Are Creation Myths Good Or Bad

In Genesis, we are engaged with an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent God. The Lord saw all the evil upon the earth and devised a plan to cleanse it and start anew with a righteous man named Noah and his family. The Lord’s plan consisted of a flood to destroy the earth and all the evil in and on it. He instructed Noah how to build an ark, so his family and two of each animal, male

How was the world created? There are a bunch of ways different beliefs on how the world was created and it mainly has to do with religion and the way people believe in something. The story “The World on Turtles Back” shows how the Iroquois believe the world was created. The story of Genesis is creation story on how the Christians believe the world was formed. “The World on the Turtles Back” and Genesis are two stories that can be so different

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep”. There are many stories that talk about how the Earth are created and they all vary depending on the beliefs of the writers. In these stories there are many similarities but there are also a few differences. A good example of these similarities can be found in a few creation stories such as Genesis, Creation by the Hopi, and The World on the Turtle’s Back by the Iroquois. In these three stories there are differences and similarities found when looking at how the Earth was created, where all the evil and good came about from, and how all of the animals got their names.

When the modern person ponders the formation of human beings, our mind automatically goes to Adam and Eve, whom were the first man and woman created by God according to the Book of Genesis. Before there was Adam and Eve, diverse cultures came up with myths about the construction of humans. These myths included: “The Song of Creation” from the Rig Veda, An African Creation Tale, From the Popol Vuh, and A Native American Creation Tale “How Man Was Created” Each one of these legends gives a diverse perspective on the creation of human beings.

The Sioux creation story and the book of Genesis in the Bible both mirror an image of how the world along with human life was created. When forming their creations they were dissimilar in the way they produced water and land. In Genesis God created water by just a spoken word and it would appear. However, the Creating Power would form his creations with objects using his hands to form land from mud the story states “He sang all the while that he shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water to make a spot of dry land for himself.” Additionally, he completely covers everything with land by a command and using feathers from an eagle by waving them over the spot he had produced. Both of these stories reveal that in a previous time their God was unpleased with what he had created so he destroyed the world because of the people’s acts of immorality and unruliness. Also, this gives reflection on the role of the natural world being impure, failed and contaminated by sin and only the grace of “God” can save them. When God or the “Creating Power” recreated the world in their effort to maintain order people needed to understand how powerful and almighty they were by being able to create life or to end it.

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created-people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.”(Genesis 6:5-8)

For thousands of years, scientists have tried to interpret the concept of creation. However, before people had access to modern scientific equipment, they told creations stories. A creation story is a myth that explains how and why the earth was made. A few cultures with differing opinions on creation are Europeans, Cherokee Indians, West Africans, and Hawaiians. Europeans tell the story of Genesis and God creating the earth in seven days and Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Cherokee Indians believe that the earth was created by a water beetle. In West African culture, they teach the Golden Chain story, and Hawaiians have the Kumulipo story to explain their beliefs on creation. Although each story follows a basic guideline, they all have distinct disparities.

In contrast, in the story of Genesis God gave man dominion over all the creatures of the Earth. (Genesis 1:28) The man to this day, hunts animals of all kinds and disrespects nature, with clear-cutting of forestry and pollution.

In both Gilgamesh and Noah and the Flood, man’s wickedness leads to death, destruction, and rebirth all caused by billions of gallons of water sweeping the earth’s surface. The flood in both stories destroys most of mankind. The floods represent rebirth and a new beginning for mankind, as well as the gods and God’s wrath. In Gilgamesh the gods decide to destroy mankind by flooding the earth for six days and nights. Utnapishtim is chosen to build a boat in order to restart mankind after the flood. In the Bible God also decides to flood the earth due to the increase in wickedness. God chooses Noah to build an ark and store seven pairs of every clean animal and two of every other kind of animal on it

At the time of this story God saw how the thoughts of mankind were evil and he decided to destroy what he had created with a great flood intending to drown the earth. He chose Noah and his family to build an ark big enough to contain two of every animal to repopulate the earth. The world was flooded for a hundred and fifty days until the water subsided back into land.

It should be noted that all creation myths tend to possess similar themes, despite differing story lines. As noted before, there exists the basic ideas of chaos before creation, and gods to form life. But then various myths show that, once life has been created, the gods tend to retreat from the humanity they create, instead watching them from afar and using specifically chosen and often religious contacts to spread their words and commands. This deus

Man had become wicked and only thought of wicked things which is why we had the great flood. The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time (genesis 6:5). Our wickedness as a civilization made God regret that he had made us; to me that means that we did and can be a slave to our flesh which is evil. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled (genesis 6:6). He was going to wipe out everything he had made if it were not for one man Noah, he had found favor in the eyes of God. This is the first time that one man has saved the human race from being wiped out. Later Jesus saved us from a certain death and gave us eternal life.

In “Genesis”, God has a fatherly relationship with the humans and as a result he chooses to bring a flood to destroy all of mankind for a specific reason. God chooses to kill all of humankind because they are noxious beings and need to be destroyed to rid the world of poisonous beings. “When the Lord saw that man had done much evil and that his thoughts and inclinations were always evil, he was sorry that he had made man on earth,”(6:5-7). God created humankind and because of the way their perilous acts he decided to destroy his

Genesis starts by saying “in beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. The Bible talks about God speaking things into existence. First God made the light, which He separated into day and night. Next, God created the sky and then the waters. “He called the dry ground ‘land’ and the waters ‘seas’”. This is when God says that “it was good”. God states that his creations are good, which is different from the creations of Enuma Elish. The Creations of the gods in Enuma Elish were made from corpses torn apart and from the need of slaves. God created the vegetation, animals, sea creatures and the stars. On the sixth day, God created humans to reign over things in the world. After each day, God would state that his creations were good. After God created humans, he said it “was very good”. This would be shocking to the nomads because they would not have known of a god loving them before. Genesis is very realistic and accounts for everything that the nomads would know like the sea, animals and stars.

From a religious aspect, God also puts the fear of man into the animals and again animals are used to fill the needs of men (Genesis 9:1).