Ancient Myth - Fact or Fiction

Creation Mythology

  In all human societies stories of how the world began can be found in varied detail and these beliefs about the world’s beginnings are real to those peoples and are considered a part of humankind’s truths.   The myth is a narrative in the form of prose or poetry that is handed down, in most cases, from an oral tradition which existed before the creation of writing and record keeping.  These myths explain the creation of the universe and always involve the creation of humankind at some stage, whether by gods or other supernatural beings.  Creation Myths, I have learned, are a means for these ancient peoples to try to understand the world they lived in, and the supernatural world of the god or gods who created the universe.  They establish humanity’s place in the hierarchy of life in the universe, their relationship with and to god or the gods, and may often give directions to humanity for living in society.  In addition to procedures for festivals and sacrifices, myths may also include lessons on correct behavior or even moral behavior and a means to ascend to the heavens to be with, or as, the god or gods.

Creation myths may involve one or several stages of creation.  In these creation narratives we may find a single god or a primordial god who creates part of the universe; and he may have children who further define the primitive universe, and they usually have offspring who do even more things, such as create mankind.  One example of this is found in the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson.  In this Norse mythology, King Gylfi asks questions of the three deities; High-one, Just-as-high, and Third. In the myth these three explain the mysteries of the universe. They tell Gylfi that the earth was created by “All Father” (31) who is known by one of his many names, Niflheim, who gave rise to twelve rivers.  Some were warm waters and some cold waters and where they met a “drizzling rain and gusts of wind” arose which melted the ice of the river and from the drops that fell and “the might of that which sent the heat, life appeared in the drops of running fluid and grew into the likeness of a man.  He was given the name Ymir” (33).  Ymir was a frost ogre or giant, not a god. He had a struggle with the young gods of Bor and Bestla whose son was Odin, a god. Ymir is killed and from his bones and flesh the universe is created.

We often see a conflict between generations of gods for control of the universe as in the “Deluding of Gylfi” referenced above or in the Greek mythologies where many gods compete with Zeus, the father of God and men under whose thunder the broad Earth quivers” (McKenzie, 45).  Another commonality among these creation myths may be some form of narrative about the premise that the earth and sky was formed by the separation of the original matter of the universe and may consider the earth and sky as primordial deities of different sexes with the earth being female and the sky male in many cases.

In contrast, the ancient Hebrew texts proclaim that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was a vast waste, darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water” (Genesis 1:1). In the Hebrew myths we are given a practical program that is structured and shows us the creation of the world in only seven days. We can see through our studies that this is in contrast to many other creation myths. There is a confidence and a sort of simplicity in this account of the creation of the world by God, from nothingness, but a glaring flaw in this myth is immediately apparent.  That is that although God’s world sounds perfect we know there are disease, guilt, violence, shame and death, which cannot exist in God’s perfection.

The Hebrew story immediately addresses these issues in its account of Adam and Eve. God created Adam “from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 4:7). And Adam was in need of a companion so he created Eve while Adam slept a deep sleep. “He took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh over the place” (Genesis 2:21) and from this rib he created Eve. The two lived in God’s perfect Garden of Eden until Eve was tempted by a serpent and ate from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, and so we have an explanation as to why God’s world was not perfect and for the disease, guilt, violence, shame and death that plagued man. After eating of the fruit of the tree humankind are in the real world, and no longer privy to the divinity and perfection of God’s perfect world. We are also given a means to salvation through the son of God, Jesus.  The Hebrew myths are heavily concerned with morality of behavior and the way to salvation.  In the Hebrew mythologies the world and everything in it is created from nothingness by a single divine entity, in the Bible he is God and in the Gnostic Gospels he is The One.   It is humankind’s actions which result in the evils plaguing the world.  As Albert Einstein said, “Evil is simply the absence of God.”[i]

In other societies, however, the creation of the world, the universe, is brought about through divine disorder. This is especially true when many groups have come together into a single civilization and each group has brought with them their own gods.  Many creation myths begin with earth, or with earth emerging from water.  Some may have gods, human kind, and animals coming from earth, and others may have a creature that dives into an ocean and brings up a piece of earth from which the universe is created.  Many creation myths contain similar motifs such as Trees (of life, of knowledge of good and evil), water and serpents. 

Among man’s earliest attempt to explain questions about the nature and origins of the universe Myths can be as diverse as the societies in which they live.  Mythologies usually contain positive and vital features of monotheism and carry culture’s most powerful and poignant theological topics.  As society looks to its past history for validation, and traditions are built upon the past, Myths guide our daily lives as much today as in antiquity as we incorporate them into our religious beliefs.

Myths of Christianity and Judaism teach us that we are sinful and must seek redemption and salvation through righteousness or through salvation in Jesus.  Mesopotamian myths give us the view that life is hard because Gods created us to work and the Greek myths often deal with the extremes of behavior and placed man at the center of the world.  . Myths deal with the deeper inner problems of life and are clues to the realities and experiences of human life.  They refer to what cannot be known but teach us that divinity is inherent in nature.  They instill in man the audacity of hope.

Michael Fishbone said that from the beginning we are at a disadvantage in understanding myths because we inherit traditions which rationalize the myth away.  The politics of religion has consistently worked to negate myths while embracing many of them and incorporating them into the teachings of the church.  Contradictions appear and many of us begin to question what we have been taught, as I had.  Perhaps it is for this reason that we are still seeking answers to so many questions today and why a myriad of beliefs still exist about the creation of the Universe and man.  When compared side by side we can find similarities in the stories the creation myths contain and begin to understand the part mythologies play in our lives today. Studying the creation myths of ancient societies we can, perhaps, begin to form some answers to our questions.

This course has given my thoughts about God and organized religion as kind of validation that also provides a more clear vision of divinity.  Perhaps there is no single truth of our world’s creation and our own.  Perhaps it is a combination of elements from many different myths and it may be that the history of man is indeed contained within the confusion of conflicting, contrasting, and similar stories that have come down to us through the ages.  I was once told that The Bible had to be true because it had survived for so long.  I now submit that because these various mythologies, many of which may be found in some form in The Bible, have endured through countless ages, from even before the time of The Bible, that they too must contain some elements of truth as it was understood by primitive man.

I, for one, have always felt that, while a strong faith is a human necessary, even if that is a faith in nothing. I believe that faith must be tempered with knowledge, wisdom, understanding, self-knowledge and even a little common sense. I have also believed from a very early age that each person carries their beliefs within themselves and that from that comes the strength we need to move through our lives.  Really, isn’t that about it? We must learn to cope with the uncertainties of the world and our daily lives; how we do it is up to us. We cannot control the external factors we face, nor our ‘fates’, but we can control how we deal with things and how we live our lives.  I really believe that ability comes from within, according to what we ultimately believe. That that ‘spirit’ we all carry is a combination of many things, including our personal morality, social morality and convention, a belief in something greater than ourselves, and a belief that we are that something—in some way.

 Resources: 

• Dalley, Stephanie, Ed.  Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others.  Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York.  2000.
• McKenzie, Michael. Richard Prime, Lisa George, and Ray Dunning.  Mythologies of the World: The Illustrated Guide to Mythological Beliefs and Customs.  Checkmark Books: New York, NY. 2001
• Sturluson, Snorri. Trans. Jean L. Young. The Prose Edda: Tales from Norse Mythology.  University of California Press: Berkley.  1992.
• West, M. L.  Hesoid  Theogony Works and Days.  Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York.  1999.