The Genesis Myth In Genesis: The Creation Story

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The genesis creation story is the creation myth that has roots in both Judaism and Christianity. In the first creation story of Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:3), the Hebrew equivalent for the word God proceeds to create the world, heaven, and earth in six days then rest on the seventh while sanctifying it. In the second creation of Genesis (Genesis 2:4-2:24) God is referred to as Yahweh, he creates Adam from the earths dust and places him in the Grade of Eden giving him reign over all the animals. The first woman, Eve, is created from the rib of Adam and God places her alongside Adam to accompany him. The first account of creation in Genesis (1:1 through 2:3) there is a repeating structure of divine fulfillment. The book of Genesis elapses the longest …show more content…

In common usage, myth means a story that is the figment of someone (or some group's) imagination and that communicates a message that is only vaguely reliable at best. There is no shortage of commentators who look at the early parts of the Book of Genesis (and indeed many other parts of the Bible) in this way. Such people are often intent on taking the Bible apart and showing how it is not to be trusted. It is most unlikely that this was what your pastor had in mind and it is probable that he did not express himself adequately. However, I can tell you that the biblical texts in question are not "just a myth" or "all just someone's imagination." At the other end of the spectrum from the Bible-as-myth school of thought is the Bible-as-literal way of thinking. This is found among fundamentalists. In the case of the early chapters of Genesis, the approach here is called "creationism." Fundamentalist and literalist school of thought hold that everything in the Bible is strict history and is to be taken exactly as it appears -- like a newspaper account. Creationists hold that God created the world in six days as we know them and that all creation unfolded just as it appears in the biblical texts. Thus they would rule out the notion of evolution or the understanding that the six days of creation may have been

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