Proposing a Perspective: Comparing and Contrasting
The Creation of the World in the Iroquois Creation Story and The Bible. From the very beginning of time, every human that has existed on this earth has been explained a theory in which how the earth came to be. In North America, the creation of the universe falls mostly under two categories: the creation science theory and the scientific view theory. The creation science is where God created the universe during six consecutive days, and the scientific view is where the process of natural selection and evolution created the world. There are also stories like David Cusick’s version of “The Iroquois Creation Story”, a woman gave birth to a set of twins, a good and a bad son, and the twins created
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For example, in “The Iroquois Creation Story” myth there were two worlds that were in existence, the lower world which was in great darkness, and the upper world which was covered with life. In The Bible’s creation story, God created Heaven, which is full of light and life, and Satan, the angel that rebelled, was cast into the lower parts of the earth, Hell, which is full of torment. God created the earth in six consecutive days. God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light (The Bible). He created Heaven, he created earth, and he created the oceans on the second day. God created vegetation, fruits, and trees. And God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning, the third day. On the fourth day, He created the seasons, the days, the years, the sun, the moon, and the stars (The Bible). On the fifth day, God created living creatures in the sky, in the waters, and on the ground. Then God said, “Let us make men in our image, after our likeness” (The Bible). In “The Iroquois Creation Story” myth, the good twin began the creations of the earth. He was determined to bring light into the dark world. He created the orb, the moon, the sun, the seasons, the years, the night, and the day, he also created the living creatures that lived on earth, in the skies, and in the waters (Cusick 24). He created two images of the dust by breathing into their nostrils, he gave them the living souls, just as God formed the man of dust from the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life into existence. The evil twin went behind the good son and destroyed all of his creation, just as the serpent went into the Garden of Eden and tricked the woman and man to eat from the tree, and after the land and animals were cursed. The twin brothers fought over who should rule the universe, and the good twin won, and the bad twin was sent to the lower
Most cultures have a creation myth, a story of how humans came to exist in the world. Often, they involve Gods of some capacity who exist without much question or explanation. Many myths have a common idea for the origin of the world, like Earth being born from water, a golden egg, or a great monster. The Mayan creation myth and the Babylonian creation myth are similar in that they both begin with water, and account the creation and purpose of man. They also differ, as the Mayan Popol Vuh chronicles a peaceful tale of trials to forge the Earth and sentient beings to worship the gods, while the Babylonian Enuma Elish tells of wars between gods that lead to the creation of Earth and of man as a servant to the gods.
The Indigenous people of America are called Native Americans or often referred to as “Indians”. They make up about two percent of the population in the United States and some of them still live in reservations. They once lived freely in the wilderness without any sort of influence or exposure from the Europeans who later came in the year of 1492, and therefore their culture is very different from ours.. In the following essay we will discover some differences between the religious beliefs of the Native American Iroquois and Christianity to see if the culture and ways of living have an effect on the view of religion, but we will also get to know some similarities between them. I am going to be focusing on the Iroquois, which are the northeastern Native Americans who are historically important and powerful.
In Genesis, Adam and Eve have two children, Cain and Abel. Cain is jealous of Abel and this evokes Cain to kill his brother. In The World on Turtle’s Back, the mother has two children, one left-handed and one right-handed. The left-handed twin is evil while the right-handed twin is good and light. They both clash for days on end until the left-handed twin is defeated by fate. Both myths are perfect examples of good and evil, and the notion that good and evil are always going to be a part of the world. The myths simply establish good and evil.
At the beginning of the story about the creation is different: in Christian story, the first day God created the heavens and the earth. God created the world in seven days, and the world has day time, night time, plants, trees, sky, seas, lands, water, birds, wild animals, foods, the man ? Adam, and his wife ? Eve. On the other hand, in Iroquois, that has two worlds in ancients already ? the lower world was in great darkness and humankind inhabited the upper world. It means there was no creation of the world for Iroquois.
The Iroquois creation myth comes across a situation in which there is no one for the two females to mate with since there is no male life on earth. Without men, human life on Earth would not continue, and, “when the girl had grown to womanhood, a man appeared,”(Iroquois) which lets the Iroquois tribe know that if they are in a needy situation, the gods have the ability to help out. Because of the gods only helping out humans on Earth when it was needed to sustain life, the Iroquois tribe can assume that in small troubles, it is unlikely the gods will help them. Rather than only helping human life out when it was needed, the gods in the Babylonian myth helped and had a relationship with humans on Earth. The female that helped create human life on Earth felt as if she had sinned, so in result of her sinning, “she changed to a cow to disguise herself, but [the god] changed to a bull and mated with her,”(Babylonian) which ended up creating all of the animals on Earth.
Considering historical evidence, the notion: Native –Americans was not the first inhabitant of America is a complete false. For centuries, history kept accurate and vivid accounts of the first set of people who domiciled the western hemisphere. Judging by those records, below are the first set of Native-American people who inhabited America before the arrival of another human race; the Iroquois: The Iroquois of Native Americans was one of the tribes that lived in America before other people came. Based on historical evidence, it is believed that the Native Americans came from Asia way back during the Ice Age through a land bridge of the Bering Strait. When the Europeans first set foot in America, there were about 10 million Native Americans
The creation myths that I have studied are similar in many ways. They also have differences that show an inherently different way of thinking about the world. All have creators-gods that make the world into what is now. There are conflicts within their world, and these conflicts change the face world. God to god or human to god maybe be involved in these conflicts. Their bloody struggles prove who is more powerful, causing change in the control of the world. Some gods are beneficial to man and others are self-serving, using man only as a tool.
The first creation myth I will begin with is Hebrew in origin and comes from the Old Testament book of Genesis, specifically chapters one through three. Chapters one and two focus on Jehovah’s (God) creation of the heavens, earth and all living things. After man (Adam) is created Jehovah, gives him a single command: “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of he tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die (The Revival Study Bible, Genesis 2:16-17).” Jehovah then creates a mate for the man, woman (Eve). Throughout this creation story the reader is given the impression that the creation itself is perfect i.e.: following creation God declares everything good, man has a close friendship with his creator, man and woman were naked and experienced no shame. Unfortunately that perfection ends when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They then felt shame, cast blame to others rather than to themselves and hid from God. As a result of their disobedience God punished them according to his law. Both Adam and Eve and their offspring after them were sentenced to a life of pain, suffering and death.
For the Native Americans to explain their existence, they created stories that described how things came to be. These stories are much like the ones that you would find in the Bible, and are very insightful in getting a better understanding of the Native Americans religious viewings. The Native Americans strongly believed in spirits and beings of another world. In the Iroquois Creation Story, these believes are strongly represented by telling the story of two brothers. This story is a representation of how the world was created. There is a good minded brother and a bad minded brother, which are not just brothers but twins. These unborn brothers and their mother were sent to the back of a turtle that in order to secure them from the dangers of the dark world she fell to. In a hurry to be born, the bad minded brother murders
For centuries people have believed in Creationism which is the idea that the Earth, its inhabitants, and everything in the universe was created and governed by a supernatural power. According to Branch and Scott, the biggest influence on this idea is the Bible and more specifically the Book of Genesis which presents “creation ex nihilo (“from nothing”), a world flood, [and] a relatively recent inception of the Earth” (27). Branch and Scott are of course referring to the Judeo-Christian biblical creation stories of “Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Flood and Noah’s Ark” which, in the seventeenth-century Europe, were “generally considered to by literally true” (Park 24). From these stories the idea that except for the “great flood, the Earth and its inhabitants were pretty much the same now a...
And then in the Iroquois story two twins created the world. And even there is a quite big difference as well: the Iroquois don't beliefs,
Genesis reads that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth,” then “God’s spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.” Another characteristic is how, after the water, came land. How the World Was Made, describes how the “soft mud,” from under the water “began to grow and to spread out on every side until it became the island we call the earth.” In The Sky Tree, the soil was “placed...until they made an island of great size.” A final similarity, is how after land came animals and how the animals helped to take care of the people on the earth. In How the World Was Made, the world the animals lived in was called Galun’lati. Galun’lati “was very much crowded,” and “the animals wanted more room;” Water Beetle left to find land so that the animals could have more space. While Water Beetle helped find land for the animals, in The Sky Tree a turtle sees a woman falling from the sky after she had jumped after a sacred tree. Turtle told his friends what he had seen and had them “bring up pawfuls of wet soil,” and place it on his back which created a “new earth,” for the woman to “settle gently on.” In Genesis, God created the animals
In Chapter 1, we see that in 1492, three very different peoples—Native American, European, and African—met in the New World. In time, these three would form a new people—Americans. Discuss the similarities and differences between these three peoples in that time period.
In both myths the relationship between humans and nature is shown as a positive one but with negative effects from humans’ greed and necessity for more. In the beginning of the Creation Story it is stated in the first few lines “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” God then began to create the Earth in seven days. On the first day he created day and night out of the darkness and light. The second day led to the creation of the sky. The third day was the creation of the land. The fourth day led to the creation of the season. And finally on the fifth and sixth day, animals and humans were created, and the first two were a male and female named Adam and Eve. At the end of everyday during creation the words “and God saw it was good” are written. God is happy with his creation of nature. The phrase shows the positive connotation of...
Traditionally creationism has roots in many religions. There are various forms of creationism in many cultures. One of the most popular tenets in cultures around the world are variation of pair of male and female that parent the entire earth of humans. They indicate generally that there is first cause of humans and animals, usually as a result of an omnipotent being. The Christian version of creationism, that preach God as the sole creator of everything, and that everything that we see today, are as they were when originally made. This view of the world has been perpetuated for many years by the Christian churches. However, science has become the most imposing threat on these beliefs. Specifically, the Darwinian theories of evolution, with its concise, iconoclastic, logic, devastated the simplistic creationism.