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Recommended: Summary of creation in genesis
The Structure of Genesis:
An easy approach to understand the structure of Genesis is observing its content and style. The book divides into two sections: Genesis 1-11 and Genesis 12-50. The former is the Ancient History covers the time between creation and the tower of Babel. The time its covered is more than the total time of the rest of Bible recorded. The second part of Genesis is history of Israelite Fathers. Time in this section slows the pace and focus on a man, Abraham and his family for four generations. Its tells about God initiates His salvation to mankind starts from calling Abraham, with His blessing, moves from his homeland to Canaan; to the death of his descendant Joseph at the end of the book.
It is interesting to find both sections starts with God’s word. In Gen 1:1: God said, “Let there be light…”, God initiates the creation of the world by His word. And in Gen 12:1: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country… I will show you…” God initiates Abraham to His election plan also through His word. Both sections are constructed begins with a creation by the Word of God. The power of His Word creates the universe (1:1) as well as a new destiny of a special people, nation through a man (12:1).
Not only similarity shown in the beginning of the two sections, as in all fifty chapters of Genesis, many repeated words and phrases have been carefully adopted. Let compare the two accounts of creation in Gen 1 and Gen 2-3 and explain what I have found. The description of the creation of the world varies one from the other in terms of its content, word, phrase and style.
1. The writer of Gen 1 chooses repeated words and phrase to describe God’s creation: “And God said” or “Then God said” (v. 3,6,9,11,14, 20,24,26); u...
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...with the new nations after the Flood (10:1) and emphasis on the descendants of elected nations (11:10, 27) to the prologue of Abram.
Another 5 episodes is being constructed in the section of History of Israelite Fathers, three records the story of Abraham & Isaac (12:1-25:18), the story of Jacob (25:19-36:43) and the story of Joseph (37:1-50:26). The other two episodes narrate Ishmael at the end of Abraham cycle (25:12,18) and Esau at the end of Jacob cycle (36:1, 43).
Therefore, using a genealogy approach, by counting and listing the generation to generation, connects separate ancient stories and complies them, writer A constructs the book of Genesis and contribute a sense of unity to it. And in a wider sense, writer A construct the sections of Ancient History and History of Israelite Fathers with a common beginning - God’s creation with the power of His Word.
Another way that these creation stories are similar is that the land came from beneath or was brought up above the water. In Genesis 1:9 "God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together to one place, and let the dry land appear '" here God pulled the water away from some land and it became dry and livable. The Sky Tree depicts that "all of the water animals began to dive down and bring up soil... and placed the soil on Turtle 's back. " this is what created the
Coogan, Michael David., Marc Zvi. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. "Genesis." The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 2010. Print.
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.
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.
The Enuma Elish mirrors the subordinate disordered lives of the Babylonians that created it. Genesis mirrors the newfound freedom and idealism of the Jewish people who created it after years of oppression. These two writings contrast the differences between the ancient Babylonians and the ancient Hebrews. Creation stories give great insight into the lives of the people who created them.
Wiseman's theory is that Genesis is translated from individual tablets which would have contained the material before each occurrence of the above phrase. So the narratives of the creation of the universe (Gen 1) and of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2) would have been written on one tablet by Adam as these events were revealed to him by the only Eye-witness of the events, God Himself.
As the first book of the Old Testament convey, Genesis, and its Greek meaning “in the beginning,” life originated with God in the Garden of Eden. Accor...
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
The ancient reading, “The Epic of Creation/Enuma Elish” and the beginning of the Holy Bible Old Testament, Genesis are two distinct passages that share many different qualities. Ranging from how the universe was ever created, to the origin of power and rule over others, both stories reveal persistence, strength, and honor. Genesis 1:1-2:4, Genesis 2:4-3:34 from the Holy Bible, and “The Epic of Creation”, have similar beginnings that determine the endings of both stories.
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 focus of this analysis is on Genesis (chapter 7) and Gilgamesh (lines 1 - 25). These two different passages will be analyzed to relate each document and how the author's worldview shapes his account of the flood.
Throughout history many civilizations and cultures have had their own ways of explaining the world and its creation. Each of these civilizations has created unique descriptions and accounts of such events. However, when comparing them to each other, are they really different? Look at the ancient Greco - Roman creation myths as told by Hesiod in his Theogony and Works and Days and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, when compared to the creation myths as seen in the Old Testament’s book of Genesis they may not be as different as one would think. Taking a more in-depth look at both Genesis and Hesiod’s and Ovid’s work more closely, the reader can see that on multiple occasions the myths have almost identical similarities which reflect their views in society. The similarities in particular are the myths of the creation of man, women with their subsequent role of evil in ancient times, and the great floods. These similarities prove that even though these two scriptures were centuries apart, the concepts presented in each myth were almost identical to one another.
Within the texts of Genesis which belong to the biblical scriptures of the Hebrews, and the myths of Egyptian origin, there are a multitude of similarities and differences. When compared side by side, the most obvious factor of both texts is that a single God was the creator of all that we know today. In Genesis that creator is simply referred to as God, while in Egyptian mythology, the creator is known as Neb-er-tcher. Both creators have striking resemblances, such as the ways they went about the production of the world.
In this paper I will discuss three similarities and four differences between Enuma Elish-The Epic of Creation (King,1902) and Genesis 1:1-3:24 as described by Michael Fishbane (Fishbane, 1979). These writings are selected to describe the story of creation of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth. However, each author has a very different view and way of explaining what they have interpreted the sacred texts to mean.
Genesis is the first creation story. God creates, establishes, and puts everything into motion. After putting all of this in motion he then rests. He creates everything on earth in just seven days. Before creation Gods breath was hovering over a formless void. God made earth and all of the living creatures on earth out of nothing. There was not any pre-existent matter out of which the world was produced. Reading Genesis 1 discusses where living creatures came from and how the earth was formed. It’s fascinating to know how the world began and who created it all. In Genesis 1 God is the mighty Lord and has such strong power that he can create and banish whatever he would like. His powers are unlike any others. The beginning was created from one man only, God.