Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Comparing the two creation stories
Comparing the creation narratives
Comparing the creation narratives
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the beginning, there was darkness, chaos and water. To create something from nothing, would take a powerful force, especially to the scale of which the world seemed to these cultures. The world was intimidating and mysterious; therefore, the higher power, or God must be equally as powerful and enigmatic. Regardless of the distance in between these societies, their stories share a lot of similarities. First, being that there is one specific creator responsible for the creation of everything.
Between “The Babylonian Creation Epic” and “Theogony” there are many similarities and differences that can be found. One similarity between these two is the idea of two beings, Tiamat and Apsu (fresh and salt water) and Gaia and Ouranos (earth and sky) who couple together and give birth to the first gods. In Gaia and Ouranos’s case, these ‘gods’ are called Titans. In the Babylonian story Marduk, a son of the gods, kills Tiamat and creates humankind from the blood of one of the gods who stood on her side. Whereas in “Theogony” Ouranos is hated by all of his children and ends up castrated by his son Kronos.
The Greek and Roman creation myths have few differences and several similarities. The names, the importance given to some beings and beliefs about how some events happened to differ. One difference is in the representation of the gods’ physical appearances; for Greece, the gods were beautiful and strong, where for the Romans, there was no physical description. Regarding the afterlife, Greek mythology tends to place more importance on life while being lived, on Earth, rather on impending death and what will happen then. Roman mythology taught people to be good in order to be rewarded by life with the gods after death.
In the Judeo and the creation stories there are many similarities but are not the same. In the Judeo story there is a man and a woman named Adam and Eve, in the creation story there is a man and woman that are married. Both of these stories are about how the earth was made. In each of these stories one of the people makes mistakes that end up costing them. Adam and Eve ate the fruit off the forbidden tree, the woman from the other story wanted roots from the tree that was not to be hurt.
(Theogony ln. 116-117). Both show the creation of the earth as paramount in creation. Another similarity that I see is in the establishing the role of women. Both of the texts establish reasons for women to be looked down upon, in Genesis this is seen in Eve being the person tricked into eating from the tree of knowledge condemning mankind to a lifetime of pain and sorrow.
Motifs in Creation Myths There are many different motifs in creation myths. Creation myths can be so similar but so different at the same time. As I studied through the different creation myths I noticed that some might use organic materials to make humans or some might have one creator and another have 2 creators or some might even create humans for the same reason(s). Regardless of the similarities and differences, each creation myth is unique in its own special way. All together, almost every creation myth the creators are trying to reach the same end goal.
Hesiod’s account of creation, as outlined in the Theogony offers one of the most detailed and accepted theories of creation in the Greek culture. On the other hand, the Biblical account of creation, regarded as a Hebrew culture creation account, is to date one of the most widely acknowledged and accepted versions across various cultures seeking explanations for the origin of life and the earth. However, even though these creation accounts originate from two different cultures, they share some thought-provoking parallels in terms of their content and intentions, as well as some contrasts that make each of the creation accounts unique. Both Hesiod’s and the biblical creation accounts are similar in that they argue that prior to the beginning of creation events, the earth was merely a void that had no shape or form and this void was filled with darkness.
Then he separated night and day and created the stars. One of the main differences between the stories is what they respect. In the
Creation Myth Motifs Ever catch yourself wondering how so many creation myths have very similar ideas yet they are on the complete opposite side of the world? For instance, how does Nigeria (Yoruba creation myth) and Jerusalem (Genesis creation myth) both involve the creator flooding the world to get rid of their creation, the human. In relation to creation myths, there are these three main motifs: the idea that humans are made of organic materials, the idea of creator giving humans the breath of life, and the idea of starting with chaos. Humans Made from Organic Materials
How was the earth formed? There are many thoughts and myths on how our earth was made and it changes majorly from culture to culture. There’s the original God who created Earth and that’s the one most believe here in America. Then there are cultures who believe that the God was a different person or even more than just one person. Some cultures think that the earth was in an egg shell and had to just hatch out.
The judeo-Christian story is very well known creation story. The Christian religion is very familiar to this story. The other story is called Iroquois creation this is a Native American story of how the Earth came to a beginning. There is many similarities and differences in this story. One of the differences is that in the Christian story the Earth was made by God.
Each every creation myth is unique in its own way. Of course, creation myths have their similarities, but each of them has at least one detail that separates them from every other myth. The question is how those similarities came about, considering for some of these groups that didn’t even know that each other existed. It would have nearly impossible and extremely unlikely for them to communicate with each other let alone, share their stories with each other. Yet, despite this there are some extremely common themes and events throughout these myths.
There are hundreds of motifs scattered throughout the world about many vastly different creation myths. There are some myths linked with only a few motifs, and they originated from the same continent. Then there are also myths which originated from the other side of the world and share so many motifs one would think they were just a hundred miles away. With so many different motifs, it remains unclear and unproven as to how so many different cultures can share the same theory about how Earth and humans were created. Although there are so many fascinating motifs about the creation of the world and everything on it, I believe these three are the most common motifs shared by creation myths: nothingness (chaos) in the beginning of time, humans
In the Bible on day one God created the heavens and the earth comprise day and night created in this day. In Greek mythology Nox or Nyx was responsible for the night and Hemera was the personification of day. It imports us to know in Greek have day and night. The different between The Bible and the Greek mythology in creation the world.
Many different cultures have myths and stories about how they think the world was created. These myths commonly reflect different values that these cultures have. Although these myths are different stories from different cultures, they often have traits in common. The creation myths from the Iroquois and the African Bushmen are similar because they both are about creation and they share many elements, but there are also differences in the stories because they are different myths from different cultures.