More handpicked essays just for you.
Comparing and contrast creation myths
Comparing and contrast creation myths
Comparing and contrast creation myths
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Comparing and contrast creation myths
The universe began with nothing more than a chaotic swirl of undifferentiated water. One day, for no reason, the swirl split and created a god and a goddess out of two distinctly different bodies of water. The fresh water god Aspu(m) and the salt water goddess Tiamat(f) formed a union and gave birth to the younger gods, who were housed inside Tiamat’s(f) body. As the days grew long and the nights grew longer, Aspu(g) grew increasingly agitated with the younger gods, for their noise was distracting him from his work by day and keeping him from sleep at night. Aspu(m) sought counsel from Mummu(m), his vizier, and both agreed that Aspu(m) should kill the younger gods. Tiamat(f) learned of Aspu’s(m) plan and was not in favor of killing those that
Eventually everything the gods would create would fall into the water and be eaten by Cipactli, because of this the gods decided Cipactli needed to be destroyed. The gods attacked Cipactli pulling her in all four directions and destroying her. In doing so Cipactli became the universe. The four gods used parts of her to form the earth such as the forests, rivers and moutains. Her head held the thirteen heavens, the underworld was at her tail and the earth was in the
The common motif for the Mesopotamian and Icelandic creation myth are “the world parent”, “a war in heaven” and “the creation of earthly matter from the body of the first mother”, ( The World of Myth, Page 19).
The Chinese myth describes how when Pan-gu died, his body formed huge mountains, his skull formed the top of the sky, his hair formed all flowers and plants, his bones turned to jade and pearl, his arms and legs became the four directions. Also, Pan-gu’s blood became the rivers, his breath the wind, and his voice thunder, and finally, one eye became the sun and the other the moon. In the Egyptian myth, Geb is the earth, and Nut is the sky. These two are all tangled together, so Shu, god of air, pushed them apart. After Odin and the other gods slew Ymir in the Norse creation myth, Ymir’s huge body formed the earth, his blood the sea, his flesh became the land, his bones made up the mountains, and his hair made the trees. Odin and the other gods formed the sky with Ymir’s skull by holding it up with four large pillars. In the beginning of the Enuma Elish creation, it mentions how the two gods, Apsu and Tiamat, made the sweet water sea and the salt water sea. After a war that killed Tiamat’s army, the god Marduk raised half or Tiamat’s body to form the sky and the other half to form the earth. So many things also happened in the Maori creation. Rangi and Papa formed the earth and the sky. When their children managed to push them apart because they were so tightly embraced, Papa’s blood became the red clay land, and
Not only do we have conflict and oppression, but we also have a supreme god sacrificing a guilty god. The whole poem is about creation, where the gods, and man, came from. For someone that believes in these gods, this poem talks about their beginning, how it all started, and their purpose in life. What is more important in life than the mere meaning of living? When Marduk took Tiamat’s blood to create the world, he did not request it, but demanded her sacrifice, without even letting her voice an opinion. Before this however, we see the conflict between Tiamat and Apsu. These two gods have an interesting love/hate relationship in which at one point in time, Apsu wishes to kill Tiamat. These gods strike me as hateful, vengeful, and manipulative. When Marduk gets made Lord of all, he is sworn with water and oil. When I think of a god being made “supreme god”, I would hope it was because he was perfect, righteous, and Holy. However, Marduk was not any of these things. It strikes me odd that these gods would adore Marduk so much, when he was just like the rest of them. At the very end of the passage, Marduk is approving the text of the origins. These were the laws and regulations that had to be met by all the people. None of these rules demonstrate mercy, compassion, or much less, a fathers love. In my opinion Marduk is a very arrogant god. He wanted obedience in order to feel powerful. Not to mention, the whole reason he is
In the beginning, there was nothing, no sand, no sea, or cool waves. The heaven or the Earth did not exist. Before the earth was made Niflheim was made. In Niifleim rose twelve rivers. The south was Muspell, where heat and brightness guarded by Surt, who was a giant who carried a flaming sword. The north was frigid Ginnungagap, where the rivers froze and all was ice. Soon enough the ice thawed, and the drips thickened and formed the shape of a man. The man’s name was Ymir, the first of and ancestor of the frost-giants. Then more ice fell and created a cow. The milk of the cow flowed four rivers and fed Ymir. By the third day of the cow licking, a whole man had emerged, and his name was Buri. Buri had a son named Bor, who married a girl named Bestla, who was the daughter of one
Ever wonder why the sun shines in the day and not at night or how night and day even came to be? It happened many, many years ago. Two young gods were trying to decide how to make the world. One wanted it to be square. The other wanted it to be a triangle. They could not seem to agree on anything at all. The young gods were twins, created at the exact same time. One was made by a ball of light that collided with a lone tree on a meteor she was named Lumina. Lumina means light in Romanian, pretty fitting for a god of light! The other god was created when a pitch-black meteor broke through a black hole; he was called Dorcha, which means dark in Irish. These two gods were completely different and could never see eye to eye.
Since the humble beginnings of culture, humans have constantly looked around, above and below them and pondered the mystery of creation. How did the universe come to be? What is the purpose of life? A relentless need to answer these universal inquiries, and an inexhaustible thirst for knowledge sparked cultures around the world to conceptualize and speculate various beliefs. These beliefs and faiths that erupted around the world pursued the same purpose; they aimed to find the answers to the conundrums of life. These beliefs and myths may come from various corners of the world, but nevertheless, if scrutinized and studied properly with judicious attention to the various symbols, motifs and themes, stupefying similarities will begin to reveal themselves to the conscious mind. These similarities allude to a cosmogonal connection between the thought processes of humans. The Native American creation myth, “Turtle Dives to the Bottom”, the
The Asmat are an ethnic group of New Guinea, residing in the Papua province of Indonesia.Until the 1950s, their remote location isolated the Asmat from other peoples. The Asmat were known to be headhunters and cannibals, and as a result were left largely undisturbed until the mid-20th century. The main musical instruments of the Asmat people are hourglass-shaped wood drums. At almost every ceremony and feast, one or more men gather to play the drums and sing. In Asmat society, the drum was associated with the beginnings of humanity. The Asmat are well known woodcarvers in the Pacific and collectors seek out their art. Drums are individually owned and any man can make one, however, individuals often have them made by master carvers. The drums
The myth of The Creation of the Universe andLife birth came about one day after the god obatala finished creating dry land and became bored. The cat that he had as companion was not enough for him. After this he realized that he started to dig and made figures that resemble himself out of clay. However, he became thirsty and became drunk by accident and made some that were deformed. He did not destroy them or start over he just vowed to protect his
In Genesis, god created merely by speaking. It was god who created the heavens and earth also known as cosmos. Water was already pre-existent matter; everything else was created by god. It all began when god spoke in the darkness and said let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good. During the day there would be light, and the darkness would be at night. By the second and third day, god created a firmament (dome) which separated the waters from the waters. God called the firmament heaven and said that all the waters under heaven should be gathered as one allowing for dry land to appear. This created one place for the water and another place for dry land. It was the dry land that beca...
And then the Sun began to sing a theme of his own which rivaled the voices of the gods’ combined. The others began to grow worrisome as they knew that Sun was stronger than any one of them and was almost as powerful as Gaia himself. Gaia heard of the discord in the song and knew that Sun was becoming too powerful and had to do something, but Gaia was too caring and wasn’t ready to banish one of his servants that were like children to him. The Sun eventually separated from the rest and began to plot against the creating of the
All of this is quite mysterious; it is something we have to go on by our faith. I know this by reading the Bible, and attending a church that explains The Creation so well. First, I believe that God is the creator of everything in the universe. How else could something so big and vast been created any other way? He knew exactly what to put on the Earth for everything to live and survive the way they do. There really is no other explanation for it. He then needed for the people on this Earth to know how he wanted them to live. He then created his son Jesus Christ from his liking to be the one to spread His
One day the supreme deity who created each of the Gods, decided to allow each of the member’s to unite it’s people with the other. They wondered how they would be this since all of the planets differed in climate and no one could survive on the others planet.
The myth above started with a similar background as the Theogony by Hesoid. The cosmos in both myths are in Chaos at the very beginning until the appearance of world creator who reshaped the world. The special state of cosmos is also mentioned in many other creation myths such as Hebrew Bible. In Hebrew Bible, the early cosmos is described using the word
No one is exactly sure how but the universe was created billions of years ago for some unknown reason. Every culture from around the world at one point starts to wonder where did it all come from? Who or what created the world we know today? The story of the creation of our world has been repeatedly told in a variety of religion, folklore, mythology and science as well. Although told in different languages and separate parts of the world similarities arise as all of the creation stories attempt to answer the great mystery of life “Where did we come from?” Stories of our creation of the world create a spiritual and mystical bond that unites people together. At the center of almost every culture there exist a creation myth or story that explains how world came to be. Several of these cultures where separated by geographical barriers but have somehow developed similar creation stories that involve the same basic elements.