Adam and Eve and Marduk

and Ra…

Creation Stories From Around the

WorldBy Lauren Healy

Something to keep in mind… In many cases, there is more than one creation narrative per culture, or at least more than one variation. I have only used one of the versions for my comparison, but it is good to keep in mind there are more.

The Babylonian Empirehttp://warandgame.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/babylofn.jpg

Babylonian

Babylonian Written on a series of seven stone tablets Called Enuma Elish after the first two words Various gods

One of the stone tablets, written in Mesopotamian cuneiform script dated from about 700 BChttp://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bible-history.com/past/images/babylonian_creation_myth_clay_tablet.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bibleistory.com/past/babylonian_creation_myth_clay_tablet.html&usg=__bjwAAId7YUVVDmUwkvzxZrLh7d0=&h=418&w=300&sz=45&hl=en&start=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=9HJHpr1GV9JYQM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=90&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbabylonian%2Bcreation%2Bmyth%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1C1GGGE_enUS353US353%26tbs%3Disch:1

Apsu TiamatGod of fresh water Goddess of the sea

Anshar Kishar

Gods of boundary between earth and sea

Ea Damkina

Great-Grandfather

MardukGod of Spring

married

These young gods are very rambunctious so Apsu decides to kill them. Ea learns of his plan and kills Apsu.Tiamat remarries to Kingu and is very upset about Apsu’s murder. She vows revenge.

TiamatKingu married

Marduk says he will stop Tiamat if he is made the head of the gods. He gets approval, capures Tiamat in a net, and kills her with an arrow.

Marduk slaying Tiamathttp://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/images2/marduk_tiamat3.gif

Marduk creates- Earth and sky by splitting Tiamat’s head open- Rain from Tiamat’s spit- Babylon as an “audience room”- Humans from the blood and bone of Kingu

because he sparked Tiamat’s rebellion

Marduk creating the worldhttp://www.doing-fine.com/images/world-5.gif

The gods establish days, months, and seasonsThe gods give a feast to Marduk and they celebrate and rest.

Mardukhttp://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/gods/explore/images/marduk_p.gif

Egyptians

Ra, the sun godhttp://www.mythencyclopedia.com/images/mlw_0001_0004_0_img0171.jpg

Nu Bubbling, churning waters, not given a gender

Ra (aka Atum)The sun god – emerged in a lotus

created

-Light-Shu (God of air) and Tefnut (Goddess of rain)

Ra emerging from the lotushttp://www.freewebs.com/garyosborn/Lotus.jpg

Gave rise to

The Earth started out as chaotic, bubbling water called Nu. Then the sun god, Ra (sometimes called Atum), emerged from the waters in a giant lotus. He gave light to the Earth.Ra then created the god of air, Shu, and his wife, Tefnut, the goddess of rain.Shu and Tefnut gave birth to the god of the earth named Geb and the goddess of the sky named Nut.

Shu Tefnut

Nut Geb

Osiris Set

married

Gave birth to

Goddess of sky God of earth

married

Incarnation of good Embodiment of evil

Nut and Geb got married, which angered Ra, but Nut was already pregnant, so Ra punished her by never allowing her to give birth during any month of the year.The god Thoth decided to help her and asked the moon for extra light – adding five extra days to their 360 day calendar. Nut gives birth to five children.

Thoth and the moonhttp://site.iwebcenters.com/kellykorndoerfer/_images//Thoth.jpg

The living creatures were created by Khnum on his pottery wheel, and Ra breathed life into them. The Egyptians believe that the lotus closes at night with Ra inside, thus creating darkness. Ra is the light of the world.

Khnum creating humanshttp://edu.vantaa.fi/vasamanet/sisalto/historia123/jumalat/images/1khnum.gif

Greeks

Ancient Greece http://www.greecemapxl.com/images/greece-ancient-map.jpg

Darkness (Chaos)

Nyx (giant bird)

Eros God of love

Uranus god of the sky

Gaia goddess of earth

Laid a golden egg

Shell split in half

http://cosmicbreezes.com/images/gaia2.jpg

Uranus Gaia

Titans (race of giants) Kronos

Zeus

Rhea

Gave birth to Worried his children would overthrow him so he ate them all except Because Rhea

hid him and fed Kronos a rock wrapped in a blanketKronos eating

his childrenhttp://arttoscience.org/Arttoscience2/kronos.gif

Ω In the beginning, there was only darkness and chaos. Only a giant bird named Nyx existed.Ω Nyx laid a golden egg, and Eros the god of love was born from it. The shell split in half – one half became the sky the other became the Earth.ΩThe sky was named Uranus and the Earth was named Gaia. They fell in loveΩThey had many children, some of whom were Titans (giants). When their children got older, they began to fear that their children would overpower them. Ω Kronos decided to eat his children so they could not overthrow him, but being Gods, they couldn’t die so they stayed alive in his stomach. ΩHis wife, Rhea, took a liking to their son Zeus, so she gave Kronos a blanket covered rock to eat instead of Zeus and kept Zeus hidden from him.

ΩOnce he was old enough, Rhea told Zeus of all his brothers and sisters trapped inside his father. Ω Zeus became angry and forced his father to throw up his siblings, and the rock came out as well. This was placed at Delphi.

Rhea feeding Kronos a rockhttp://www.timelessmyths.com/classical/gallery/rheacronus.jpg

ΩA war was waged against Kronos, and Zeus and his siblings won. Kronos’ fear became reality. ΩThe younger gods took over the Earth. Zeus assigned the task of filling it with people to his son Prometheus (means forethought) and filling it with animals to his son Epimetheus (means afterthought).

http://www.not-of-this-earth.com/images/Lg_Zeus.jpg

Epimetheus gave all the gifts of the universe to the animals and had none left over for humans. Prometheus made up for this by stealing fire, which was meant for the gods only and giving it to humans.

Prometheus stealing firehttp://imagecache.allposters.com/images/pic/BRGPOD/32138~Prometheus-Carrying-Fire-Posters.jpg

ΩZeus became angry when he heard that humans had fire, so he created a woman named Pandora and gave her the gift of curiosity and a box that he warned her never to open.ΩPandora married Epimetheus and eventually, opened her box. ΩInside were all the evils of the world, along with hope.

Pandora opening her boxhttp://media.photobucket.com/image/prometheus%20and%20epimetheus%20creating%20life/Neva37/pandora_large-1.jpg

HinduVast ocean of nothingness with cobra in the middle coiled around Lord Vishnu

Humming noise began

Energy

Light

The light caused a lotus flower to bloom out of Vishnu, and in that

flower sat Brahma.

Brahma and Vishnuhttp://api.ning.com/files/WpaiUGhUGkbiQoMJ50KOv1CtoYM6uunijIsUkOln6Fhr-o3cT7F7cY49YE7trOayjj5F8O3XVUL3nGf0PbkNXX8Z*2ZqkSdC/941LakshmiVishnu.jpg

The world started out as a “vast ocean of nothingness” with a giant cobra in the middle coiled around a god named Lord Vishnu.A humming started and filled the ocean with energy, and from that energy came light. The light caused a lotus flower to bloom out of Vishnu, and in that flower sat Brahma.

Vishnu looked at Brahma and said it was time to create the world. Brahma split the flower apart into three parts – one became the sky, one heaven, and one Earth. The Earth was bare so Brahma created grass, flowers, and trees first. Then he created animals of earth, sky, and sea.

One depiction of Brahmahttp://www.klangart.ch/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/brahma.jpg

This is where the myth gets a little fuzzy – the human creation. Many of the myths seem to agree on the fact that Brahma’s body was used to create humans. Depending on the story, he either gave his body willingly, was cut up into tiny pieces, or used parts of himself to create people.

http://trueeventindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/brahma-ji1-214x300.jpg

Norse

Norse landhttp://www.windows.ucar.edu/mythology/images/norse_frame.jpg

It started with nothing but a huge gap bordered on the north by a land of cold named Niflheim and bordered on the south by the land of fire named

Muspellsheim.

Huge gap

Land of fire - Muspellsheim

Land of cold - Niflheim

Spot where Ymir and Audumla were formed

Some of the rivers of fire flowing from the north became posioned and covered by frost from the south, forming the giant Ymir. He became the father of all giants.

The same way he was born, so was a giant cow named Audumla. Her milk nourished Ymir. To feed herself, she licked the salt from the ice. She licked so much that eventually a god was formed named Buri, who was the father of Bor.

Audumla creating Burihttp://www.blurtit.com/var/question/q/q8/q83/q831/q8315/q8315609_1573958_302_norse

Buri

Bor Bestla

OdinVili Ve

Rebelled against giants and Ymir

Bor’s grandsons raised up Ymir’s body and situated it across the huge gap between the north and the south. This became Earth.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Odin_and_his_brothers_create_the_world.jpg

Ymir’s blood became the water, his bones became mountains, and his hair made trees.The gods created a place called Asgard to stay and watch over their new creation.One day, the god Odin was wondering around and came across two trees that he shaped into male and female. The man’s name was Ask and the woman's Embla.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4

a/Ask_and_Embla_by_Robert_Engels.jpg

There is a tree of life called Yggdrasill that connects all the planes of existence that is cared for by three fates. It is said that on the day of the end, called Ragnarok, the earth will cease to exist. The tree of life will fall and there will be nothing once again. The Norse World and the Tree of

Lifehttp://wwwstatic.kern.org/DHS/images/BillBaugher/norseworld.jpg

Big Bang and Evolution Theory

This is just a theory. There are many others besides this one, but this is the most widely accepted. I am using this just as I would another creation story, although it is more on the level of reason and intellect than the other stories.

Before the big bang there was nothing.There is thought to be something called a singularity – no one really knows what it is, but it is something that is infinitely hot, small, and dense. This singularity inflated rapidly, then slowly cooled (ie the Big Bang) about 13.5 billion years ago.This means the universe is still expanding.

Timeline of Earth according to Big Bang Theory (millions of years ago)

Light

4450

Earth

4000

water

2400

First plants

670

First marine

life

150

First birds

114

First land mammals

? 0.25

First humans

Notice anything interesting about the progression?

The first thing to be formed was light in the form of stars from the ionization of hydrogen gas.Earth was formed around 4.45 billion years ago. Water was present around 4 billion years ago.Around 2.4 billion years ago, oxygen became present in the Earth’s atmosphere. This enabled the first plants to be formed. 670 million years ago – first marine life395 million years ago – first insects313 million years ago – first reptiles150 million years ago – first birds114 million years ago – first mammals250,000 years ago – first homo sapiens

Now that we know the stories, let’s examine the

similarities between them.

Myth Start Creator First Creation How people came about

Babylonian Chaos, emptiness

Apsu (male) Light A god split dead gods body into two

Egyptian Chaotic waters Ra (male) Light From clay, god breathed life into them

Greek Darkness and Chaos

Nyx (female) and Eros (male)

Light Ordered by a god (Zeus)

Hindu Ocean of nothingness

Vishnu and Brahma (male)

Light A god created them (Brahma)

Norse Huge dark gap of nothingness

Ymir (male) Light God (Odin) created them from trees

Big Bang Nothing Energy Light Evolution

Genesis 1 Nothing God Light God created them

What does this mean?

“Many, like Friedrich Delitzsch, have drawn ‘sharp attention to the Babylonian ingredient in Genesis, and [have proceeded] to conclude that the Bible was guilty of crass plagiarism.’ ” (wesleycrouser.wordpress.com)

“The historian can prove that the fall of Rome was credited partly to the rise of Christianity, and the Christianity that we know today had to start from somewhere. One may even go so far as to say the stories in the bible are stories of Greek mythology changed to suit the belief system of new religion; Christianity.” (hubpages.com)

What does this mean?

“One of the two Bible creation myths was probably derived from the much older Mesopotamian creation myth "Enuma Elish". The six days of creation in the Genesis myth parallel the six generations of gods in the Enuma Elish myth” (meta-religion.com)

What does this mean?

"The Bible and Greek Mythology." HubPages. Web. 07 Mar. 2010. <http://hubpages.com/hub/the-bible-and-greek-mythology>. "A Comparison of Creation Narratives." Theological Musings. Web. 07 Mar. 2010. <http://wesleycrouser.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/a-comparison-of-creation-narratives/>. "Genesis and Enuma Elish." Multidisciplinary View of the Religious, Spiritual and Esoteric Phenomena. Web. 07 Mar. 2010. <http://meta-religion.com/World_Religions/Ancient_religions/Mesopotamia/genesis_and_enuma_elish_creation.htm>.

Works Cited