Japanese Creation Myths

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 literal sense, God made the heavens and the earth. Before God spoke, the earth did not exist, it was empty and formless. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light. This is the first day of the creation of the world.

Throughout the plot of these four creation stories, it is visible that each culture has varying beliefs on how land was developed. For example, Cherokee Indians conclude that land was created by a water beetle who sculpted soft mud, where as Hawaiians believe that land emerged from the slime in the ocean. Both Europeans and West Africans teach that a supreme being used his or her powers to form land. In Genesis, God was responsible for the land, whereas in the Golden Chain story, a creature called Obatala was deemed accountable for creating the land. One similarity betweens these stories is that they all begin in an almost identical setting. In every myth except for

All different cultures have their own creation stories, mostly all containing the elements of a Higher Power of some sort, how the power created the world, and the creation a human man. The Christian belief in the Genesis story has these key elements , as does the Iroquois creation myth, The World on the Turtle's Back. Although these two creation stories share similarities, they also have some stark contrasts. These contrasts include, how the two cultures of the Native American Iroquois tribe and then Christians view life and aspects of good and evil, the way each culture views nature and the impact that has on their culture, and finally the way the Christian God and the Iroquois gods are portrayed to

Often a topic of debate, there are several different takes on the creation story existent in literature. Dependent on one’s religion, different beliefs about how the world we live in was created may arise. Looking deeper into the literature, one will realize there are also many similarities between creation stories. Based on the strong possibility that Genesis was influenced by the Enuma Elish, there are similarities that stem from the fact that they both describe the creation of a new world as well as differences in their interpretations and approaches to creationism.

Christian Beliefs in the Origins of the World “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” A Description of Christian Beliefs About the Origins of The World Christians believe that God created the universe.

One of the fundamental questions that religions seek to answer is that of origin. How was man put on earth? Why and from what was he created? Who created him? What does his creation imply about the status of human beings? Some or all of these questions are answered by a religion’s creation stories. Every religion’s creation myths attempt to give solutions to problems present to that religious society. Because of this, each religion may have one or more creation stories, each of those different from one another in the questions they ask and the answers they give.

Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomenons in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life

Almost every culture on earth has a creation myth. Most if not all of these myths borrow from the core theme of a God-centered creation as contained in the book of Genesis chapter one. According to Van Over (11), a good number of these creation stories show a similarity in the point of their origin. Rumor has it that some of these myths have emanated from actual historical occurrences or events. All creation myths emerge from one ancient source and only diverge when it comes to their timing and the surrounding cultural circumstances. The variations in the myths come as a result of the differences in time and cultural circumstances. Aside from the two causes of variation, in general all creation myths show a basic outline and they also share some basic elements.

The first group of Native Americans, the Maidu origin story began with a turtle and the turtle was talking to Earth Initial. The turtle helps the Earth Initial by swimming to the bottom of the sea and the Earth Initial used the dirt under the turtle’s nails to create the earth. Additionally, Earth Initial invited his sister which is the sun and the moon his brother and that was the beginning of the earth. While in the Christian origin story the earth, heaven, sun, moon and stars were created by God.

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.

In the beginning there was nothing, except God. God made everything out of nothing. He made the heavens, earth, and all things. It took him 6 days and on the seventh day he rested.

One reason that both Greek and Genesis creation stories are different is because the Gods in both stories create the universe in different ways. For example, “one half of the shell rose into the air and became the sky and the other became the earth.”(Greek) another example is, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This shows that both stories are different because the earth was created in different way in both stories. Another difference that both creation stories have is that they both have different amounts of time in which they created the earth. For example, “with the wing she laid a golden egg and for ages she sat upon the egg.”(Greek) another example is “God saw all that he made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning – the sixth day.” This shows that both creation stories are different because it took ages to create the world in the Greek creation story, but in Genesis it only took 7 days to make the

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

Whatever was present in the beginning had managed to create all the rest, and the description of creators are of three categories, a single creator, multi-creators, and no creator. In Genesis, God is the single creator, and so is Brahman of India. The difference is that the God is immortal, but Brahman is mortal (Genesis, Genesis Project). In Chinese mythology, Pan Gu was the creator of everything but men, who were created by Nu Wa, a goddess (Lin 1-5). Other examples of multi-creators are in the mythology of Egypt and Seneca in which the children of the creator became