CREATION IN GENESIS

BIBLE: It is a collection of sacred sicripture of both Judaism anda Christianity. The Christian Bible is divided into two parts. The first is called the Old Testament and the second portion is called the New Testament.

THESE MAIN QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED IN GENESIS

1- Why do we live? 2- Why do we die? 3- Why does the evil exist?

CREATION IN 1ST VERSION

- God created man in his own image. - God created the man and female at the same time - God created man after he ended all his work. - The first creation story says that grass and trees were created before the sun, moon and stars, whereas we know that stars were created first, then the earth and the moon. Only later was it possible for grass and trees to evolve. Finally, God created man in his own likeness- there is no suggestion of any evolution here. - God let man dominion over everything.(ıt shows the importance of man) - God said man “ be fruitful, be multiply and replenish the earth. CREATION IN 2ND VERSION - There was a garden in Eden and he put the man whom he had formed. - The was a tree of knowledge of good and evil ● So we understand that in 2nd Version, there is Good an Evil. - The second creation story says that a man was created first, before any other animal, whereas scientists tell us that many animals existed before humans, who are of relatively recent origin. This version also says that every plant of the field was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew, fort he Lord God had nat caused it to rain upon the earth. In other words, in this account, plants needed neither creation nor evolution – they merely need someone to make it rain, similarity between the Theory of Evolution and biblical creation stories is that they both seek to explain how we and all the other species around…. - In 2nd version, God created the Man before. Then the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he took one of his rips had taken from man, made a woman which means half man. ● But Why from the rib?.... Woman was made from the rib of man, She was not created from his head to top him, Nor from his feet to be stepped upon, She was made from his side to be close to him, From beneath his arm to be protected by him, Near his heart to be loved by him.

CREATION IN SUMER

The Sumerians invented writing and were the world’s first great Civilization as we know it. The civilization flourished in the valleys between the two great rivers Tigris and Euphrates.

The story of how man was created from dirt and brought to life through a breath of air, is a copy of the far older Sumerian creation myth. The Sumerian legend is preserved as a seven-tablet epos, Enuma elish, ”In the beginning…”.

In creation we find the motif of how once everything was water and how the gods create land, rivers, animals and vegetation.

The Sumerian story tells about the god Enki, the god of water and wisdom and one of the central and most popular deities in the Sumerian pantheon, and of the paradisical land of Dilmun. Dilmun is said to be to the east of Sumer. In the story the Garden of Eden is situated “in the east” . According to the myth Dilmun is a bright and clean place, without disease nor death, - a land of the living, a land of the immortals. However, Dilmun lacks one thing: water. But the water god Enki knows what to do and water is his business, and he creates a river that turns Dilmun into a divine garden with an abundance of fruit trees, flowers and green meadows. Then the great Sumerian mother-goddess Ninhursag enters the picture and creates eight different plants in this divine garden. The creation of these eight plants involves an intricate process with births of three generations of goddesses, and the story emphasizes that these births are all happening without the slightest pain or discomfort. The happy camper Enki wants to taste the fruits of these eight plants and makes his servant Ismud (a god with two faces) to collect the fruits and he eats them one by one. This makes Ninhursag furious and she casts a lethal spell over Enki, and then disappears from the scene. Enki then becomes ill in eight different organs or body parts, one for each fruit. Enki’s condition is rapidly deteriorating, and the other gods are flabbergasted by this and do not know what to do to help the popular Enki. Finally a fox (!) gets Ninhursag to come back, exactly how is unknown because this part of the story is missing.

The very name “Eden” is also originally a Sumerian name and simply means “plain/flat terrain”. The name originates from the controversy between the Mesopotamian city-states Lagash and Umma about whom should rule the fertile river-valley of Gu-Edina (The banks of Eden) located between the two cities.

CREATION OF MAN

In Sumerian mythology, Nammu is the Sumerian creation goddess. If the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish is based on a Sumerian myth, which seems likely, Nammu is the Sumerian goddess of the primeval sea that gave birth to heaven and earth and the first gods. She was probably the first personification of the constellation which the Babylonians later called Tiamat and the Greeks called Cetus and represented the Apsu, the fresh water ocean which the Sumerians believed lay beneath the earth, the source of life-giving water and fertility in a country with almost no rainfall. As Nammu is the goddess of the fertile waters, An is the god of the sky. Nammu and her son Enki created mankind as assistants fort he gods. Enki is the god of human culture who also presides over the Absu.

CREATION IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY In the beginning, Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe, and surrounded by an unending stream of water ruled by the god Oceanus, was the domain of a goddess named Eurynome, which means "far-ruling" or "wide-wandering".

She was the Goddess of All Things, and desired to make order out of the Chaos. By coupling with a huge and powerful snake, Ophion, or as some legends say, coupling with the North Wind, she gave birth to Eros, god of Love, also known as Protagonus, the "firstborn".

Eurynome separated the sky from the sea by dancing on the waves of Oceanus. In this manner, she created great lands upon which she might wander, a veritable universe, populating it with exotic creatures such as Nymphs, Furies, and Charites as well as with countless beasts and monsters.

Also born out of Chaos were Gaia, called Earth, or Mother Earth, and Uranus, the embodiment of the Sky and the Heavens, as well as Tartarus, god of the sunless and terrible region beneath Gaia, the Earth.

Gaia and Uranus married and gave birth to the Titans, a race of formidable giants, which included a particularly wily giant named Cronus.

In what has become one of the recurrent themes of Greek Mythology, Gaia and Uranus warned Cronus that a son of his would one day overpower him. Cronus therefore swallowed his numerous children by his wife Rhea, to keep that forecast from taking place.

This angered Gaia greatly, so when the youngest son, Zeus, was born, Gaia took a stone, wrapped it in swaddling clothes and offered it to Cronus to swallow. This satisfied Cronus, and Gaia was able to spirit the baby Zeus away to be raised in Crete, far from his grasping father.

In due course, Zeus grew up, came homeward, and got into immediate conflict with the tyrant Cronus, who did not know that this newcomer was his own son. Zeus needed his brothers and sisters help in slaying the tyrant, and Metis, Zeus's first wife, found a way of administering an emetic to Cronus, who then threw up his five previous children, who were Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Together they went to battle against their father. The results were that all of his children, led by Zeus, vanquished Cronus forever into Tartarus' domain, the Dark World under the Earth.

Thus, Zeus triumphed over not only his father, and his father's family of Giants, he triumphed over his brothers and sisters as well, dividing up the universe as he fancied, in short, bringing order out of Chaos. He made himself Supreme God over all, creating a great and beautiful place for his favored gods to live, on Mount Olympus, in Thessaly. All the others were left to fend for themselves in lands below Mount Olympus.

Zeus made himself God of the Sky and all its phenomena, including the clouds as well as the thunderbolts. Hestia became goddess of the Hearth. To his brother Poseidon, he gave the rule of the Sea. Demeter became a goddess of Fertility, Hera (before she married Zeus and became a jealous wife), was goddess of Marriage and Childbirth, while Hades, one of his other brothers, was made god of the Underworld. Zeus did indeed bring order out of Chaos, but one of his failings was that he did not look kindly upon the people, those creatures that populated the lands over which he reigned. Many were not beautiful, and Zeus had contempt for anyone who was not beautiful. And of course they were not immortal, as the Olympian gods were, and they complained about the lack of good food and the everlasting cold nights. Zeus ignored their complaints, while he and the other gods feasted endlessly on steaming hot game from the surrounding forests, and had great crackling fires in every room of their palaces where they lived in the cold winter. Enter Prometheus, one of the Titans not vanquished in the war between Zeus and the giants. It is said in many myths that Prometheus had created d a race of people from clay, or that he had combined specks of every living creature, molded them together, and produced a new race, The Common Man. At the very least he was their champion before Zeus. Fire for cooking and heating was reserved only for the gods to enjoy. Prometheus stole some of the sparks of a glowing fire from the Olympians, so that the people below Olympus could have fire for cooking and warmth in the winter, thus greatly improving their lot in life. Zeus was furious at this insult to his absolute power, and had Prometheus bound and chained to a mountain, sending an eagle to attack him daily. Adding insult to injury, Zeus had his fellow Olympian, Hephaestus, fashion a wicked but beautiful creature to torment Prometheus. It was a woman, whom they named Pandora, which means "all gifts". She was given a precious and beautiful box, which she was told not to open, but curiosity got the better of her, and out flew "all the evils that plague men." The only "gift" that stayed in the box was "Hope". So, from "far-ruling" Eurynome to the creation of the Common Man, Greek creation myths are inextricably filled with difficulties, though often ameliorated by the gift of Hope. A myriad of other myths tell of the joys and adventures of great heroes and heroines, other gods and goddesses, as well as fantastic creatures from all parts of ancient Greece.
THE CREATION OF MAN IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY Prometheus and Epimetheus were spared imprisonment in Tatarus because they had not fought with their fellow Titans during the war with the Olympians. They were given the task of creating man. Prometheus shaped man out of mud, and Athena breathed life into his clay figure. Prometheus had assigned Epimetheus the task of giving the creatures of the earth their various qualities, such as swiftness, cunning, strength, fur, wings. Unfortunately, by the time he got to man Epimetheus had given all the good qualities out and there were none left for man. So Prometheus decided to make man stand upright as the gods did and to give them fire. Prometheus loved man more than the Olympians, who had banished most of his family to Tartarus. So when Zeus decreed that man must present a portion of each animal they sacrificed to the gods Prometheus decided to trick Zeus. He created two piles, one with the bones wrapped in juicy fat, the other with the good meat hidden in the hide. He then bade Zeus to pick. Zeus picked the bones. Since he had given his word Zeus had to accept that as his share for future sacrifices. In his anger over the trick he took fire away from man. However, Prometheus lit a torch from the sun and brought it back again to man. Zeus was enraged that man again had fire. He decided to inflict a terrible punishment on both man and Prometheus. To punish man, Zeus had Hephaestus create a mortal of stunning beauty. The gods gave the mortal many gifts of wealth. He then had Hermes give the mortal a deceptive heart and a lying tongue. This creation was Pandora, the first woman. A final gift was a jar which Pandora was forbidden to open. Thus completed Zeus sent Pandora down to Epimetheus who was staying amongst the men. Prometheus had warned Epimetheus not to accept gifts from Zeus but, Pandora's beauty was too great and he allowed her to stay. Eventually, Pandora's curiosity about the jar she was forbidden to open became to great. She opened the jar and out flew all manor of evils, sorrows, plagues, and misfortunes. However, the bottom of the jar held one good thing - hope. Zeus was angry at Prometheus for three things: being tricked on sacrificed, stealing fire for man, and for refusing to tell Zeus which of Zeus's children would dethrone him. Zeus had his servants, Force and Violence, seize Prometheus, take him to the Caucasus Mountains, and chain him to a rock with unbreakable adamanite chains. Here he was tormented day and night by a giant eagle tearing at his liver. Zeus gave Prometheus two ways out of this torment. He could tell Zeus who the mother of the child that would dethrone him was. Or meet two conditions: First, that an immortal must volunteer to die for Prometheus. Second, that a mortal must kill the eagle and unchain him. Eventually, Chiron the Centaur agreed to die for him and Heracles killed the eagle and unbound him.

NATIVE AMERICAN CREATION STORY After the creation of the earth, all the other animals withdrew into the places which each kind found most suitable for obtaining therein their pasture or their prey. When the first ones died, the Great Hare caused the birth of man from their corpses, as also from those of the fishes which were found along the shores of the rivers which he had formed in creating the land. Accordingly, some of the savages derive their origin from a bear, others from a moose, and others similarly from various kinds of animals; and before they had intercourse with the Europeans they firmly believed this, persuaded that they had their being from those kinds of creatures whose origin was as above explained. Even today [ca. 1720] that notion passes among them for undoubted truth, and if there are any of them at this time who are weaned from believing this dream, it has been only by dint of laughing at them for so ridiculous a belief. You will hear them say that their villages each bear the name of the animal which has given its people their being—as that of the crane, or the bear, or of other animals. They imagine that they were created by other divinities than those which we recognize, because we have many inventions which they do not possess, as the art of writing, shooting with a gun, making gunpowder, muskets, and other things which are used by [civilized] mankind. Those first men who formed the human race, being scattered in different parts of the land, found out that they had minds. They beheld here and there buffaloes, elks, and deer, all kinds of birds and animals, and many rivers abounding in fish. These first men, I say, whom hunger had weakened, inspired by the Great Hare with an intuitive idea, broke off a branch from a small tree, made a cord with the fibers of the nettle, scraped the bark from a piece of a bough with a sharp stone, and armed its end with another sharp stone, to serve them as an arrow; and thus they formed a bow [and arrows] with which they killed small birds. After that, they made viretons [crossbow arrows], in order to attack the large beasts; they skinned these, and tried to eat the flesh. But as they found only the fat savory, they tried to make fire, in order to cook their meat; and, trying to get it, they took for that purpose hard wood, but without success; and [finally] they used softer wood, which yielded them fire. The skins of the animals served for their covering. As hunting is not practicable in the winter on account of the deep snows, they invented a sort of racket [snowshoe], in order to walk on this with more ease; and they constructed canoes, in order to enable them to cross the rivers.

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