginning God created". This translation suggests creatio ex nihilo ( ' creation from nothing ' ). The Hebrew, however,

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4680-511: The contrary, take this as evidence of multiple authorship. Friedman states that the Jahwist source originally only used the "L ORD " (Yahweh) title, but a later editor added "God" to form the composite name: "It therefore appears to be an effort by the Redactor (R) to soften the transition from the P creation, which uses only 'God' (thirty-five times), to the coming J stories, which use only the name YHWH." The first account ( Genesis 1:1–2:3 ) employs

4770-464: The creation narrative. Day argues that material creation is the "only natural way of taking the text" and that this interpretation was the only one for most of history. Most interpreters consider the phrase "heaven and earth" to be a merism meaning the entire cosmos. Genesis 1:2 describes the earth as "formless and void". This phrase is a translation of the Hebrew tohu wa-bohu ( תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ ). Tohu by itself means "emptiness, futility". It

4860-457: The creation of the material universe. Even so, the doctrine had not yet been fully developed in the early 2nd century AD, although early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God; by the beginning of the 3rd century this tension was resolved, world-formation was overcome, and creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology. The Genesis narratives are not

4950-399: The creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In ex nihilo creation myths, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation

5040-444: The darkness and light with Sun, Moon and stars; day five populates seas and skies with fish and fowl; and finally land-based creatures and mankind populate the land. In the second story Yahweh creates Adam , the first man, from dust and places him in the Garden of Eden . There he is given dominion over the animals. Eve , the first woman, is created from Adam's rib as his companion. The primary accounts in each chapter are joined by

5130-473: The distribution of the motif across "all parts of North America", save for "the extreme north, northeast, and southwest". In a 1977 study, anthropologist Victor Barnouw surmised that the earth-diver motif appeared in " hunting-gathering societies ", mainly among northerly groups such as the Hare , Dogrib , Kaska , Beaver , Carrier , Chipewyan , Sarsi , Cree , and Montagnais . Similar tales are also found among

5220-487: The divine word acted creatively. Its presence or absence is of no importance, for there is no tie between it and God. "Let there be!" or, as the Psalmist echoed it, "He spoke and it was so," [Psalm 33:9] refers not to the utterance of the magic word, but to the expression of the omnipotent, sovereign, unchallengeable will of the absolute, transcendent God to whom all nature is completely subservient. 6 And God said: 'Let there be

5310-418: The earth is a flat disc surrounded by the waters above and the waters below. The firmament is a solid dome that rests on mountains at the edges of the earth. It is transparent, allowing men to see the blue of the waters above with "windows" to allow rain to fall. The sun, moon and stars are underneath the firmament. Deep within the earth is the underworld or Sheol . The earth is supported by pillars sunk into

5400-582: The fabled time of the "beginnings." In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution. Creation myths have been around since ancient history and have served important societal roles. Over 100 "distinct" ones have been discovered. All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how

5490-525: The first eleven chapters of Genesis, also known as the primeval history , can be dated to the 3rd century BCE, based on discontinuities between the contents of the work and other parts of the Hebrew Bible . The "Persian imperial authorisation," which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, proposes that the Persians , after their conquest of Babylon in 538 BCE, agreed to grant Jerusalem

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5580-611: The ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful. List of ancient legal codes The legal code

5670-424: The habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the cosmos should function. In the early 2nd century CE, early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God, and by the beginning of the 3rd century creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology. Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt ,

5760-620: The heavenly bodies and assigns tasks to the gods in maintaining the cosmos. When the gods complain about their work, Marduk creates humans out of the blood of the god Kingu . The grateful gods build a temple for Marduk in Babylon . This is similar to the Baal Cycle , in which the Canaanite god Baal builds himself a cosmic temple over seven days. In both Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish , creation consists of bringing order out of chaos . Before creation, there

5850-461: The male freshwater deity, and Tiamat , the female saltwater deity. The first gods were born from their sexual union. Both Apsu and Tiamat were killed by the younger gods. Marduk , the leader of the gods, builds the world with Tiamat's body, which he splits in two. With one half, he builds a dome-shaped firmament in the sky to hold back Tiamat's upper waters. With the other half, Marduk forms dry land to hold back her lower waters. Marduk then organises

5940-411: The only biblical creation accounts. The Bible preserves two contrasting models of creation. The first is the " logos " (speech) model, where a supreme God "speaks" dormant matter into existence. Genesis 1 is an example of creation by speech. The second is the " agon " (struggle or combat) model, in which it is God's victory in battle over the monsters of the sea that mark his sovereignty and might. There

6030-419: The origin and nature of being from non-being. In this sense cosmogonic myths serve as a philosophy of life – but one expressed and conveyed through symbol rather than through systematic reason. And in this sense they go beyond etiological myths (which explain specific features in religious rites, natural phenomena, or cultural life). Creation myths also help to orient human beings in the world, giving them

6120-504: The past, historians of religion and other students of myth thought of such stories as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. Today, however, they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes: "The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, plants – are forms of power grasped existentially. The myths should not be understood as attempts to work out

6210-570: The presence of the Holy Spirit , the third person of the Trinity , at creation. Other interpreters argue for translating ruach as "wind". For example, the NRSV renders it "wind from God". Likewise, the word elohim can sometimes function as a superlative adjective (such as "mighty" or "great"). The phrase ruach elohim may therefore mean "great wind". The connection between wind and watery chaos

6300-459: The primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found. Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth-diver cosmogony is attested in Iroquois mythology :

6390-519: The result of a sexual union and serve as genealogical record of the deities born from it. In the second form of world parent myths, creation itself springs from dismembered parts of the body of the primeval being. Often, in these stories, the limbs, hair, blood, bones, or organs of the primeval being are somehow severed or sacrificed to transform into sky, earth, animal or plant life, and other worldly features. These myths tend to emphasize creative forces as animistic in nature rather than sexual, and depict

6480-421: The right word, like the performance of the right magical actions, is able to, or rather, inevitably must, actualize the potentialities which are inherent in the inert matter. In other words, it implies a mystic bond uniting matter to its manipulator   ... Worlds apart is the Genesis concept of creation by divine fiat. Notice how the Bible passes over in absolute silence the nature of the matter—if any—upon which

6570-560: The sacred as the elemental and integral component of the natural world. One example of this is the Norse creation myth described in " Völuspá ", the first poem in the Poetic Edda , and in Gylfaginning . In emergence myths, humanity emerges from another world into the one they currently inhabit. The previous world is often considered the womb of the earth mother , and the process of emergence

6660-586: The same problem. ... There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery .... And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity , are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood. Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed

6750-506: The same time, and as with Genesis 1, the Jewish version has drastically changed its Babylonian model: Eve, for example, seems to fill the role of a mother goddess when, in Genesis 4:1 , she says that she has "created a man with Yahweh", but she is not a divine being like her Babylonian counterpart. Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout Genesis 2–11 , from

6840-467: The self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture , they are the most common form of myth. Creation myth definitions from modern references: Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation: Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time,

6930-610: The sky (day 2); the earth, seas, and vegetation (day 3); the sun and moon (day 4); animals of the air and sea (day 5); and land animals and humans (day 6). God rested from his work on the seventh day of creation, the Sabbath . The use of numbers in ancient texts was often numerological rather than factual – that is, the numbers were used because they held some symbolic value to the author. The number seven, denoting divine completion, permeates Genesis 1: verse 1:1 consists of seven words, verse 1:2 has fourteen, and 2:1–3 has 35 words (5×7); Elohim

7020-495: The stars, the " sons of God ", sang when the corner-stone of creation was laid. 3 And God said: 'Let there be light.' And there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. The process of creation illustrates God's sovereignty and omnipotence . God creates by fiat; things come into existence by divine decree. Like

7110-656: The turtle's back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil. In another version from the Wyandot , the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots. However, as the tree has been dug out,

7200-534: The universe, the former writing: "Since the inchoate earth and the heavens in the sense of the air/wind were already in existence in Gen. 1:2, it is most natural to assume that Gen. 1:1 refers to God's creative act in making them." Other scholars such as R. N. Whybray , Christine Hayes , Michael Coogan , Cynthia Chapman, and John H. Walton argue that Genesis 1:1 describes the creation of an ordered universe out of preexisting, chaotic material. The word "created" translates

7290-499: The waters below. The waters above are the source of precipitation, so the function of the rāqîa was to control or regulate the weather. In the Genesis flood narrative , "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth" from the waters beneath the earth and from the "windows" of the sky. Creation myth Creation myths often share several features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions . They are all stories with

7380-436: The waters. Water was a "primal generative force" in pagan mythologies. In Genesis, however, the primeval ocean possesses no powers and is completely at God's command. Rāqîa is derived from rāqa' , the verb used for the act of beating metal into thin plates. Ancient people throughout the world believed the sky was solid, and the firmament in Genesis 1 was understood to be a solid dome. In ancient near eastern cosmology ,

7470-582: The words of E.A. Speiser , "on the subject of creation biblical tradition aligned itself with the traditional tenets of Babylonian science." The opening words of Genesis 1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", sum up the belief of the author(s) that Yahweh , the god of Israel, was solely responsible for creation and had no rivals. Later Jewish thinkers, adopting ideas from Greek philosophy , concluded that God's Wisdom , Word and Spirit penetrated all things and gave them unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and identified Jesus with

7560-436: The world formed and where humanity came from. Myths attempt to explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson. Ethnologists and anthropologists who study origin myths say that in the modern context theologians try to discern humanity's meaning from revealed truths and scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality , but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. In

7650-569: Was a common feature of the legal systems of the ancient Middle East. Many of them are examples of cuneiform law . The oldest evidence of a code of law was found at Ebla , in modern Syria (c. 2400 BC). The Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu ( c.  2100 –2050 BC), then the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), are amongst the earliest originating in the Fertile Crescent . In the Roman empire,

7740-447: Was designed by Raymond Van Over: The myth that God created the world out of nothing – ex nihilo – is central today to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared. Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible. The authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into

7830-404: Was nothing but a cosmic ocean . During creation, a dome-shaped firmament is put in place to hold back the water and make Earth habitable. Both conclude with the creation of a human called "man" and the building of a temple for the god (in Genesis 1, this temple is the entire cosmos). In contrast to Enuma Elish , Genesis 1 is monotheistic. There is no theogony (account of God's origins), and there

7920-423: Was the only concept that the three religions shared – yet it is not found directly in Genesis, nor in the entire Hebrew Bible. According to Walton, the Priestly authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function. John Day, however, considers that Genesis 1 clearly provides an account of

8010-499: Was upon the face of the deep ". The word deep translates the Hebrew təhôm ( תְהוֹם ), a primordial ocean . Darkness and təhôm are two further elements of chaos in addition to tohu wa-bohu . In Enuma Elish , the watery deep is personified as the goddess Tiamat , the enemy of Marduk . In Genesis, however, there is no such personification. The elements of chaos are not seen as evil but as indications that God has not begun his creative work. Verse 2 concludes with, "And

8100-470: Was very good". According to biblical scholar R. N. Whybray , "This is the craftsman's assessment of his own work   ... It does not necessarily have an ethical connotation: it is not mankind that is said to be 'good', but God's work as craftsman." At the end of the sixth day, when creation is complete, the world is a cosmic temple in which the role of humanity is the worship of God. This parallels Enuma Elish and also echoes Job 38 , where God recalls how

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