The anger of Gods throughout both stories leads you to believe that the Gods will not hesitate to take revenge on mankind for creating a world of evil in a world they created for good. The Gods from Metamorphoses and the God from the Old Testament create a world full of life, to live happy and full of grace. The destruction and recreation of the world by the Gods of each book, however similar they may seem, are full of differences as they both teach mankind lessons that should not be forgotten.
“Whatever God it was, who brought order to the universe, and gave it division, subdivision, he molded earth” Metamorphoses pg 685. In the beginning the earth had nothing, no light to call sun, no water to bath in, and no human to walk on the ground that we call land that was not land. The Gods choose to make a playground of sorts. In both literature pieces the Gods divide the heavens and the earth, split the water from the land, light from the dark. The God’s made animals for this land and water and creatures for the air. “But something else was needed a finer being, more capable of mind, a sage, a ruler, so man was born, It may be in God’s image” Metamorphoses pg 686. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” The Old Testament pg 54. The Old Testament God thought it was not good for man to be alone so from the bone of man’s rib he made a woman.
The first murder in the Old Testament is the beginning of God realizing that man was evil, “god saw the wickedness of man” Old Testament pg 56. Cain murdered his brother Abel, out of jealousy of the Lord’s love. Able a Sheppard who brought the fat of the animals and the Lord had respect fo...
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...s to repopulate the earth, “Go from the temple, cover your heads, loosen your robes, and throw your mothers bones behind you” pg 692. Pyrrha being so innocent could not throw the bones of her mother and refused until she would never insult her mother in such a way. Themis over and over told them to do this until Deucalion thought maybe he meant to throw stones behind them. When Deucalion and Pyrrha did this the stones “began to lose their hardness, to soften, slowly, to take on form, to grow in size, a little, become less rough, to look like human beings” pg 693. All the stones that Deucalion threw turned to man and all the stones that Pyrrha threw behind her became women. Life began to form from other things as well. The moist mud from the waters drying turned to animals that now roam our earth, swim in our seas and oceans, birds that fly in our skies.
God’s punishment for Cain for having murdered his own brother was ostracizing him. Cain was fearful that someone would soon kill him. God responded that anyone who killed Cain would have an even worse fate, and he put a mark on
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis1:1.) God’s perfect wisdom created everything. In Genesis 1 and 2 we can see that God has loving and gentile nature when He created the earth and heavens. God created man in his image and we are the only creation that God breathed in the breath of life for human beings (Genesis 2:7). God did not do this for any of other creations but only for humans. The Bible has many scriptures that tell us how creative God is. Genesis 1;26 states “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created all of this for us to have fellowship with him.
The symbolic world views of how the world was created can be described through the cosmogonies of Genesis and the Laws of Manu. It is through these theories that one can learn how the universe came into existence. Many individuals consider a certain religion to be their ultimate realm of reality, and it is within religion that these symbolic world views come into play. The cosmogony of Genesis began along a sacred history of time where god created merely by speaking. In contrast, the Laws of Manu involve creation through thought. In Genesis, there is only one god and in Laws of Manu there is more than one god. Both cosmogonies have many similarities as they have many differences, yet both of them are significant in understanding and interpreting the philosophy of religion and its traditions. Although god believes that everything he created is good, I believe that the existence of god is questionable when there is so much evil in the universe.
One of the main dangers in the way we chose to interpret God in both testaments, is our tendency to see the Bible as containing two different gods: the God of the
Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomenons in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life sprouting from a seed. But all share a common themes, such as a form of chaos or nothingness before life is created. Joseph Campbell notes that “... the idea of an absolute ontological distinction between God and man – or between gods and men, divinity and nature - first became an important social and psychological force in the near East, specifically Akkad, in the period of the first Semetic Kings, c. 2500 B.C.,” showing another similar trait – a god or set of gods exists to create in each story (626). Joseph Campbell makes a comparison of how both Genesis and the Book of the Dead of Egypt share the same idea of their bodies belonging to their god in some way, or being reabsorbed into them at death (630-631). Others, like the Japanese and Iroquois creation myths, claim the Earth was once covered entirely of water before land was formed. Adam and Eve of Genesis and Izanagi and sister Izanami of Shintoism provide examples of myths that share both a passive and active pair of people who eventually create the Earth's population. In any case, certain popular creation myths, some closely tied to prominent religions, share more common characteristics than others. An entire sub-study, called comparative mythology, gives insight into this subject.
Where Genesis I describes a more ordered creation - the manifestation of a more primitive cultural influence than was responsible for the multi-layered creation in Genesis II - the second creation story focuses less on an etiological justification for the physical world and examines the ramifications of humankind's existence and relationship with God. Instead of Genesis I's simple and repetitive refrains of "and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25), Genesis II features a more stylistically advanced look at "the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (Gen 2:4). While both stories represent different versions of the same Biblical event, Genesis II is significantly more complex than its predecessor and serves both to quantify the relationship between God and his creations and lay the foundation for the evolving story of humankind as well.
In Hesiod’s version, Zeus created Pandora as a punishment to man and illustrated her as an evil, deceitful and supposed curse on mankind, “Evil conspirators. And he added another evil to offset the good...she was a real pain for human beings” (Hesiod, 149-164) On the contrary women in Ovid’s tale were treated as companions who worked together for the greater good, as depicted by the myth of Pyrrha and Deucalion, “Then, side by side, they went without delay to seek the waters of Cephisus’ stream.” (Ovid, 17) Deucalion and Pyrrha are portrayed to be righteous and true devotes of the Olympian gods and hence given the responsibility of repopulating earth. Ovid demonstrates that the humans in this myth portray the role of a god, where they repopulate Earth with righteous humans, thus creating order in the universe again. He portrays their role as a vital component in this occurrence as without their diligence and morals—this act would not have been possible. Thus, establishing the human-centered concept of his
Both the Theogony and the Creation in Genesis show nature as a blessing for humans but with negative affects, However the myths differ in the ways that the Earth and humans were created and how humans interact with the deities of the creation stories. These differences include how Gods treat humans and why the Gods/God created Earth. These stories are still being passed on in today’s world and are two of the most influential creation stories to have ever been written. The similarities and differences in the creation stories show that different cultures and religions throughout the world really aren’t that far off from each other.
The God of Genesis is portrayed very differently. God is a forgiving God. One sees this when God states, "of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Genesis 2:17). However, when Adam and Eve do eat the apple-though he does make them mortal-God allows them to live. God also does not strike down Cain. The God of Genesis is also a personable God. God talks directly to the h...
The creation process in both stories draw comparison to each other starting with the beginning. In both stories the universe starts as empty and formless without any type of God. The book of Genesis states, “Darkness” over the surface of the watery depths – Gen 1:2b, and separation of two spheres of water (cf. Gen 1:6-7). This quote is very identical to what is found in Enuma Elish which reads, “Tiamat, personification of primeval ocean, split in two spheres of water – EE IV. lines 100-140.” This is not the only times the story show similarity in both stories it is implied that humans were made in God’s image as well . Both stories depict a devine resting of a God once the universe is constructed where in Genesis it states, “Yahweh takes up divine rest in his cosmic-temple after creation out of chaos” and in Enuma Elish it states, “Marduk and other gods take rest in temple after victory over creation-conflict”. It is interesting to point out that in both stories the Gods feel the need to rest after achieving similar feats in terms of the creation of the universe. In different ways both narratives involve the creation of humans. Once again the stories show resemblance while in Genesis man is created from the earth, in Enuma Elish man is created from the blood of Kingu. Each story provides that humans are made in the image of a God. While both Genesis and Enuma Elish provide
‘Out of the hillock the first god emerged. He was referred to as a ‘he’ for the mere sake of expediency, but he embodied both the male and female principles with himself. As a result this enabled him to create new forms all by himself without the help of another deity. By spitting and masturbating he created a pair of new gods. This new pair copulated and created another pair, who in turn created another pair. This continued until the entirety of the cosmos had come into
In the Holy Bible, the book of Genesis starts by saying “In the beginning…God created the heavens and the earth…” (The New American Bible, Gen. 1.1). These powerful words layout the base to the entire Bible which tells readers to accept God as the powerful creator, our heavenly father, and remind us the fact that we exist because of God. In fact, the book of Genesis is the most important book in the Bible because it simply tells the story of God’s creation of the universe and how God created man and woman. Moreover, God teaches life lessons throughout in the book of Genesis by explaining different concepts of obeying, punishing, and forgiving others as well as the consequences that can come about if one goes against God’s will. As I read the
Mankind’s origin was premeditated from God, formed from the dust of the earth, and made in His image and likeness. God confers with Himself and rouses Himself to make man in His own image and likeness (Bavinck 1). Because man is made in God’s image and likeness, he is set apart from any other creature or angel ever created. Man has a relationship with God that no other creature will ever have.
Every day God created something new and blesses it. God created nothing irrelevant or unworthy. Entirely everything he created served a purpose. Also all he had created came from nothing. The fish were undeniably produced out of the waters, and the beasts and man out of the earth; but that earth and those waters were made out of nothing. God created what is known as the world today and everything that exists on the earth. Reading Genesis 1 gives all mankind an idea of how life started and how the earth was formed to be this magnificent place. The earth is very complicated yet God could solve all of the problems and create blessings. He gave us light and darkness, day and night, water and land. He created all living creature including mankind.
First off, the Bible does state that the world and everything that is of the world was created by God. In the book of Genesis, it states that God created the world in seven days with each day consisting of a new creation. On the first day, God created light “day” and darkness “night.” On the second day, God created a vault that separated the water under the vault from the water above the vault. This vault was called “sky.” On the third day, God created “land” and “sea” and then told the land to bring forth vegetation according to their various kinds. On the fourth day, God created the moon, stars, and the sun, each to govern parts of the day. The moon and the stars govern the night and then the sun governs the day and each gives off light to the earth. On the fifth day, God created creatures to swim in the water and creatures to fly in the sky. On the sixth day, God created livestock and wild animals, each to roam the earth according to their kind. Also, God created man and woman in his own image to rule over all the animals of the earth on this same day. On the seventh day, God saw that everything was good and he rested (Genesis 1: 1 - 31). These were the seven days of creation described in the Bible. When I think about the seven days of creation, I do n...