Cosmic Creation Myths Across Cultures

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.

Egyptian Mythology’s creation started with Nu, the dark and swirling chaos before time. Eventually, Atum rose from Nu and created a hill for himself to stand on. He had one eye that would see everything, but was very lonely. Soon after, Atum brought Shu, the god of air, and Tefnut, the goddess of mist and moisture into life. They gave birth to Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky. Nut would give birth to the sun every night before sunset so the sun would shine through the day, and die at night.

In the Western world, the most well-known creation story is in Genesis (Myth A), in the Old Testament of

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

The general purpose for all myths is to bring an understanding of unknown. The ancient people widely used myths to explain new phenomena and occurrences. The lack of scientific modes of theory formulation caused the people of old to come up with myths to fill the vacuum with the knowledge that existed during their time. The need by man to explain his origin and the origin of the universe led him to the formulation of creation and origin myths. Men of olds came up with myths to explain the mysteries they had no clue about including creation.

Myth is a body of story that matters—the patterns present in mythology run deeply in the human psyche

Greek Mythology originated around 775 B.C.E. It all started with Homer’s Iliad and continued on with Hesiod’s Theogany. These were the first two myths to be recorded in Greek Mythology. Both of these myths reveal to us about their understanding of the universe, and about their culture. Not only do they talk about their various gods, and heroes, but they also talk about how they viewed the universe in general (Rosenberg 79). Greek Mythology evolved from two early civilizations, the Mycenaean’s and the Minoans. It was the combining of these different Greek cities and Kingdoms during 10th century B.C. that created Greek Mythology. Its Geographic isolation gave it a place for mythologies to evolve (Gale Virtual Reference Library: Greek

The culture of mythology is originated as the means of documenting what the culture thinks to be real and have many facts about the beginning of the universe around them. For example, over time and documentation the word of religion took up other meaning for different cultures. When a brand new religion dominates over the previous religion the old book or documents become myths and legends so then beings regarded past recordings as false or fantasy but with no real historical value. That’s when the word myth comes in to play.

Leonard. S., & McCLure. M. (2004). Myth & knowing: An introduction to world mythology. New York, NY:

Creation myths across cultures have several obvious similarities and differences. There is substantial importance in the larger ideas, such as gender, the role of the human beings, and the outcome of the creation. I find it fascinating that many of the mythical stories from around the world have told a story where a God floods the earth. I think the flood stories in each myth may be a link between them. Creation myths concern our ancestors and gods of nature; the earth, the sky, the sun, the moon, and the stars. They are supernatural explanations of human origin and they help explain what humans could not explain to answers question about the creation of the earth and man that could be passed on for generations. Our culture and history would not be the same without the mythical place that surround the stories of our creation.

Every person in America has a myth or conviction of truth as to how creation was formed and human beings came into existence. The following are inclusive in creation myths, the first is the Zulu myth found in the continent of Africa, and the other is the myth of Norse originating from Europe. Both myths give a reason as to how creation was formed on earth. Though there are endless amounts of ideas and vast amounts of myths to explore, the focus of these two particular myths brings fascination to a social phenomenon.

The most popular creation myth, in present day is the “one god” myth. It existed yet, had a brief life and it was in the minority. Here Ptah was the closest thing to monotheism that the ancients had. This is a popular theme in Memphite theology, but it was present in parts of Egypt. Ptah supposedly had all that is manifest in thought and then created them with his Word (Baines, 1991). It is also said that the “one god” is and the other god names are used to personify an extension of the “one god” (Ancient Egyptian Religion pg. 2 and 3). Ptah creates the Ennead with thought and word. This monotheism was not very widespread and it did not last long.

Creation Myths Creation myths can be traced back to around 1600 B.C, which is where we believe the earliest creation myths were first recorded by the Sumerians. They were the earliest known society to emerge in the world through writing that existed over 4000 years ago in Mesopotamia according to Walter Baucum. The Sumerian/Babylonian creation myth started with Apsu and Tiamat, a female and male deity, who both came together to create water, wind, sky and earth as mentioned by classmate Tristan. The male deity represented fresh water and the female, salt water. The theme of water can be found across all creation myths and it usually was represented by a female deity or connected to a feminine element.

Egyptians needed a way to understand the phenomenon of the sun due to their lack of scientific knowledge. They tended to use animals to describe certain characteristics of a god. This was especially the case with the ones they cannot see. “Thebes celebrated a different major god—Amun, the “Hidden One”—with powers so great he could not be visualized, yet because he had to be represented in some way in order to pay him homage, he was depicted as a man with a tall ostrich plume crown.” (Brier, Pg. 36).

When this word “myth” is used, the term is usually related to a fable, invention or a fiction story. Over the years, many scholars started approaching the study of myth differently. These scholars have approach myths in a way their meaning was traditionally regarded. In many traditions these myth are true stories and never refer to as false stories. ( http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/grecoromanmyth1/a/whatismyth.htm )