World Creation Myth Summary

In the beginning there was nothing. The world at first was an endless space and the earth was unfinished. This is how many creation stories begin. The creation of the world is something many try to decipher. People create myths and legends about the first days of the vast universe and anything that pertains it. It is fascinating how the human mind can come up with many ideas of the birth of the world. In the story of The World on a Turtle’s Back there is mention that in the beginning there was no world, or land; but there was a great ocean and above it a great void of air. That void of air was the Sky World where the story commences. Then there is The Four Creations and The Tohono O'odham Creation Story. All three of these have their similarities and the differences on how the world was built. Each of these stories have a representation of a creator and the way humankind was born.

When we ask people about their thoughts on how the world was created, the first idea that comes to mind is the story of Genesis. Most people generally assume that there is only one account of creation, the account that portrays God as the sole creator since in the Genesis account he creates heaven, earth, man/woman, and other living things. However, Genesis is not the only face of creation because religious texts from different cultures tell us otherwise. In ancient near east religions, there are two creation myths that give their own different accounts. While some details of the Genesis account are similar to the Enuma Elish of Babylon and the Memphite Theology of Egypt, each account individually brings their own nationalistic pride and personal touch. Each culture establishes their own story of creation, as well as their own portrayal of who is “the supreme creator”.

There are many creation myths that have the same motifs. Why do you think that there are so many motifs in these creation myths? Are the creation myths based on one belief possibly? Even though there is no clear truth on why these creation myths have many of the same myths, there are people that have predictions on why the myths have so many similarities. Concerning creation myths, there are three main motifs: the idea of humans being made from organic materials, the idea of only having one creator, and the idea of having humans being on earth for a purpose.

One of the most prominent similarities between Hesiod’s creation and Christianity’s creation story is that they both claim the universe came out of chaos and darkness. Hesiod says that Chaos or rather a void came into being. The meaning of Chaos comes from the verb Cha’ein which means “to lie open”. It is interpreted as meaning openness, emptiness, and space. (Farrow 174) The Bible also claims something very similar “In the beginning, when God created the universe, the earth was formless and desolate.” (Genesis 1:1) The bible also describes the earth as being uninhabited, and a deep void. Much like the story of the Theogony it was in need of divine purpose to fill it. (Guenther 1977) Both are claiming that creation came from disarray. In

Hesiod’s account of creation, as outlined in the Theogony offers one of the most detailed and accepted theories of creation in the Greek culture. On the other hand, the Biblical account of creation, regarded as a Hebrew culture creation account, is to date one of the most widely acknowledged and accepted versions across various cultures seeking explanations for the origin of life and the earth. However, even though these creation accounts originate from two different cultures, they share some thought-provoking parallels in terms of their content and intentions, as well as some contrasts that make each of the creation accounts unique.

In Hesiod’s didactic poem, Works and Days, the reader is introduced to the story of Pandora and the Jar. Written in around 700 BCE, this work shows how disobeying the gods may lead to a series of unfortunate events, while also providing modern society a sample on how ancient civilizations attempted to explain why events come to pass much like how Christianity describes the begging of the world and how disobeying God leads to negative events. Both these works give the people something to believe in. Pandora and the Jar can be seen as Ancient Greece’s version of the Bible’s Genesis.

Each every creation myth is unique in its own way. Of course, creation myths have their similarities, but each of them has at least one detail that separates them from every other myth. The question is how those similarities came about, considering for some of these groups that didn’t even know that each other existed. It would have nearly impossible and extremely unlikely for them to communicate with each other let alone, share their stories with each other. Yet, despite this there are some extremely common themes and events throughout these myths. Three of the most common creation myth motifs are, women bringing in evil and suffering, a bloody struggle or warfare, and an imperfect creator.

This is compared to the second pillar of Enuma Elish where it states, “He created the evil wind, and the tempest, and the hurricane…He sent forth the winds which he had created.” He was looking over His creation, not just earth but all of the foundation of the universe. Now in Enuma Elish Marduk the Babylonian god is said to have created the earth as a purpose to serve the gods, which he did with Ea, his father who helped him create humans. Even though both stories do end up with the creation of earth the way they got there is a bit different. In Genesis it is stated that only one God created all of life but in Enuma Elish it was said that there were multiple gods whom have worked with individual jobs. In the Cosmogony, the first part of Enuma Elish that described the creation of the universe, Apsu and Tiamat were the only two gods who existed in the beginning of the story but were only set of water. The gods begin to form and create the earth but made a disturbance while doing so which had upset Apsu, so he tried to destroy them but later is stoped by

The relationship between the Spanish and the Aztecs was a correspondence that steadily declined as the Spanish conquered and destroyed the Aztec Civilization. The relationship was one that was bound to fail because of the naive nature and seclusion of the Aztecs along with the greed and barbaric attitude of the Spaniards. The Spanish ravaged through the new world and along with them the brought destruction and disease; with no remorse for the deaths they caused. The Aztecs, naive and uneducated, were overly trusting of their supposed “pale-faced gods.” The combination of these factors is what lead to a destructive association between these two incompatible groups.

Childbirth was a very important aspect in colonial life. The amount of children a family economy had was the resulting factor of the family’s success. Therefore, childbirth was a sacred event that happened very often. This was performed by the midwives and women servants only. Men were not allowed to take part in this event. This is similar to the child birth event of Ona in The Jungle because Jurgis was not allowed into the room when Ona was conceiving the baby. Marija and a widow says to Jurgis “ you go away. Do as I tell you — you have done all you can, and you’re only in the way. Go away and stay away” (170) while Ona was having the baby and dying at the same time. The reason the widow says this to him is because in times like this, the men are usually known for being in the way. This was shown through colonial time to industrial time. They just believed that the event of birth conception should solely rely on

similar events. So it is very likely that there was an original story or event

Floating about in all types of literature, there are many legends as to how the earth was created; these legends are known as creation myths. A creation myth offers answers to questions that ask how the earth was created, and explains the social customs of today as well as the workings of the natural world by telling an elaborate story. The Cherokee Indians have spread their beliefs on this topic throughout generations through oral tradition. Recent authors have taken these myths to paper to preserve history and to spread them even further around the world. “How the World Was Made” is a creation myth that not only offers an abundance of information regarding the origin of earth, but also supports the social traditions of today’s society and attempts to explain the intangible, natural workings of the world.

In the Mayan creation myth humans were created to worship the gods Tepeul and Gucumatx. The first creatures that were made where animals. They could not speak so therefor they couldn’t worship the great gods Tepeul and Gucumatx. There next attempt was to create people out of clay. To no avail, the clay was too soft and the apart. There next attempt was to make humans out of wood however, the humans couldn’t care for themselves so Tepeul and Gucumatz killed all of them. The gods last attempt was to make humans out of something good and pure like corn. This time humans were perfect, but they were too much like the gods so they took some of the human's eyesight enabling them to see the world so clearly. In the Yourban creation myth Obatala get drunk off of palm wine. He decides that he is lonely and wants some company so he starts to create humans out of clay. The next day Obatala looks at what he has created by he realizes that all of the humans are deformed. Obatala sworn from then on that he wouldn’t drink ever again, then he created new humans out of clay that weren’t deformed. In the Norse creation myth Odin make humans out of trees. An Ash tree and an Elm tree. In the Chinese creation myth Nuwas makes humans out of mud, but when she realizes that making humans by hand takes to long she started flinging mud all around the world. However, in doing so

Creation is something people have different opinions about worldwide, this is a topic that has many different theories. There have been many different ideas that people have thought of in order to try to get people to think that it wasn’t God who created the earth. Almost always the new story got its ideas, based off the story of God’s creation of earth. Some of these crazy theories even try to show that humans were originally monkeys, before they were humans.

From light everything else was created to help shape the world and divide between dark and light as well as good and evil.