Mankind has always pondered over the question of, “Where’d we come from? How did we come to be? Who or what is responsible for the forming the earth?” Men have always tried to create stories and answers to creation. One of the more popular and classic fiction accounts of creation is presented in Book I of Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Of course there are stark and crucial differences between Ovid’s creation and the truths of creation told in Genesis, but there are many similarities amongst the differences. Both accounts are well appreciated in their own ways by a variety of people. However, when compared side by side they have very palpable differences. One of which is the purpose of their writers. The purpose behind Ovid’s writing his creation …show more content…
Though both account creation in the same order, light, land, animals, then man, the way they are described are very different. Ovid’s is very metaphorically detailed in his account. Whereas the Bible is straight forward, plain, and simple. In my opinion it’s because Moses didn’t need an illustrious or verbose method to explain the truth. The Bible also presents a time frame by which God created everything, six days to create and the seventh to rest, while Ovid doesn’t present any kind of lapse in time in his account. More evidence that Ovid’s method was more verbose and extensive is how long it takes to explain. It took Ovid seven stanzas and around eighty-two lines to tell his story and it took only thirty-one verses to account for all the truths of …show more content…
Perhaps Ovid used the Biblical truth as a writing template for his own story. Both of these works are well written pieces of poetry that have survived for many years after they were written. Ovid wrote Metamorphosis around 17 A.D. and it still is studied by students and still influential in written and visual works today. Then there’s the Genesis account, which was written by Moses around 1500 B.C. and is still the eternal source of truth to how the earth and life came to be. Both also give the credit of creation to an a supreme being. Line 2 Book I of Metamorphoses says, “Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,” thus obviously crediting creation to the “Gods” and Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Right out crediting creation to the one true God. Therefore, though they credit different deities they both acknowledge that life and everything we know was created and not a spontaneous phenomenon. Both also give very similar descriptions of how the universe was before creation, “A lifeless lump, unfashion'd, and unfram'd,” (Book I, 11), and “Now the earth was formless and empty,” (Genesis 1:2), both give a pre-creation image of earth like a blob of playdough ready for sculpting. Another big similarity between the two presents itself in line seventy-eight and seventy-nine, “Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes/Beholds his own hereditary skies.”
John Oswalt, in his book The Bible Among the Myths, presents his position to the reader that the bible is different and separate from other writings of the Ancient Near East. He asserts the Bible is both historically accurate and theologically sound. He makes the defense the Bible was divinely inspired and revealed to humanity and unique from other Ancient Near East literature. There was a time when the Bible, and the Israelite religion was different from its neighboring societies. But as times have changed, many people now lump the bible with other Ancient Near East myths.
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.
The purpose of the creation story is not central to the Bible but serves as a prologue to the historical drama, which are the central concerns of the Bible. The narrative focus in the Bible is on the story that begins with Noah and is centered on the exodus from Egypt. The central event in the Bible is the creation of the covenant and the giving of laws and commandments. Although the creation of the world in Genesis I and the pronouncement of the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 are two completely different accounts in the Bible, there lies a similar theme between them: God creates an orderly and hierarchical universe, both natural and moral.
One similarity that is present between the Theogony and Genesis is that both have women in a central role when it comes to the pitfalls of man. In Genesis it is Eve who eats the fruit from the Garden of Eden and eventually forces God to banish them from the Garden. In the Theogony, it is made clear that by the creation of Pandora from Zeus that the race of women is considered a curse to men and an “infestation” that is evil for them (Theogony ln, 375-385). In a similar vein to the above example, another major similarity is how in both creation stories, the deity plays an active role in shaping the lives of man through intervention or punishment. In Genesis, God does this by creating other wildlife as helpmates which Adam then names, by creating Eve, and also eventually punishing man for disobeying the order to not eat from the Garden. In the Theogony,
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.
Between these two texts, one similarity is due to them both incorporating Mythological Creation. For instance, “Wherever the wings of the Buzzard struck downwards there was a valley; whenever the wings arose again, there was a mountain.” This presents that a Birds wing flapping was the reason behind Mountains and Valleys being created. Then “You got to have some type of protection… here take this Poison and put it in yo mouf… “ Showing that the reason to the Snake receiving its Poison was because in the story God
In Genesis, the first book of The Bible the Christian and Jewish creation story is told. God spoke and his Word was done. He made the heavens and the earth. He made light and drove away the dark. On the earth he created the waters and lands and man and beast.
Yes in both there is a God, but they had different roles in creating the earth. In the biblical story God creates the earth and everything on it, then he creates the humans and puts them on earth. On the account of the Iroquois he creates the earth with no land and the humans are created and put in the heavens. When Skywoman broke the rule of disrupting the tree God made her fall on earth. She had to create land to live on with the help of the animals, unlike Adam and Eve.
The Drama of Scripture written by Bartholomew and Goheen takes the reader on a journey through the entire Bible in six short “acts.” The first Act discusses creation and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. In the beginning was complete darkness. Then, God created light and divided the heavens and the earth. He then split the waters and the seas, creating dry ground on which the rest of creation could walk. He proceeded to make plants and flowers and the sun, moon, and stars. He created days and seasons and animals of all shapes and sizes. And then, to add the finishing touch, God created men and women, male and female, He created them. The book states that “the Genesis story is given so that we might have a true understanding of the world in which we live, its divine author, and our own place in it” (Bartholomew, 29). Genesis 1-3, the story of Creation, is prevalent because it introduces the author of creation, humanity, and the creation upon which humanity’s drama unfolds.
The Greek and Genesis creation stories resemble each other in many ways but also they have their differences too. Imagine two stories that come from two different places could have so many similarities, but it also has it’s differences.
Another possibility is that there were two stories being told and the writer could not decide which one to put in the bible, so he put both. Though there are two clashing stories, the basic idea for this story of creation can still be seen. This might explain why Genesis 1 has a broader spectrum of creation and why Genesis 2 focuses mainly on the creation of man. In Genesis 1 the names of man are not even mentioned. In Genesis 2 however we come to learn that their names are Adam (male) and Eve (female). Also in Genesis 2 we learn exactly how Eve is created; Goad takes a rib from Adam and makes Eve from that rib. Then she is called woman, because she is made from man (Gen 2:23). This appears nowhere in Genesis 1.
In contrast the book of Genesis focuses much more the human side of the story where man is given dominion over the earth. In the book of Genesis, God gives his people dominion over
Ovid’s Metamorphoses, tells of “The creator of the universe, originator of a better world, fashioned him from divine seed, or earth, . . . mixed with rain water by Prometheus, son of Iapetus, and fashioned by him into the likeness of the gods” (Ovid Metamorphoses I. 76-88). Prometheus is the creator in this account, and his method of creation resembles that of the Book of Genesis. God creates man in his Garden of Eden in the same fashion. God forms man out of the earth, just as Prometheus does. The two myths become even more alike when the reader finds that Athena breathes life into Prometheus’ man, just as God breathes life into Adam. When comparing these myths, it is quite apparent that the civilizations have similar views; both show strong ties to the idea that man thought it was created from the earth and made in the image of the gods.
Ovid consciously wants his style to be different, however still contained in the epic form. So, Ovid purposely
How were human beings created? How has life come to be? How was the earth created? These are some very important questions that humans have tried to answer for ages. In an attempt to answer these questions, different cultures around the world developed different beliefs. Some believe that they are many gods watching over them, while others believe that there is only one supreme God. Some believe that humans were created by an explosion while others believed that a God or gods created them. Today, I will be analyzing two different creation stories, Genesis, the Christian creation story and “The Creation and Emergence” story by the Jicarilla Apaches. While some differences between the two are evident, the similarities are noticeable.