creation story comparison essay

A Summary and Analysis of the Creation Story in the Book of Genesis

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’: so begins the Book of Genesis and, with it, the Old Testament, and, with that, the Bible. But where did this Creation story come from, ‘in the beginning’? How was it shaped? Did it rely on earlier accounts? And is there really one Creation story in the Book of Genesis, or are there, in fact, two? And how many gods, after all, did the creating, according to the Bible?

Let’s take a closer look at the Creation story – or rather, stories – in the Book of Genesis, offering a close analysis of their meaning and origins.

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Genesis creation story: summary

The Book of Genesis famously opens with the words:

1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Although we know the first book of the Bible as the Book of Genesis, in Hebrew, where this book begins the Torah, the book is known as Bereshith , which literally means ‘in the beginning’, as the Hebrew practice was to call each book after its opening words.

‘Genesis’ is from the Greek translation of the Hebrew book, and means literally ‘coming into being’ or, if you will, ‘origins’.

Curiously, although the English translation of this Greek translation uses the word ‘God’, the Hebrew word used is Elohim , which is actually a plural form: so ‘gods’, rather then God. The earliest version of the Book of Genesis (as it’s now known), then, may well have begun with a polytheistic rather than monotheistic account of Creation.

Even when the authors of these early books of the Bible came to co-opt this earlier account for a monotheistic vision of the world, the term Elohim was, as Isaac Asimov notes in his Asimov’s Guide to the Bible: The Old Testament , too familiar and too firmly ingrained to change.

Indeed, as Asimov goes on to observe, some traces of this polytheism may have remained in later passages from Genesis. So, for instance, when Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit, God says, ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us’ (Genesis 3:22). And when God sees the Tower of Babel , he says, ‘Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language’ (Genesis 11:7).

Even if we grant the use of the royal ‘we’ (and surely God, if anyone, is allowed to use that), in this second passage we’d also have to accept that he was talking to himself and telling himself to go down there. It makes more sense to think of ‘Elohim’ as addressing each other and deciding to act collectively.

1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Once the writers have established God as the Creator of everything, they then describe the early state of the earth as soon as God (or gods) had brought it into being. There is no light as yet.

1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

In a famous quotation, God merely has to command that light should exist, and light exists. Night and day are quickly established:

1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Now night and day have been created, as a time-division between the two halves of the day, God creates the sky or ‘firmament’:

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

On the third day, grass and flowers and trees are created at God’s command:

1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Next, on the fourth day, he creates a ‘greater light’ for the day (the sun), and a ‘lesser light’ for the night (the moon), as well as all the stars:

1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

On the fifth day, the creatures of the sea and the birds in the sky are brought into being:

1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

On the sixth day, God creates cattle, ‘creeping’ things, and the various beasts of the earth:

1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

He also makes man in his own image, and lets him have dominion over all of these animals:

1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

On the seventh day, he rests, and this is the basis of the Sabbath, the ‘seventh day’ of the week (Saturday in Judaism, but this became Sunday in Christianity), on which God’s followers are supposed to rest in honour of the Creation and not work, because God didn’t work on the seventh day.

Genesis creation story: analysis

As Kristin Swenson points out in her engaging book on the Bible, A Most Peculiar Book: The Inherent Strangeness of the Bible , there are some rather curious inconsistencies between the account of Creation given in chapter 1 of Genesis and the details we find in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 1, the most familiar version of Creation, God creates man last, on the sixth day, having created the other animals already.

Yet in chapter 2 of Genesis, we are told that God created Adam and then created the animals for Adam to give names to:

2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

Note that in this account, God clearly creates the animals after he has created man, so that man (i.e., Adam) will have some ‘help meet’ and company. Yet in the earlier account in chapter 1, the cattle, creeping things, and beasts are all mentioned first, and then God gives man dominion over them after he has created man.

Some scholars have maintained that this doesn’t necessarily mean God created the animals first in chapter 1: it may be that the authors simply mentioned them before the creation of man. But the wording certainly implies that the creation of man came after the other creatures.

God also had to invent rain, because although he had created the flowers and crops, nothing was growing in the Garden of Eden:

2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

What such inconsistencies suggest is that there were (at least) two slightly different accounts of Creation which the authors of Genesis fused together.

So although the first few chapters of Genesis broadly follow a chronology (God creates the heavens and earth, then he creates man, and then the focus turns to Adam and Eve), some details remain in the second chapter, which is clearly from a different source than chapter 1, and these details contradict what was set out in chapter 1.

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The Two Creations in Genesis

David Bokovoy

The two creation stories in Genesis can be read as separate but complementary literary units that deal with heavenly and then earthly creation.

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The Bible opens with two different creation stories. The accounts are similar in that they both describe the creation of animals, plants, and humans. But they are distinct in several ways and even contradict each other on key issues.

For example, though the stories describe some of the same events, they order them differently. In Gen 1 , God creates plants, then animals, and then simultaneously creates man and woman. In Gen 2 , God creates a human, plants, then animals, and later he divides the human into female and male. Additionally, the two stories employ different names for the deity. The first account uses the Hebrew word Elohim , meaning “God,” whereas the second uses the tetragrammaton, YHWH (often represented by “Lord”).

The stories are also very different in literary style. The first account appears neatly organized into three days of preparation followed by three days of actual formation. Each day concludes with the formulaic expression “and there was X.” By the seventh day, all creation exists in its proper sphere, and God rests. This orderly pattern suggests an orderly universe. The second story (beginning in the second half of Gen 2:4 and continuing through the end of chapter 3) lacks both the structure and the focus of the first creation account. It is much less formulaic; rather, it is a dramatic narrative in a series of seven scenes.

Because of these and other divergences, it is likely that separate authors with distinct theological views and agendas wrote these myths. The differences in the accounts reflect the unique way each author conceptualizes the deity. In Gen 1 , God is distant, creating through speech according to a master plan. This image contrasts with Gen 2 , where the author depicts God as a human-like figure who walks in the garden and, like a potter working with clay, has a hands-on, trial-and-error approach to creation. God in this version seems more accessible than the transcendent creator of Gen 1 .

Yet despite these differences, the two stories have been redacted (edited and combined) in Genesis to read as a literary unit. The first account begins with a superscription introducing the narrative as the time “when God began to create heaven and earth” ( Gen 1:1 ). It concludes with a summary statement that brackets the account: “this is the story of heaven and earth when they were created” ( Gen 2:4 ). The second story begins in the same verse, with a similar clause, “When the Lord God made earth and heaven.” Though both narratives commence with the same word pair, they place the terms in the opposite order.

Perhaps an editor who wanted the first account to depict a “heavenly” creation and the second an “earthly” creation reversed the superscription in Gen 1 to read “heaven and earth.” Such a switch works because the first story is much more cosmic in its orientation than the second. Genesis 1 , for example, depicts the creation of an expanse separating the heavenly from the earthly waters, as well as celestial objects such as the sun, moon, and stars. In contrast, the second story depicts not the creation of the sky or heavenly sphere but the formation of shrubs, fields, earth, and a garden. This difference allowed the stories to be reconciled as a literary unit, since the first text ends where the second begins—the earth. In its present form, the first creation account provides a prologue to the subsequent stories in Genesis describing humankind in the primordial era.

Bibliography

Brettler, Marc Z. How to Read the Bible. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005.
Levenson, Jon D. “Genesis.” Pages 8–18 in The Jewish Study Bible. Edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Z. Brettler. Oxford: Oxford Unviersity Press, 2004.

David Bokovoy holds a PhD in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East and an MA in Jewish Studies both from Brandeis University. He is currently the online professor in Bible and Jewish Studies at Utah State University. David has published articles on the Hebrew Bible in a variety of academic venues, including the Journal of Biblical Literature , Vetus Testamentum , and Studies in the Bible and Antiquity . His academic focus is on source criticism, historical Jesus studies, the divine council, and sexual imagery connected with divinities in Near Eastern and biblical traditions.

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Understanding the Creation Story from Genesis

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How did the world begin? Was the world a cosmological mistake or an intentional creation? What existed before the universe as we know it? Questions like these have generated tons of discussion (and arguments) in the historical, scientific, and religious communities.

While most people are familiar with the creation story found in Genesis, there’s a richness that’s often lost. In The Torah Story online course , Gary E. Schnittjer, Cairn University’s professor of Old Testament, plumbs the depth of the creation story while answering important questions like:

How did the author of Genesis receive the creation story?
How does the narrative style of the creation story provide the backdrop for the rest of the biblical story?
What does the creation story reveal about God?
How are humans different than the rest of creation?
What is mankind’s responsibility to creation?

This post is adapted from Dr. Schnittjer’s course.

What is the origin of the creation story?

The Torah begins with a beginning—“in the beginning.” It simultaneously serves as the introduction to the book of Genesis, the Torah, the Hebrew scriptures, and the entire Bible.

You may wonder, “The beginning of what?”

The story that follows reveals that this is the beginning of the human world—the setting for God’s story. Whether there are other beginnings or not remains a significant issue. The opening of Genesis, however, attempts to tell the story of the beginning of the human realm.

You may also ask, “How did the author learn of this story since there were no people to observe it?” We, as readers, can make guesses.

Perhaps the author learned the story from an ancient oral tradition. He could have imaginatively adapted his narrative as a polemic against an ancient written account like the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish. Perhaps he offered his own interpretation of how it might have happened based on his understanding of God, humanity, and creation. Or, perhaps God revealed it to him in a special way, such as through an oracle or vision.

The author does not disclose the source of the Genesis creation story . From ancient times, Judaic and Christian believers have embraced Genesis and its account of creation as Scripture—God’s word. The other biblical authors found in the pentateuchal creation narrative an account on which to construct their own writings.

Biblical readers are free to wonder about the source or sources of the creation account. An apprentice of the biblical writers, especially one who regards their writings as Scripture, needs to put the weight of his or her studies on what the biblical authors have written rather than on what they have omitted.

In this case, the author is not primarily explaining in historical or scientific terms the beginning of the human realm. Instead, the opening of Genesis theologically interprets the relationship between God and the human world, namely, that he created it by the power of his word.

Learn more in The Torah Story online course .

Formed from the wild and the waste

According to the storyteller, the world God created in the beginning was unformed and unfilled—wild and waste. The unformed and unfilled state of the earth set up the six creation days—three in which God formed the world and three in which he filled it. The relationship between the preformed and pre-filled world and the creation days is important for this passage and for the entire Torah (not to mention all Scripture).

In the creating days, the power of God’s word tamed what was wild and brought to life what was desolate. The Torah closes with the people at the end of a trek through the wild and barren wilderness hoping for blessing and life in the land God promised to their ancestors (see Deut. 32:9–11). What God did at the beginning and in the wilderness he can do again . Indeed, the Torah portrays a gracious God with a powerful voice that all readers need to obey.

The style of the creation story

Within these first verses readers are introduced to a distinctive biblical literary style that, in some ways and to varying degrees, was emulated by later biblical writers. In Genesis 1:2, for example, a “special word” is used, or better, an ordinary word is used in a special way.

The Hebrew word rûaḥ can signify one of several meanings depending on context. Here it seems to mean spirit—“the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In the following chapters rûaḥ is applied in other contexts that at once give it a new sense and invite readers to consider the new use in light of this context.

In Genesis 3:8 God is said to have walked in the garden in the rûaḥ of the day (traditionally, in the “cool” of the day). If rûaḥ here means windy, then perhaps cool of the day or evening is appropriate. Still, the reader may easily think of the rûaḥ of the day in reference to the rûaḥ of God hovering over the waters in Genesis 1:2. The hiding humans and the chaotic empty world provide the contexts in which God is seeking and hovering.

In Genesis 8:1 God remembers Noah and sends the rûaḥ (wind) to make the waters of judgment subside so that Noah can again live on the earth. The fact that rûaḥ is sent by God to clear the waters for human life on earth to resume and that previously the rûaḥ of God hovered over the unformed and unfilled world prior to the creation days invites readers to compare and consider this word in a special way.

The dual imagery of the flood and the wind—judgment and new beginning—is similar to the imagery of Israel’s salvation from the Egyptians at the sea in Exodus 14. There God sends an east wind ( rûaḥ ) to provide deliverance to Israel and uses the waters to destroy his enemies.

The narrative of the sea crossing in Exodus uses imagery from Genesis 1 in order to depict the theological significance that God is creating a nation for himself (Gen. 1 language in italics):

“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night Yahweh drove the sea back with a strong east wind [ rûaḥ ] and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Ex. 14:21–22).

The imagery here can also be thought of in terms of “denotation” and “connotation.” The narrative of the sea crossing denotes or refers to the acts of God to save Israel from the Egyptian threat. Yet, the specific language used to tell the story of the sea crossing connects it by its imagery with the account of creation in Genesis. Thus, the sea crossing narrative connotes God as the Creator of his nation .

Genesis’ textual depth

Many biblical words are used in special ways that both reveal a need for close reading and show a depth, another dimension, to the text. This textual depth is among the reasons that ancient biblical interpreters—before and after the New Testament era—considered the Bible a cryptic writing with subtle and hidden meanings.

In a manner similar to the use of special words, Genesis 1:1–2:4a begins the biblical precedent for special numbers. The seven days set a pattern for a complete week—God finished his work and rested. Thus, in the biblical writings, seven often signifies completion or perfection.

In the following chapters of Genesis other numbers become special, such as three, ten, twelve, and forty. The special numbers become part of the fabric of classic biblical style. The use of special numbers invites readers to reflect on the later events in relation to earlier ones. The forty years that Israel was wandering in the wilderness, for example, encourages the reader to compare it to the forty days of rain in the flood narrative.

The use of special words and numbers are among the many distinctive characteristics of biblical narrative that begin in Genesis 1. The narrative style—somewhere between prose and poetry—displays:

Rhythmic lines
Characteristic repetition
Symmetrical imagery
The manifold use of “and” to connect lines and scenes
Frequent intertextual allusions
Earthy symbolic language

The literary features effectively create a narrative almost poetic with its intertwined realistic and surreal qualities so familiar to biblical readers. Later biblical narrators emulated, whether by intention or otherwise, many of these literary characteristics, always with their own flair, in such a way that their writings “sound like” the Bible .

What does it mean to create: the creation days

The creating days themselves demonstrate the significance of the entire story. Throughout chapter 1 there is a repetition of “God” plus verb—the fourfold repetition in Day 1, for instance: “God said,” “God saw,” “God separated,” “God called” (1:3–5).

The rhythm of God-plus-verb demonstrates several things: the power of God’s word; the relationship between God and creation, namely, the dependence of creation on God and God’s power over and ownership of creation; God’s interest in measuring the character of creation (i.e., “God saw that it was good”); and so forth. Above all else, the reader is confronted by God the Creator.

What does it mean to create? Whatever it means to form and to fill is synonymous with creating in the context of Genesis 1. To understand the Creator, therefore, one must comprehend what it means to form and to fill. In the first three creating days God formed the realms for existence in this world—light and darkness, skies and seas, land and vegetation. During the next three creating days God filled these realms successively with celestial lights, birds and marine life, and the land animals and humankind. The six creation days demonstrate, among other things, the power of God’s word to order and to grant life.

The first three creation days expose the difference between unformed and formed, chaos and order. The difference is separation. To create, in these cases, is to separate. The light was separated from the darkness, the skies from waters, and the land from the seas. Without grasping the essence of order as separation, the call to be holy, to be separate toward God, in Leviticus will not be rightly appreciated. The holiness required of worshipers is the basic characteristic for relating to the Creator.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth creation days likewise display the difference between unfilled and filled. The difference, in large part, is life. To grant life, or to fill realms with life, is, in these instances, what it means to create. The realm of illumination was filled with life-sustaining cosmic lights (these lights also function as time separators; thus the fourth day is transitional), the skies with flying beings, the waters with aquatic creatures, and the land with terrestrial beings. The Creator is the life-giver.


1 light and dark	4 celestial lights
2 sky and water	5 birds and fish
3 water and land	6 land animals and humankind

By conceiving of creation as forming and filling, separating and life-giving, the tools are in hand for uncovering the meaning of judgment. To be specific, to die is at once separation and life-losing. Death is the effect of the anti-creational acts of sin . Death is not separation to form but from form. It does not give but takes life. Therefore, the death that comes from defying God’s commanding word contradicts creation. Life, by analogy, is to accord with the word of God. When the nature of creation and judgment is recognized, the oneness of God as Creator and Redeemer comes into sharp relief.

Where does humanity fit in creation?

The story of the creating days not only reveals the relationship of God and the created realm and the meaning of creation itself, but also the place of humanity within creation. Specifically, creation is viewed in human-centered terms; the created realm itself tells of God’s grace toward humankind. The creation is the home or context for human life. Human beings make sense within their realm, namely, the creation of God. The human-centered view of the created world can be seen in the case of each of the six creation days. I will illustrate the human-centered orientation of the fourth day. On the fourth day according to Genesis 1, God created the celestial lights. The entire description is geocentric.

The earth-centered viewpoint of the fourth day is the opposite of the modernist perspective of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The “objective” perspective of modernity saw the rather ordinary star that is our sun as located in a remote area of the rather unexceptional Milky Way galaxy, which is one of billions of such galaxies.

This is one of the points made in the 1997 motion picture Contact , based on the late Carl Sagan’s book. Three times during the movie lead characters say something to the effect, “If human beings are the only life in the vast universe, then it sure is a waste of space.”

The objective view from “out there” makes the earth seem inconsequential within the universe of planets and stars and galaxies. One of the biblical poets, by contrast, reflecting on Genesis 1, marveled at God’s grace toward humans given the enormity of the skies and the celestial lights: “ When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them? . . . . You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet” (Ps 8:3–4a, 5 NRSV).

The vantage point of the fourth creating day is that of the earth-dwellers—“from here.” The great lights are those that rule the earth days and the earth nights, namely, the sun and the moon. Even describing the cosmic lights in terms of “day” and “night” is an entirely earth-centered point of view. The stars, moreover, are regarded according to their function of measuring the earth-dwellers time.

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so” (Gen. 1:14–15 NRSV; italics added).

By interpreting creation in a human-centered manner, the stage is set for the entire biblical drama. The story unfolds from this beginning. It is the story of humankind within the human world—both created by God—and their progressive relationship with the God who speaks, creates, evaluates, and gives.

Comparing humans to the rest of creation

On the sixth day God made land animals after their kind and humankind in his own image and likeness. The phrases “after their kind” for animals and “in his image” for human beings underscore the categorical difference between humankind and all other created beings—the unique ability to relate personally to God.

Although God prohibits making images of himself in the Ten Commandments, he made humanity in his image. Human beings reflect and represent God in a special sense. Their creational design defines them according to the Creator. This image is displayed vertically in responsible dominion over the creation and horizontally in mutual social relationships.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them ” (1:26–27 NRSV; italics added).

The two great commandments—love God and love others—are direct implications from and applications of humanity’s being created in the image of God. Because humans are created in the image of God, it is their intrinsic responsibility to love him. And because all other human beings are created in his image, it is each one’s responsibility to love others as oneself.

The great commands of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are the natural extensions of creational design .

Human responsibility toward creation

Beyond the responsibility humans have toward their Creator and toward fellow humans is their responsibility toward the rest of creation. Humankind is related to but distinct from the Creator and the creation at the same time.

Human beings are creatures among other creatures who live within the created realm. Yet with respect to dominion, humans are responsible to rule over the other creatures by virtue of humankind’s distinction of being created in God’s image. Humans are creatures, but not like any other because they are like God. The idea of image signifying dominion was part of the ancient Near Eastern idea that statues or images of a king could be used to mark or define the realm of his domain. It is in this sense that humankind is the Creator’s royal representative ruler on earth. Human beings are the lords of creation because they are specially created in the image of God .

The creation days move in a direction. They move toward the seventh day, the day of God’s rest. The nature and significance of time itself is thus defined. Time is measured in earth days and counted in sevens or weeks. Each week moves invariably toward its completion—the sabbath. The perpetual repetition of celebrating the day of God’s rest provides a constant reminder of the human place within the world. Humankind lives in a world created by God, forever moving toward the day of God’s rest.


the Creator	the Creator
—	humankind in the image of the Creator
humankind	—
other creatures and the created realm	other creatures

The creation story provides history’s backdrop

The biblical story, thus, begins with the human world created by God. Genesis 1 defines the manner in which the story is told and the way to hear and read the story. Moreover, the beginning provides the cosmological backdrop against which the rest of the story—the book of Genesis, the Torah, and the Bible—unfolds.

The events narrated in the remainder of the biblical story did not just happen in a remote historical context. They happened within the context of the entire human world, the world God created by his word. Because the beginning of the story is God’s creation of humankind within the human context, the story line is, in some way, about the relationship between God and humankind as they exist within his creation.

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Bibliography

“The Two Creations in Genesis by David Bokovoy." Two Creations in Genesis, www.bibleodyssey.org/passages/related-articles/two-creations-in-genesis.aspx.
Evans, Craig A., et al. The Book of Genesis Composition, Reception, and Interpretation. Leiden, BRILL, 2012.
FORRESTER-BROWN, JAMES S. TWO CREATION STORIES IN GENESIS: a study of their symbolism. FORGOTTEN BOOKS, 2016
. Hargreaves, John, et al. A Guide to the Book of Genesis. London, S.P.C.K., 1969.
Leakey, Richard E., and Ambrose Video Publishing. In the Beginning. New York, N.Y., Ambrose Video Publishing, 1982.
Scholar, Contemplative. “Bible Wonderings.” Two Creation Stories, 1 Jan. 1970, www.bible-wonderings.blogspot.com/2006/01/two-creation-stories.html.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. Thunder Bay Press, 2000.
Six Differences between Two Creation Stories in Genesis www.faculty.biu.ac.il/~barilm/articles/publications/publications0116.html.

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Lesson 1: The Metamorphoses and Genesis: A Comparison of Creation-Flood Stories

The nymph Daphne prayed for rescue when she was pursued by the god Apollo.

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A comparison can cast light on the contrasting values of two civilizations or, conversely, point out that despite differences in the details, we humans all share certain universal constructs and personality traits.

In this lesson, students compare the stories of creation as told by Ovid in Book I of The Metamorphoses with the Biblical narrative of creation as told in Genesis: 1–2. They identify the significance of those elements and the emphasis placed on them.

“The Bible is the cultural heritage of the nation we live in, and also the heritage of the creation of literature in English,” states Robert Polhemus, Stanford University's English department. Many 21st-century students lack even basic layman’s Biblical literacy which can handicap them in discussing recurrent themes in Western cultural discourse. In order to fully engage students in Lesson 1, you may need to offer them background and context for the creation-flood stories in Genesis. (See Preparation and Resources)

The lesson’s initial comparison of creation narratives will be reinforced through a further comparison of the Biblical story of destruction by flood with Ovid’s story of destruction by flood.

This lesson is one part of a three lesson unit on The Metamorphoses . The three lessons may be taught in sequence, or each lesson can stand on its own. Teachers may link to the full unit with Guiding Questions , College and Career Readiness standards and Background. Lesson 1 aligns with CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2

Learning Objectives

Compare creation and destruction narratives found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book I, and in the biblical accounts in Genesis.

Lesson Plan Details

The following sections from Book I of The Metamorphoses :

Lines 1–88 (The Creation)

Bk I: 1–20 The Primal Chaos. 1 Bk I: 21–31 Separation of the elements. 2 Bk I: 32–51 The earth and sea. The five zones. 2 Bk I: 52–68 The four winds. 2 Bk I: 68–88 Humankind. 3

Lines 244–415 (The Flood)

Bk I:244–273 Jupiter invokes the floodwaters. 6 Bk I:274–292 The Flood. 6 Bk I:293–312 The world is drowned. 7 Bk I:313–347 Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha. 7 Bk I:348–380 They ask Themis for help. 8 Bk I:381–415 The human race is recreated. 8

An easy-to-use (but out of print) translation by A. S. Kline, available online from the University of Virginia’s Electronic Text Center, is the version that is referenced in this unit. If you wish to use other translations of The Metamorphoses , many are available. Allen Mandelbaum’s version is particularly graceful. If you print the selections from Kline, you may wish to copy them into a word processing program to enlarge the type for your students.

A version of Genesis: 1–11

There are many versions of the Bible online that offer access to the Book of Genesis, from the King James Bible online at Barleby.com to the Torah in English . If your students wish to use their own copies of the Bible or Torah, allow it; this will give you a variety of translations to compare, and students can practice locating information using chapter and verse rather than page numbers.

Biblical passages

There is a common misconception that teachers in public schools are not allowed to mention religion in the classroom; however, most teachers of literature and history know that their students need to grasp at least the basic tenets of many world religions or sacred texts to make sense of the more modern texts grounded in them.

The Common Core State Standards reference the Bible in at least four standards for grades 8–12. You may wish to familiarize yourself with basic principles of teaching about religion, especially if you are in a public school. For a simple but very useful booklet on the subject from the Madison Center, download “ A Teacher’s Guide to Religion in the Public Schools .” For a more thorough discussion, see the Center’s free pdf version of Charles C. Haynes and Oliver Thomas, Finding Common Ground .

If this is a first encounter with Biblical textual passages in English class, you will find that students often bring a whole set of preconceptions either from religious training, or because they do not have religious training. For the purpose of arriving at the comparison in Lesson 1, you may need to provide a basic overview of the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis: 1–11.

Refer to “Preparation for Introducing Genesis”

Worksheet 1. Ovid’s creation story, Book I
Worksheet 1. Ovid’s creation story, Book I (teacher version)
Worksheet 2. The Metamorphoses and Genesis: Comparing creation narratives
Worksheet 2. The Metamorphoses and Genesis: Comparing creation narratives (teacher version)

For assessment:

Worksheet 3. The Metamorphoses and Genesis: Comparing destruction by flood narratives
Worksheet 3. The Metamorphoses and Genesis: Comparing destruction by flood narratives (teacher version)

Activity 1. The Metamorphoses and Genesis: A Comparison of Creation-Flood Stories

Introduce students to Ovid using the information given in the Background section of this unit.

Point out that The Metamorphoses is divided into books and lines, rather than chapters and paragraphs.

Distribute Worksheet 1 and tell students to read The Metamorphoses , Bk I: 1–88,which depicts Ovid’s version of creation .

Bk I:1–20 The Primal Chaos Bk I:21–31 Separation of the elements Bk I:32–51 The earth and sea. The five zones Bk I: 52–68 The four winds Bk I: 68–88 Humankind

Have them work individually or in pairs to answer the questions on Worksheet 1. Discuss the answers with the full class when they have had time to complete their worksheets. ( See Worksheet 1. Teacher version )

Review with students the concept of a Venn diagram (two or more overlapping circles that together contain all the elements of a set). Explain that students will use a Venn diagram to compare the creation story in The Metamorphoses with the one they will now read in Genesis.

Distribute Worksheet 2 .Then ask students to read Genesis, chapters 1 and 2. After they have read the passage, ask them to work with a partner to populate the Venn diagram on the worksheet identifying the ways that creation stories found in The Metamorphoses and Genesis have similarities as well as differences. (See Worksheet 2. Teacher version )

When students are finished, have them compare their diagrams and discuss their findings.

Ask students: What is the effect of the differences between the two texts? What is each author trying to emphasize? Be sure that they cite evidence from the texts for their contentions.

Materials & Media

“metamorpheses”: lesson 1. preparation for introducing genesis, “metamorpheses”: worksheet 1. ovid’s creation story: book i, “metamorpheses”: worksheet 1. ovid’s creation story: book i (teacher version), “metamorpheses”: worksheet 2. “the metamorpheses” and genesis, “metamorphoses”: worksheet 2. “the metamorphoses” and genesis teacher version, “metamorphoses”: worksheet 3. “the metamorphoses” and genesis, “metamorphoses”: worksheet 3. “the metamorphoses” and genesis teacher version, “metamorphoses”: worksheet 5. “the metamorphoses” and later works of art, related on edsitement, aesop and ananse: animal fables and trickster tales, it came from greek mythology, live from ancient olympia.

The Creation Story: Summary and Study Guide

Find out what happened on each of the seven days of creation

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The creation story begins with the opening chapter of the Bible and these words: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (NIV) This sentence summarizes the drama that was about to unfold.

We learn from the text that the earth was formless, empty, and dark, and God's Spirit moved over the waters preparing to perform God's creative Word. Then began the seven most creative days of all time as God spoke life into existence. A day by day account follows.

Watch Now: A Simple Version of The Bible Creation Story

The creation day by day.

The creation story takes place in Genesis 1:1-2:3.

Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night."
Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky."
Day 3 - God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters "seas." On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees).
Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth and to govern and separate the day and the night. These would also serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years.
Day 5 - God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird, blessing them to multiply and fill the waters and the sky with life.
Day 6 - God created the animals to fill the earth. On day six, God also created man and woman ( Adam and Eve ) in his own image to commune with him. He blessed them and gave them every creature and the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate.
Day 7 - God had finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy.

A Simple—Not Scientific—Truth

Genesis 1, the opening scene of the biblical drama, introduces us to the two main characters in the Bible: God and man. Author Gene Edwards refers to this drama as "the divine romance." Here we meet God, the Almighty Creator of all things, revealing the ultimate object of his love —man—as he concludes the stunning work of creation. God has set the stage. The drama has begun.

The simple truth of the biblical creation story is that God is the author of creation. In Genesis 1, we are presented with the beginning of a divine drama that can only be examined and understood from the standpoint of faith. How long did it take? How did it happen, exactly? No one can answer these questions definitively. In fact, these mysteries are not the focus of the creation story. The purpose, rather, is for moral and spiritual revelation.

God was very pleased with his creation. Six times throughout the process of creating, God stopped, observed his handiwork, and saw that it was good. On final inspection of all that he had made, God regarded it as "very good."

This is a great time to remind ourselves that we are part of God's creation. Even when you don't feel worthy of his pleasure, remember that God made you and is pleased with you . You are of great worth to him.

The Trinity in the Creation

In verse 26, God says, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness ..." This is the only instance in the creation account that God uses the plural form to refer to himself. It's interesting to note that this happens just as he begins to create man. Many scholars believe this is the Bible's first reference to the Trinity .

The Rest of God

On the seventh day, God rested. It's hard to come up with a reason why God would need to rest, but apparently, he considered it important. Rest is often an unfamiliar concept in our busy, fast-paced world. It's socially unacceptable to take an entire day to rest. God knows we need times of refreshing. Our example, Jesus Christ , spent time alone, away from the crowds.

The rest of God on the seventh day sets an example for how we ought to spend and enjoy a regular day of rest from our labors. We should not feel guilty when we take time each week to rest and renew our bodies, souls, and spirits.

But there is a more profound significance to God's rest. It figurately points to a spiritual rest for believers. The Bible teaches that through faith in Jesus Christ, believers will experience the delights of resting in heaven forever with God: "So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world." (See Hebrews 4:1-10)

Questions for Reflection

The creation story clearly shows that God enjoyed himself as he went about the work of creation. As noted previously, six times he stopped and savored his accomplishments. If God takes pleasure in his handiwork, is there anything wrong with us feeling good about our achievements?

Do you enjoy your work? Whether it's your job, your hobby, or your ministry service, if your work is pleasing to God , then it should also bring pleasure to you. Consider the work of your hands. What things are you doing to bring pleasure to both you and God?

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The Story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible: Luke 15:11–32
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What are the similarities and differences between the Genesis creation account and other creation stories of the time [closed]

(Operating under the assumption that Genesis was authored by Moses, and its intent is a polemic against other origin stories and their view of the deity at the time).

The Enûma Eliš is said to have influenced the writings in Genesis. What are the similarities and differences between the Genesis creation account and other creation stories of the time?

(Not limited to Babylonian—particularly interested to hear Egyptian origin stories from the time as well.)

1 Compare the simple elegance of the Genesis account to the Eygyptian story. God spoke. No fighting among different actors. Just "Let there be light", "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.","let the water teem with living creatures..." It really sounds like God speaking. – user2594 Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 13:37
5 Comparing Genesis with all other creation stories is too broad. – curiousdannii ♦ Commented Oct 11, 2014 at 23:19
I'm not sure why you would think their is a polemic intent on the part of the writer. There is a polemic intent on the part of some people that see this particular story as similar to Genesis and then see Genesis as false or having less credibility. That's understandable but it isn't accurate. The most important difference is the name, YHWH, and that the beings who were created were created by the breath (of YHWH), which is a constant theme from Genesis to Revelation. – Gigi Sanchez Commented Feb 24, 2017 at 18:12
This excellent lecture focuses on the question with excellent analysis: youtube.com/… – Ruminator Commented Feb 29, 2020 at 14:49
1 @DanFefferman please note curiousdannii's comment that the comparison is too broad. – agarza Commented Sep 8, 2022 at 16:56

5 Answers 5

Enuma Elish and Genesis have the strongest connection in their first lines--"In the beginning" vs. "When on high." Some say that Genesis is written as a polemic against Enuma Elish . They are very different.

1a. Enuma Elish starts with the elemental representatives of chaos, Apsu and Tiamat. They are the father and mother of the gods respectively. It isn't creation so much as shaping the chaotic matter that already exists.

1b. In Genesis, God stands over creation. And He creates it all. I do not read 1:2 as the chaos that He shapes. I read it as that is how He created it.

2a. In Enuma Elish, Apsu wants to kill his children, the gods, because they are noisy. Tiamat tries to protect them. Their son, Ea, chief of the gods, uses magic to send Apsu to sleep and then kills him. Ea and his consort have a child named Marduk who is stronger than themselves. Marduk's playing with wind storms awakens the gods still sleeping within Tiamat.

Tiamat seeks revenge and creates 11 monsters to help her. Marduk offers to be the gods' champion if he is allowed to be their leader afterwards. They agree, he fights Tiamat, kills her, and shapes her body parts into the earth and sky. He then creates the stars and regulates the sun, moon, and weather. Note that he does not create the sun or moon. He merely regulates them.

The gods who sided with Tiamat are first forced to be slaves of Marduk's coalition. Then Marduk creates humans to do the work the gods don't want to do. Babylon is established as the home of the chief gods and Marduk is named king of all gods. This includes Enlil, who was king of the gods in the area's earlier civilizations.

2b. Genesis connects on some of the high points, but is very different. God makes the sun, moon, and stars. He does not regulate them. God creates man as the high point of creation, not as a race of slaves. God does not fight other gods because there are none. There are no monsters to fight. In fact, God creates the tannim, sea monsters or whales simply as part of his creation. God is not named or elevated to kingship. In Genesis, He is supreme from the beginning.

In an Egyptian account I read while in seminary, the creator god engaged in "self abuse" to make the world and other gods.

There are several creation accounts in antiquity from two main areas in the fertile crescent; Babylon/Sumer and Egypt. I will attempt to summarize and compare/contrast points of each creation myth with Genesis, so I will apologize at the outset to readers for the long answer. I'm sure the OP did not realize what a tall order this was, and as curiousdannii noted, this is a very broad topic. Based on the rules of this Stack Exchange , this question should probably have been closed as "off topic", but I think it is important and I am therefore glad it wasn't closed. Because of the length of this answer, I have divided it into three answers (answers are limited to 30000 characters), the first covering Babylonian/Sumerian mythology and the second and third covering [Egyptian mythology Part I (Ogdoad and Atem-Ra) and Egyptian Mythology Part II (remaining myths and meta-analysis) .

The (hopefully exhaustive) list of creation stories I could find were:

Babylonian Creation myths

As the OP has already identified, the Enûma Eliš †

The Eridu Genesis

The epic of atrahasis, the barton cylinder, the debate between winter and summer, the debate between sheep and grain.

Egyptian Creation Myths

Creation Myth of the Ogdoad of Hermopolis recorded in the Pyramid Texts (Utterances 7 , 301 , and 592 )

Creation myth of Atem-Ra from Heliopolis from the Pyramid Text (Utterances 276, 284, 288 , 505, 519 , 527 , 583 , 587 , 600 and 662 ); the Coffin Text (Spells 76, 77, 80, 222, 714, 262, 160 , and 1130 ); and the Bremner-Rhind Papyrus

Creation myth of Ptah from the Shabaka Stone and Memphis

Creation myth of Khnum from the Temple at Elephantine as depicted at the Temple of Hathor

Creation myth of Amun from Thebes (primarily recorded in Coffin Text Spell 233 †† )

Note: Links to original translations included above

† There are 5 additional creation references included at the bottom section of this link, but they are so fragmentary, brief or oblique in reference that I did not include in my analysis.

†† Though the link does not credit the source as Spell 233, my research indicates that this web page is, in fact, a translation of this spell from the Coffin Texts .

The Enûma Eliš

The goddess Ummu-Hubur begins an insurrection against the other gods. Marduk is selected as a champion to defend them and slays Tiamut and Apsû. Marduk then creates the world out of the remains of the slain gods.

Similarities

Similar opening lines

The opening lines of the Enûma Eliš are strikingly similar to Genesis. As a comparison: Genesis In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was without shape and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep, but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! - The 7 days of creation are listed - Enûma Eliš When in the height heaven was not named, And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name, And the primeval Apsû, who begat them, And chaos, Tiamat, the mother of them both, Their waters were mingled together, And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen; When of the gods none had been called into being, And none bore a name, and no destinies [were ordained]; Then were created the gods in the midst of [heaven], - There are 7 gods who decree and their speeches are recorded on 7 clay tablets - (Special thanks to Jack Douglas for the kbd abominations )

Naming of Creation

Unpacking a few facts reveals that the texts are even more similar than we might have even first suspected. For example, the Heberw word for creation ("to create") is בָּרָא (bara) which Brown-Driver-Briggs defines as "cutting, shape out" and that it can be compared to the the Assyrian banû - "create, beget, with change of liquid" Therefore, to say that the earth was without shape and empty was to say that it was not yet created.

Similarly, the Enûma Eliš states

When in the height heaven was not named , And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name

The final step of any creative act is to give your artwork a name. In a sense, until it has a name, the creation has not yet been finished. This is why it is notable that Adam names the animals. God is delegating some of his creational power to Adam and Adam shares in the final creative acts with God . Therefore, a work which is unnamed is not yet finished and not yet created. The cutting and shaping out of the work is not yet complete.

Chaotic waters

Furthermore, in line 4 of the first tablet of the Enûma Eliš, we see the statement that Tiamut is chaos and that the waters of Tiamut (who becomes sea) and Apsû are mingled. Interestingly Tiamut is associated with sea serpents or dragons and the sea was typically regarded as a chaotic place of dangers and unknowns. Perhaps this is why the hebrew word תְּהוֹם (sea/the deep) and תֹּ֫הוּ (tohu; formlessness/chaos) are so similar - because the two concepts were inextricably linked in antiquity and in the Enûma Eliš by extension

Speaking into existence

Just as God calls things into existence, the various gods (representing the same things God calls into existence) are "called into being" (Tablet 1, Line 10)

Serpent Motif

There are mention of serpents (Tablet 1, Lines 113-121; Tablet 2, Lines 19-16; Tablet 3, Lines 23-31 and 81-89) which are created as weapons by Ummu-Hubur. She then uses these serpent weapons against the greater gods, just as the serpent thwarts God's plans.

Delegation of power/dominion

Ummu-Hubur gives "The dominion over all the gods" to Kingu. Likewise, Adam is given dominion over all creation in verse 1:28 (remember, each god had an icon and association, so Adam is really being given dominion over the gods by God) Similarly, the gods fearing Ummu-Hubur give Marduk "sovereignty over the whole world"

Marduk uses seven winds to "disturb the inward parts of Tiamat" just as there are 7 days of creation (Tablet 4, line 47)

In the Enûma Eliš there are six generations of gods, created one after the other. Each god is associated with something, such as sky or earth. This parallels the six days of creation in Genesis, where Elohim (plural) creates a different thing on each day.

Seperation of the waters

Just as God separates the waters into the sky and the sea and creates dry land (the primordial mound) out of the sea, so does Marduk separate Tiamut and Apsû whos "waters were mingled together" and forms dry land from Tiamut (the sea):

One half of her [Tiamut] he established as a covering for heaven. ... And bade them not to let her waters come forth. (Tablet 4, Lines 138; 140)

God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.” (Genesis 1:6)

Apprasial of creation

Both Marduk and god survey their work after creating:

He passed through the heavens, he surveyed the regions (Tablet 4, Line 141) vs. but the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water... God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:2, 2:4)

Both God and Marduk establish the deep:

And over against the Deep he set the dwelling of Nudimmud. And the lord measured the structure of the Deep, (Tablet 2, Lines 142-143)

God called the dry ground “land” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” (Genesis 1:10)

Note: In Hebrew, seas and "the deep" are the same as noted earlier. In fact, it appears that the Hebrew word for the Abyss is תְּהוֹם‎ ( tehom ) which is cognate with Tiamut

Creation of time

Creation of the stars and moon in order to determine units of time (months, days, seasons, etc) are very similar in both works:

The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he fixed. He ordained the year and into sections he divided it; For the twelve months he fixed three stars. After he had [...] the days of the year [...] images, He founded the station of Nibir to determine their bounds; (Tablet 5, Lines 3-6)

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years, ... God placed the lights in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth, to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:17-18)

Creation of night/day

In both creation accounts, the celestial bodies are created to "rule the days"

The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he entrusted to him. He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days; (Tablet 5, Lines 12-13)

God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years, and let them serve as lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” It was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also. God placed the lights in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth, to preside over the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. (Genesis 1:14-17)

Length of the week

Both texts establish a 6 day week with a special weekend day set aside for a total of 7 days

Thou commandest the horns to determine six days, And on the seventh day to [divide] the crown. (Tablet 5, Lines 16-17)

By the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day all the work that he had been doing. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he ceased all the work that he had been doing in creation. (Genesis 2:2-3)

Creation of man from bone

In both creation texts, mankind is created from the bones of another:

My blood will I take and bone will I [fashion], I will make man, that man may... (Tablet 6, Lines 5-6)

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs ... The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” (Genesis 2:21-23)

Defeat of the Serpent

Ultimately, the serpent(s) are defeated in both the Enûma Eliš and Genesis

"In the Enûma Eliš, Marduk consults with other gods and decides to make mankind as servants, so that the gods can rest. Likewise, Yahweh makes mankind and then rests.

Notable Differences

Who receives dominion

It is mankind which is given dominion over creation in Genesis, not the gods.

There is no epic celestial battle recorded in Genesis

The demiurge

God is not just the demiurge, he is also the creator of all things, unlike Marduk

Source of power

God did not have to be granted any power from other celestial beings and simply possesses it (and implicitly always has), unlike Marduk. This is clear polemic against Marduk and establishes the supremacy of Yahweh.

Unfortunately the text of the creation section of the Eridu Genesis has been lost to time. Interestingly however, this text does include a flood narrative after creation, which has some notable comparisons and contrasts, but comparison of these text is outside of the scope of your question.

John Walton claims that the Epic of Atrahasis and the Eridu Genesis are literarialy related and it may be that this text was inspired by the Eridu Genesis, as this appears to be the earliest mesopotamian creation myth.

In the myth, the lesser "Igigi-gods" are forced to farm the land and perform related manual labor. They become disenchanted with this situation and stage an insurrection. In order to quell this uprising, mankind is created to take over the "drudgery of labor".

Flood Narrative

This text also includes a flood narrative after creation like the Eridu Genesis and the Biblical Genesis.

This text also mention of the Tigris and the Euphrates, just as Genesis does

In Genesis, Adam and Eve revolt against God's plan for them and in the Epic of Atrahasis, the Igigi-gods (lesser-gods) revolt against the plan of the Anunna gods (the greater gods) (lines 70-150)

Drudgery of labor

The result of the corruption of the divine plan is the drudgery of labor becoming the responsibility of mankind

Mankind is created from the clay

The Epic of Atra-Hasis states:

Nintu mixed clay with his flesh and blood. That same god and man were thoroughly mixed in the clay. For the rest of the time they would hear the drum. From the flesh of the god the spirit remained. It would make the living know its sign. Lest he be allowed to be forgotten, the spirit remained. After she had mixed the clay, she summoned the Anunna, the great gods. The Igigi, the great gods, spat upon the clay.

Similarly, mankind is created from the clay in Genesis 2:7:

The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Template for mankind

Mankind is made from the gods in the Epic of Atrahasis, while the Bible says that man was made in God's image.

Purpose of Mankind

In the Epic of Atra-hasis, the gods create mankind so that they can do all the work of farming and feeding the gods, but in Genesis, the earth is created for the purpose of mankind. They are the focus of creation, not merely an afterthought. Instead of mankind in service, it is nature which is in service to mankind in Genesis. The work of farming is but a curse and a corruption of Gods' original plan in Genesis.

When the gods were man they did forced labor, they bore drudgery. Great indeed was the drudgery of the gods, the forced labor was heavy, the misery too much: the seven great Anunna-gods were burdening the [lesser] Igigi-gods with forced labor (Lines ) They summoned and asked the goddess the midwife of the gods, wise Mami: "Will you be the birth goddess, creatress of mankind? Create a human being, that he bear the yoke, let him bear the yoke, the task of Enlil, let man assume the drudgery of the god."

This text doesn't really have a story which can be summarized as it takes the format of a hymn or poem.

This text also mentions the Tigris and the Euphrates

Tree of Life

The Barton Cylinder mentionsthe Tree of life like in Genesis 2:9

To heaven he lifts an eye opened by the tree of life [TEXT DAMAGED] my dwelling

There is a serpent which is in control of and associated with the demonic in this text. According to Barton:

The spouse, of Enlil is here called by two other names, Ninkharsag and Mush or Sir. ... Sir appears in this text as a goddess, the serpent deity was also from early times sometimes regarded as a god. Another point of interest which the text makes prominent is the connection of Ninkharsag with enchantment. To her is attributed the function of enchanting the demons, or of keeping them away by incantations. If I rightly understand the text, a number of sentences are given, the utterance of which by her, was supposed to banish demons from the temple.

Most powerful God and Demiurge

Barton notes of the creation text,

This statement embodies an idea very wide-spread among men, that important acts of creation are the result of cohabitation between a god and a goddess.

This is in contrast to scripture in which God himself is the demiurge and the head of the pantheon. This could be seen as a statement of power, one-upmanship and bragging. In contrast to other religions in which the head god is not also creator (Eg, Enki was not the demiurge, Zeus was not the demiurge, etc.) And creation was spread out among several gods. In contrast, all of the creative power was concentrated in one God - what a powerful being!

An and Enlil create the earth. Then, Summer and winter are preparing an offering to Enlil and Winter (being tired from his preparations) starts a quarrel with Summer.

Winter makes the case that summer isn't that hard working and winter is superior and Summer offers a rebuttal. Winter makes his case further followed by another rebuttal by Summer. Summer and Winter look to Enlil for judgement and the author concludes winter is superior.

Tigris and Euphrates are mentioned in this text

Fraternal quarrel

In both this text and the Genesis creation account, the creation event is followed by a quarrel between two brothers making an offering

Both stories end in a judgement by the most powerful (G/g)od in the pantheon

Station of mankind

Humanity is elevated to the position of gods in the creation account - eg Cain and Able are equivalent to the summer god and winter god.

The story does not end in the death of one brother at the hands of the other

Before all had been created by An, Uttu, Enki and Enlil create the earth, they created sheep and grain and sent them out into the world. At the assembly for the offering of the gods, the sisters Sheep and Grain become inebriated and begin to quarrel. Grain claims to be superior to sheep and Sheep then offers a rebuttal. Grain Rebuffs Sheep and then Sheep offers a second rebuttal.

Primordial Mound

Lines 1-11 and 26-42 mention the primordial mound seen in Genesis 1:9

Similar style

The wording of Lines 1-25 echo those of Genesis 2:

since he neither spawned nor created Grain with them, and since in the Land he neither fashioned the yarn of Uttu nor pegged out the loom for Uttu -- with no Sheep appearing ... there was no muc grain

vs Genesis 2:5

Now no shrub of the field had yet grown on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

Lines 12-25 mention nakedness

There was no cloth to wear; Uttu had not been born ... The people of those days did not know about eating bread. They did not know about wearing clothes; they went about with naked limbs in the Land.

While Genesis 2:25 does as well:

The man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.

Again, after the creative act we have another quarrel between siblings just as with the Cain and Abel story.

Again, at the end of the Dispute, the head of the Pantheon pronounces a judgement about which of the siblings is greater and in this story, Sheep is cursed to forever be subject to grain in much the same way way Cain is forever cursed.

Purpose of mankind

Food is created for the gods, not mankind. Food is only given to mankind as an afterthought because the gods though it would be "For their own well-being in the holy sheepfold" (Lines 26-36) - Because it was in their best interest to do so and it would fulfil "the ordinances of the gods." (Lines 54-64) In contrast Creation is for the express purpose of mankind in order to serve mankind.

Station of Mankind

Just as in the Debate between Winter and Summer, Humanity is elevated to the position of gods in the creation account - eg Cain and Able are equivalent to the summer god and winter god.

Just as in the Debate between Winter and Summer, The story does not end in the death of one sibling at the hands of the other

(Continued answer. See the introduction, table of contents and the first part of this answer here .)

Creation myth of Ptah

The creation myth of Ptah comes from Memphis which was created as the capitol city for Egypt during the Old Kingdom period by Pharaoh Menes. During the 26th dynasty (672BCE–525BCE; the late period) of Egypt, the Shabaka stone was created by Pharoah Shabaka. This writing includes a preface stating,

This writing was copied out anew by his majesty in the house of his father Ptah-South-of-his-Wall, for his majesty found it to be a work of the ancestors which was worm-eaten, so that it could not be understood from the beginning to end. His majesty copied it anew so that it became better than it had been before, in order that his name might endure and his monument last in the House of his father Ptah-South-of-his-Wall throughout eternity, as a work done by the son of Re [Shabaka] for his father Ptah-Tatenen, so that he might live forever.

Accordingly, scholars believe that the original writing dates much earlier than the Late Period, though there is no consensus on the exact. It is generally narrowed to two possibilities. The first is the 19th Dynasty during the New Kingdom as this was the apex of the worship of Ptah with the temple to Ptah in Memphis being built under pharoah Thutmose III during the 18th Dynasty

The other popular date is during the Old Kingdom . This may be because the earliest reference to Ptah can be found in Pyramid Text in utterance 573 (5th Dynasty) and a depiction on a calcite bowl from Tarkhan from the 1st Dynasty.

Commend [Pharoah Pepi II] to Great Noble [Horus], the beloved Ptah, the son of Ptah, to speak for [Pharoah Pepi II], to cause food to grow for his dining pavillion on earth, for [Pharoah Pepi II] is one of those four gods.

According to the Shabaka Stone ), Ptah conceived of creation in his heart and then spoke it into existence and is the creator of all other gods. In fact, for this reason he was represented as the [god of craftsmen.]

There took shape in the heart, there took shape on the tongue the form of Atem. For the very great one is Ptah, who gave [life] to all the gods and their kas through this heart and through this tongue,

The statement that creation took shape through the mouth and the tounge is the distinctive mark of Memphite Theology - that the power of creation was through the thoughts and speech of the divine creator.

Both Ptah and Adam name creation

His (Ptah's) Ennead is before him as teeth and lips. They are the semen and the hands of Atem. For the Ennead of Atem came into being through his semen and his fingers. But the Ennead is the teeth and the lips in this mouth which pronounced the name of every thing , from which Shu and Tefnut came forth, and which gave birth to the Ennead.

As mentioned in the similarities section for the Enûma Eliš, naming has a special significance and is actually a step in the creation process. We see that here again in the Shabaka Stone.

Yahweh speaks creation into existence as does Ptah

God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light! (Genesis 1:3)

Similarly, the Shabaka stone states:

As to the tongue, it repeats what the heart has devised. Thus all the gods were born and his Ennead was completed.

There are six days of creation in Genesis and six sections of the Shabaka Stone

It is Yahweh who is creator of all things

If my above research about the significance of naming is correct, this places Adam in the place of Ptah. This becomes a direct affront to the idea presented in the Shabaka stone that Ptah was the origin and creator of all the other gods and by extension everything else in the earth. According to the Shabaka Stone:

The Gods who came into being in Ptah: Ptah-on-the-great-throne //////. Ptah-Nun, the father who [made] Atem. Ptah-Naunet, the mother who bore Atem. Ptah-the-Great is heart and tongue of the Nine [Gods]. [Ptah] ///////// who bore the gods. [Ptah] ///////// who bore the gods. [Ptah] /////////. [Ptah] ///////// Nefertem at the nose of Re every day.

Therefore, by placing Adam as the namer of creation ( Geneis 2:19 ) and implying Adam is Ptah, Genesis is making the polemic statement that Yahweh is the creator of Ptah since Yahweh created Adam.

Creation myth of Khnum

The worship of Khnum was centred at Temple at Elephantine located at the southernmost part of upper Egypt. This temple appears to have been established as early as the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Khnum is also mentioned in Pyramid Text Utterances 300 , 324 , 522 , 524 , and 586 . Being near the source of the Nile, it makes sense then that Khnum was a water deity associated with the Nile and is often depicted pouring out jars of water. Further, Pyramid Text 522 states:

bring it to Pharaoh Pepi II, namely, the "work of Khnum," which is in the Winding Watercourse.

Which servers to further underscore that point.

Khnum is also frequently depicted as a creator deity. In Egypt, all life was centred around the Nile which provided a source for irrigation and the seasonal flooding deposited nutrient rich silt which allowed for a rich farming industry. It may be for this reason that Khnum is also associated with the creation of the life of mankind. Pyramid Text Utterance states that Khnum built Pharaoh Pepi II

Greetings to thee, O Khnum, who was made harmless though he built Pharaoh Pepi II

And accordingly, he was often depicted as the builder of mankind; fashioning him out of clay on his potter's wheel:

This creation account of Khnum seems to parallel that of the creation of Adam in Genesis 2. In both stories the respective deities fashion mankind out of soil. Furthermore, אדם ( Adam ) literally means red and is (unsuprisingly) a cognate for the word for ground in Hebrew, אדמה ( adamah ). In fact, the Hebrew word for red is אָדֹם ( adom ). This then makes a strong connection to Khnum as a significant amount of Pottery from egypt was made from Nile silt sourced from upper egypt. The resulting product was red in color.

In Genesis, Mankind is created by God from the clay only at creation. But the work of Khnum was regarded as ongoing with Khnum doing his work for each new man born. We do not get this sense from scripture - creation from clay is depicted as more of a one-time event.

Creation myth of Amun

Starting with the first intermediate period, Amun began to gain importance within the Egyptian pantheon - especially in Thebes where worship of Amun was centered and his temple was built. By the New kingdom, worship of Amun was practiced nationwide and he underwent a Syncratic fusion with Ra and was worshipd as Amun-Ra. New Kingdom Hymns to the creator God Amun also refer to Amun making people "in his own image" and Amun means "the hidden or invisible one", making him the hidden or secret force powering all other gods like Atem, Ra and all others. In this way, it led rise to a kind of monotheism in Egypt.

From the Leiden Papyrus :

Chapter 90 The Ennead combined is Your body. Every god joined in Your body, is Your image. Chapter 100 The One who initiated existence on the first occasion, Amun, who developed in the beginning, whose origin is unknown. Most Divine God, who came into being Alone. Every god came into being since He began Himself another of His forms are the Eight, primeval one of the primeval ones, begetter of Re. He completed himself as Atem, being of one body with him. He is the Universal Lord, who initiated that which exists.

Mankind created in the image of (G/g)od
(G/g)od as puppet master
Unknown Origin

Meta Analysis

One other creation myth from Egypt is the Book of the Heavenly Cow, but I do not cover it here because it was most likely written after the Exodus

Ultimately, it is difficult to deny the striking similarities between many of these and the influence they must have had with one another based on the above comparisons. As a result, there are 3 basic ways you can view these stories. Either,

The Bible was influenced by (at least some of) these stories since many of these pre-date the writing of scripture
These stories are all derived from the same source, much like the gospels and each is telling the same story from a different perspective. This viewpoint is pretty difficult for literalistic and metaphorical interpreters of scripture since it is pretty clear that there is a well established cosmology which appears to be regarded literally in antiquity, yet this cosmology is a flat earth which provides a serious stumbling block for the modern literalist.
Sections of Genesis were not derived from other texts like those compared/contrasted here, but instead, The Bible is a polemec, corrective response to these creation myths.

Under interpretation 3, Genesis would be constructed as a literary framework against the backdrop of these creation stories. Under this idea, the author of Genesis would be entirely aware of some or all of the creation myths discussed here. As a result, he would be inviting comparison between Genesis and these other creation accounts under the assumption that the theological implications and conclusions about Yahweh would then be obvious.

Furthermore, it may be that the author of Geneis is taking a cue from Egyptian mythology in which each subsequent generation seems to expand on the mythology of a pervious generation - offering a corrective to previous assumptions of conflicts, (Like the origin stories of Shu and Tefnut and Atum-Ra), Expanding on or clarifying on creation stories as we see in the Book of the Dead. If this is the case, then the author of genesis would be saying that everyone has the facts of creation correct (eg, the Benben or primordial mound and the chaotic waters) but their theological conclusions about them are wrong. This allows modern readers to still read scripture under the assumption that scripture was meant to be interpreted literally, yet we needn't justify scripture scientifically or attempt to force scripture into a framework that fits with what modern science tells us about the universe just as the discovery during the Age of Enlightenment that the earth was not flat did not cause a rejection of faith and scripture. This interpretation allows us to simply view scripture in light of the context in which it was written and draw theological conclusions from that.

Under this assumption then, it becomes clear that there are probably two different creation accounts in Genesis. Gordon J. Wenham and Bruce K. Walthke both regard Genesis 1 as a prologue which Whenham implies is a post-exilic addition to Genesis. In reviewing the differences and similarities, shrewd readers will note that that Babylonian/Sumerian creation parallels and contrasts tend to be congregated in Genesis 1 while Egyptian parallels and contrasts tend to be grouped in Genesis 2:4 through the end of Chapter 3 which would serve to indicate that these are two seperate units intended to address each mythological system seperately

Therefore it becomes useful to do a meta comparison and contrast to all of the above stories:

No beginning of the Divine

In all of the creative stories, it is never noted where the original deity originates from. They seem to just have eternally existed.

In nearly all of the Babylonian/Sumerian creation stories, the Tigris and Euphrates are mentioned.

The Abyss and the waters of Chaos

In both the Egyptian mythology and the Enûma Eliš we see a record of the Abyss, a type of primordial chaotic water. This water is strongly associated with serpents and chaos. Perhaps it is for this reason that sea serpents were frequently depicted on old maps in the far corners and deepest parts of seas and there is so much lore surrounding sea serpents. Genesis also has an association with the Abyss and chaos, though not sea serpents. Likewise, the Epic of Atra-Hasis also has a connection with the sea and chaos vis-à-vis the flood narrative contained therein.

The Enûma Eliš, Egyptian Mythology, and Genesis all record the creative power of speech. This is partially related to the naming of creation, but in Memphite theology especially, the throat and tounge had special creative power]( http://www.maat.sofiatopia.org/memphis.htm#a8 ). Mephite theology offered a polemic in order to advance its' theological agenda vis-à-vis this creative speech. Gods were said to be the "tongue of Ptah/Atem/The Ennead" in order to show that they were the true force of creation. If Genesis really was written as a literary framework which the author of Genesis intended for us to comapre and contrast against other creative stories, then the author of Genesis may be using this same tactic to establish the creative supremacy of Yahweh

Primodridal Mound

The Enûma Eliš, Geneis and Egyptian mythology all reference a primordial mound in which creation began. Because this is one of the first creations, it is then leveraged as creative medium (seemingly because it still has some creative power) in order to make mankind. This makes sense from an ancient mindset in terms of decomposition in which things decompose and return to an earth-like state, so this must be their origion and what they are made from.

In the Enûma Eliš, Egyptian Mythology and Genesis, all contain scenes in which creation is named. This may be partially connected to the speaking of creation. As discussed earlier, the final step in any activity of creation is the final naming of the work. In the Enuma Elis and Egyptian mythology, this is an activity done by the gods, but in Genesis, this activity is done by Adam. This makes a polemic statement by putting the gods at the same level as mankind and elevating Yahweh above both.

Creation of mankind

In the Enûma Eliš, Epic of Atrahasis, Genesis and Egyptian Mythology, we see the idea of mankind being created from the clay. The earth gods were also generally associated with the underworld as well, the theory being that at death, your body was returned to earth, so it must be this god that was also god of the underworld. Aside from Yahweh being unassociated with the underworld, Geneis is no different in claming that mankind was fashioned from the clay of the earth.

Labor and Dominion

In the creative stories of the Levant, there is an idea that the gods created mankind as a solution to their problem of work. By creating mankind, the gods were relieved of this problem and according to these myths the purpose of mankind is to farm the earth and serve nature (the gods). In these stories, there is a theme of the granting of dominion. Marduk for example is granted power over nature in order to combat evil forces. Genesis however takes this theme and turns it on its' head. By granting dominion over the earth to Adam, Adam is portrayed as being more powerful than the gods. Furthermore, by granting this dominion, Genesis is offering a corrective - claiming that instead of mankind being created to make offerings to the gods of nature, nature was instead created for the benefit of mankind out of Yahweh's love for and favor towards humanity.

In the Enûma Eliš, six generations of gods, and 6 was often a theme in Babylonian and Sumerian mythology. The most likely reason for this is because Mesopotamian cultures used a Sexagesimal based numbering system and 6 was a nice round divisor and unit within that system. For example, Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian peoples often counted to twelve on one hand by counting each bone or section of their fingers, with 3 per finger for a total of 12 per hand. Genesis then continues its' tradition of one-upmanship by having 6 days of creation with the 7th day (one more than 6) being devoted to the divine.

With the 7th day devoted to the divine, it was no wonder then why 7 came to be regarded as the divine number. The culture of ancient Mesopotamia was extremely superstitious with lucky and unlucky numbers and numbers often contained a connotation and meaning, just as they often do today (13 being unlucky for example). While the whole of Mesopotamia associated 7 with the divine, it had a special significance within Judaism as being associated with the Covenant. In Hebrew, there was an expression, "to seven oneself" which meant to swear a covenant.

In the Barton Cylinder, Egyptian mythology and Genesis, we see the theme of the Tree of life. Plants, trees and particularly seeds were often associated with fertility and life. Even today, we associate the two, as an example, see Onan "spilling his seed" . It is unsuprising then to see this theme show up in so many creation stories. In all three creation accounts, there seems to be an interesting associate with the serpent motif.

Disruption of the Divine Plan -

In the Epic of Atra-hasis, Genesis and Egyptian mythology, we each see the idea that there was some sort of divine plan which was disrupted. In the Epic of Atra-hasis, this plan was disrupted by the lesser gods, but in Egyptian Mythology and Genesis, this divine plan is disrupted by mankind. In Genesis and the Epic of Atra-hasis, the result of this disruption is that mankind must labor the land to produce agricultural products. All of these plans have the sense that this was not the way it was meant to be and that the current arrangement is suboptimal. Only in the Bible do we see a promise of an escape and a hope for the future however.

In the Enûma Eliš, the Barton Cylinder, Egyptian mythology and Geneis we see a notable serpent motif. In all of these creation accounts, the serpent is connected with evil and an attack against the divine. It seems to be a malevolent force which is attempting to subvert the benevolent divine's intent. In Genesis and Egyptian mythology, the serpent is associated with the Tree of Life. The case for this could also be made in the barton Cylinder, but only in that both themes exist in this account.

Differences

Elevation of God

Throughout all of the similarities we see minor tweaks made by the author of Genesis. In both the similarities and differences of Genesis, the overarching theme is that Genesis is establishing the the supremacy of Yahweh over all other gods. This is done exhaustively with a relentless repetition. A clear polemic against the other theologies of the Levant.

1 Great summary - an incredible answer – hawkeye Commented May 28, 2017 at 4:22

Ogdoad of Hermopolis

The creation myth of the Ogdoad is the oldest creation myth and It is very difficult to study because it is not contained in single volumes like all of the Babylonian myths. Instead, this myth is pieced together from multiple sources of poetry, hymns and inscriptions appearing on pyramid and temple walls. Really, it is a collection of myths. It is also the most important collection of myths to study in the vein of Egyptian creation myths because it sets the foundation for all other myths arising afterwards. Egyptian mythology also provides an interesting idea informing how we might interpret Genesis which I will discuss in the meta-analysis/summary.

The creation myth of the Ogdoad arise in the Old Kingdom which centred (religiously) on Hermopolis . Hermopolis was known in antiquity as "Khmun" which means "eight-town" in reference to the eight gods of the Ogdoad. The mythology for these gods is recorded in the Pyramid Texts , Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead. This creation myth centres around the god Ra. In this creation myth, you have eight gods - 4 male and female pairs - representing 4 aspects of pre-creation according to Egyptian myth:

The waters of chaos (Nu/Naunet)
Hidden forces (Amen and Amaunet)
Darkness (Kuk and Kauket)
Eternity and infinity (Huh and Hauhet)

Ra (the sun god) is said to be descendant from, Nun . Ra in turn gave life to Shu and Tefnut, as noted in Pyramid text Utterance 301 :

To say: Thy established-offering is thine, O Niw (Nun) together with Nn.t (Naunet), ye two sources of the gods, protecting the gods with their (your) shade. Thy established-offering is thine, O Amūn together with Amūnet, ye two sources of the gods, protecting the gods with their (your) shade. Thy established-offering is thine, O Atem together with the two lions, ye double power of the gods, yourselves, who created yourselves, that is, Shu together with Tefnut, (who) created the gods, begat the gods, established the gods.

This Utterance of the pyramid text comes from the Pyramid of Unas which contains the oldest known reference to Ra and Nun (From the 5th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom) outside of some passing references to Ra vis-à-vis Pharaoh Reneb whose name means "Ra is the Lord" .

The union of Shu and Tefnut are then said to have given rise to Nut (Utterance 7) and Geb (Utterance 592) making them the grandson and granddaughter of Ra.

Utterance 7 To say by Nut, the great, (who is) within the encircled mansion: This is (my) son N., of (my) heart. I have given to him the Dȝ.t, that he may be chief therein, like Horus, chief of the Dȝ.t. All the gods say (to Nut): "Thy father Shu knows that thou lovestPharaoh Pepi IImore than thy mother Tefnut. Utterance 592 To say: Geb, son of Shu, this is Osiris N.; the heart of thy mother trembles for thee, in thy name of "Geb." Thou art the eldest son of Shu, his primogeniture.

Unfortunately, these references to Ra became syncretized with the theology and gods originating from Heliopolis by the 5th dynasty as can be seen from the Pyramid texts on the walls of the Pyramid of Unas. It it difficult to extrapolate or infer much before this with any certainty. This will be discussed in more detail in the section below regarding Atem.

The name "Nu" actually means "watery one" in old Egyptian - Nu is the deification of the chaotic primordial waters of the abyss thought to be present at pre-creation. This is the same chaotic abyss we see in Genesis and the Enûma Eliš.

...and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep † (Genesis 1:2)

† As discussed earlier, this is the Abyss

The name "Kuk" means "Darkness" in old Egyptian. We see this same darkness in Genesis:

...and darkness was over the surface of the watery deep (Genesis 1:2)

Shu is the god of emptiness and air. The word "shu" forms the root of such words as empty and dry in old Egyptian. We see this same emptiness present in Genesis:

Now the earth was without shape and empty (Genesis 1:2)

"Tefnut" literally means "she of moisture" in old Egyptian and she was depicted as the goddess of dew, moisture and rain.

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. (Genesis 1:7)

In terms of Genesis, this would make Tefnut the goddess of the water above the sky expanse.

Nut means "sky" in old egyptian and she is depicted as goddess of the sky.

This could almost as easily be an artist's depiction of Genesis 1:7-8 and 14:

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. God called the expanse “sky.” ... God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them be signs to indicate seasons and days and years,

"Geb" literally means "land of god" in old Egyptian and he was depicted as the earth or a goose

God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear.” It was so. God called the dry ground “land” (Genesis 1:9-10)

Furthermore, Geb was often depicted as laying opposite or underneath Nut:

This evokes the imagery of Genesis 1:16-17:

He made the stars also. God placed the lights in the expanse of the sky to shine on the earth,

Finally, Geb was also a god of the underworld - presumably because it was in geb that you buried your dead, so naturally he would be the one to transport the dead to the underworld. Perhaps this then is related to Genesis 3:19:

By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”

In other words, it was from "Geb" which adam was created and to "Geb" shall he return. This will also be very relevant to the creation myth of Ptah (discussed below.)

No beginning of the divine

In this creation myth there is no record of the creation of the 8 gods of the Ogdoad. They always seem to exist in much the same way the Genesis implies that god and the waters of the Deep always existed

Serpent motif

The goddesses of the Ogdoad are often depicted as serpents - again with the serpent motif!

In most cases the name of the god was typically synonymous with whatever thing they were god of. So, for example, if it was dark out, you would say "it is 'Kuk' out" in old Egyptian.

Because of the fragmentary nature of egyptian references to the gods and the syncretisim of Heliopolan theology, it is difficult to find any differences at this stage of the analysis of the Egyptian creation myths. All other myths grow out of the original Hermopolis cosmology and there will be differences to be inferred in those comparisons.

Creation myth of Atem

By the 6th Dynasty during the Old Kingdom, Re, Atem, and Khepri had grown synonymous - most likely because they were all 3 sun-gods. Atem, Ra and Khepri are thought by Egyptologists to be three distinct gods which were then merged. Often names were used interchangeably to refer to the same god or combined and hyphenated )like " Atem-Re ". Utterances 600 and 662 of the Pyramid Texts make it clear that this was the case for Atem when they state:

Utterance 600 To say: O Atem-Khepri, when thou didst mount as a hill, and didst shine as bnw of the benben in the temple of the "phoenix" in Heliopolis, and didst spew out as Shu, and did spit out as Tefnut, † Utterance 662 O brilliant, brilliant; Khepri, Khepri , thou art on the way to Pharaoh Pepi II; Pharaoh Pepi II is on the way to thee; thy life is on the way to Pharaoh Pepi II; the life of Pharaoh Pepi II is on the way to thee. O papyrus, going forth from Wȝd.t, thou art gone forth as Pharaoh Pepi II; Pharaoh Pepi II is gone forth as thou. Pharaoh Pepi II is strong through thine appearance. Appetite belongs to the breakfast of Pharaoh Pepi II; plenty belongs to the supper of Pharaoh Pepi II. Hunger is not powerful in the life of Pharaoh Pepi II; fire is far from Pharaoh Pepi II lives from thy plenty; Pharaoh Pepi II abounds in the abundance of thy food, O Rē‘ , every day.

So from these texts, we can see that Ra, Khephri and Atem are one in the same by the 6th Dynasty. This actually leads to divergent and conflicting origin stories.

Khephri for example was depicted as a scarab beetle and his name is very similar to the egyptian word "kheper" which means to develop or come into being . Scarab beetles are a type of dung beetle and therefore roll their dung-ball in much the way that the egyptians imagined the sun must move across the sky. Furthermore, Atum was regarded as creating himself from the primordial waters of Nun as a primordial mound, or benben in Pyramid Text Utternace 600:

O Atum-Khepri, when thou didst mount as a hill, and didst shine as bnw of the benben in the temple of the "phoenix" in Heliopolis ...

According to Utterance 587 of the Pyramid Texts , Atem-Khepri created himself from the waters of Nu

To say: Greetings to thee, Atem. Greetings to thee, Khepri, who created himself. Thou art high, in this thy name of "Ḳȝ." Thou comest into being, in thy name of "Khepri."

It is thought that part of the reason Khepri was associated with self-creation in this manner was because dung beetles emerge from the balls of dung fully developed - similar to the way that Atum-Khepri created himself from or as the benben (primordial mound.)

It is also worth pausing to note here that in the sun temple of Atem located in Heliopolis (referenced above in Pyramid Text Utterance 600,) there was a Tree (the Ished Tree) which appears to have been the Tree of Life .

This may be the same tree mentioned in Pyramid Text Utterance 519:

They give to Pharaoh Pepi II the tree of life whereof they live, that Pharaoh Pepi II may, at the same time, live thereof.

Alternatively, Coffin Text Spell 222 from the first Intermediate period during 7th-11th Dynasties (2181 BC – 2055 BC) gives a differint origin story for Atem:

the [august god] { atum } †† who is in his egg has commanded that N breathe the air in the realm of the dead [and that there be given to him the sweet air] whiuch is in N's nostrils. O N, seek out that great place which is in [Wnw]; O N, [guard] this egg of the Great Cackler. If N [be strong], it will be strong; if N live it will live; if N breathe the air, it will breathe the air.

So we see that in some texts, Atum-Re is not self-created but instead came from an egg (and in some later texts, a lotus bud)

We see similar discrepancies in the origin story for Shu and Tefunt. Despite the statement in Utterance 600 (above) that Atem spat or sneezed Shu into existence, since Atem was without a female god with which to become intimate in order to create life, Atem is instead described in Pyramid Text Utterance 527 as creating Shu and Tefnut by masturbating:

To say: Atem created by his masturbation in Heliopolis. He put his phallus in his fist, to excite desire thereby. The twins were born, Shu and Tefnut. They put Pharaoh Pepi II between them; they put Pharaoh Pepi II among the gods in the Marsh of Offerings. To say four times: Pharaoh Pepi II mounts to heaven; Pharaoh Pepi II descends to the earth; for life everlasting.

This pretty much summarizes what we know about creation by Atem from the Pyramid Texts, closing out what archaeologists know from the Old Kingdom but there is a great deal of supplemental information in in the Coffin Texts which were recorded in the First Intermediate period during 7th-11th Dynasties (2181 BC – 2055 BC). In some instances (eg, the World Egg and the goose ) these may be completely new additions to the mythology, but in most cases the texts seem to explain or expand upon existing references or offer a corrective.

For example, the Coffin Texts texts attempt to unify the two divergent origins of Shu and Tefnut by claiming that Atem first masturbated, and then took his ejaculate into his mouth for a gestation period before expelling Shu and Tefnut from his mouth. From Coffin Text Spell 77 :

He created orgasm and fluid(?) fell from his mouth. He spat me out as Shu together with Tefenut

These conflicting origins can be probably attributed to one of the sun gods (eg Ra) while the other could be attributed to another (Eg, Atem) Unfortunately, due to the Syncretism of Ra, Atem, and Khepri that occurred, we have no way of knowing which creation method should be attributed to which god or even if they can be attributed in this manner for sure and thus they are now all inextricably linked.

In the coffin text we also learn something about the creation of mankind. In the Coffin Texts, we learn that Atem and Tefnut become lost in the abyss and separated from Atem. According to Coffin Text Spell 76 , Atem then sends his Soul Eye searching for them:

I am Shu, father the gods, and Atem once sent his Sole Eye seeking me and my sister Tefenet. I made light of the darkness for it, and it found me as an immortal.

Before finding Shu and Tefnut however, Atem creates mankind from the tears of his sole eye out of the sadness and loneliness according to Coffin Text Spell 80

He knows how to nourish him who is in the egg in the womb for me, namely the human beings who came forth from my eye which sent out while I was alone with Nu in lassitude, and I could find no place on which to stand or sit

Additional support for this concept comes from Coffin Text Spell 262 and the The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus from the New Kingdom period

† This is actually a rather entertaining pun as "Shu" is the sound you make when sneezing and Atem is described as "spewing" out Shu in this inscription.

†† Addition in brackets was R.O. Faulkner from Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts Volume I while the addition in curly braces is mine. The link is to an excerpt of Coffin Text 75 which makes it clear that the august god is Atum.

Atem and Adam sound similar

The first similarity one notes is between the name of the god "Atem" and the name of the first man "Adam." Though these names do not share any linguistic roots, one is led to wonder if it is a mere coincidence that the names sound similar. While Adam does mean "man" or "mankind" this is not the only word in hebrew which could be used to convey "mankind". Furthermore, the author could have simply named the first man "Steve" or something. Considering the time that the Israelights spent in Egypt, one cannot help but wonder if this is intentional on the part of the author.

Creation from the primordial mound

In Egyptian Mythology, Atem rises from the waters of Nu and then both embodies but also is created from the primordial mound (benben). Similarly, Adam is created from the earth in Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 3:19 states that Adam embodies dust:

By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust , and to dust you will return.”

The fall of mankind

According to Coffin Text 1130, Atum created mankind as equals and it was their choice to disobey his divine plan.

I made every man like his fellow; and I did not command that they do wrong. It is their hearts that disobey what I have said. This is one of the deeds.

This is also the point of Genesis 1-3. It records that God dictated that Adam and Eve were entrusted with the choice to eat or not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and their choice brought evil into the world.

The tree of life

According to mythology, The fruit of the persea symbolized the “Sacred Heart” of Horus,

According to E.A. Wallis Budge , in his work "The book of the Dead"

In close connection with the natural and spiritual bodies stood the heart, or rather that part of it which was the seat of the power of life and the fountain of good and evil thoughts." -

Perhaps this is why eating the fruit of the persea tree was supposed to give Eternal Life and knowledge of the Divine Plan.

Similarly, there were two trees in Genesis,

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which would make Adam and Eve "like God" by knowing good and evil (the divine plan) if they ate of the fruit of this tree and
The Tree of Life which would give Adam and Eve eternal life by eating of its' fruit.

It was thought that each day, Ra emerged from an egg and travelled in a boat known as the Bark across the sky and then crossed into the underworld at sunset. Each night, just before dawn as the Bark passes the mountain of Bahkhu in the underworld, Apep attacks the Bark according to Coffin Text Spell 160 :

I know that mountain of Bakhu upon which sky leans. ... On the east of that mountain is a serpent, 30 cubits in his length, with three cubits of his forefront being of flint. I know the name of that serpent who is on the mountain. His name is "He overthrows". Now at the time of evening he turns his eye over against Re, and there occurs a halting among the (solar) crew, a great astonishment(?) within the voyage, so that Seth bends himself against him.

Apep is also referenced in several of the pyramid texts

Utterance 583 N. of Rē‘, the uraeus-serpent, which is on the forehead of Rē‘. † Utterance 505 my companion is the uraeus-serpent, who comes forth from the god, the ’i‘r.t-serpent, who comes forth from Rē‘. Utterance 276 To say: Thy act is against thee, what thou doest is against thee, O sksk-serpent, which is in his (thy) hole?, the opponent. Utterance 284. To say: He (serpent) whom Atum has bitten has filled the mouth of N., while he wound himself up (lit. wound a winding). Utterance 288 To say: Hki-serpent or hkr.t-serpent, go away (with) face on the road. Eye of N., look not at him. Thou shalt not do thy will with N. Get away.

Furthermore, Apep is heavily associated with the Tree of Life. E.A. Budge's translation of The Book of the Dead records the following,

I am the Cat which fought by the Persea tree hard by in Annu, on the night when the foes of Neb-er-tcher were destroyed. What then is this? The male cat is Ra himself, and he is called Maau by reason of the speech of the god Sa [who said] concerning him: "He is like (maau) unto that which he hath made, and his name became Maau"; or (as others say), It is Shu who maketh over the possessions of Seb to Osiris. As to the fight by the Persea tree hard by, in Annu, it concerneth the children of impotent revolt when justice is wrought on them for what they have done.

Accompanying this writing are the following illustrations:

(From the Papyrus of Ani)

(From the Papyrus of Hu-nefer)

Thus, in this text we see the unification of the fall of man, the Tree of Life and the serpent motif.

† According to the Coffin Texts and the Bremner-Rhind papyrus, Ra's Sole Eye returned from searching for shu and tefnut to find that it had been replaced in its' absence. It became upset and turned into Apep.

Speaking creation into existence

In Coffin Texts Spell 76 , the creator (here named as Atem) bring eight gods into existence "by speaking with the nun," presumably separating the elements of chaos by the process of naming them.

Theme of dual-gender

Atem is regarded as representing both the male and female aspects of gender . Many scholars believe that the entire female essence was removed from man and fashioned into a woman. This would mean that the "mankind" in chapter 1 could have been an undifferentiated or androgynous person, with the blessing of male and female being a declaration in anticipation of the separation of the sexes in Genesis 2. This interpretation largely hinges on the fact that The Hebrew word used for rib is צֵלָע ( tsela ) which often means "a component", or more often, "a side-wall" or "chamber" which may indicate that more than simply a rib was taken from Adam.

Atem/Adam is not self-created

As discussed above, Atem is self created, while Genesis records that God created Adam. If Adam is supposed to be a reference to Atem, this is clear polemic against Atem designed to lower him to a mere creation of Yahweh and Demonstrate Yahweh's power over Atem.

Focus on the creation of mankind

The creation myth of Re-Atum, as with most of Egyptian mythology is focused on explaining the elements, weather and similar forces of nature. The creation of mankind is an afterthought. In fact, the creation of mankind isn't even referenced at least the 7th dynasty - a full 800 years after we begin seeing other references to egyptian myths. Conversely, mankind and their story is the primary focus of the Genesis creation account.

@hawkeye - Thanks. It was a lot of fun to research and I learned a lot. – James Shewey Commented May 28, 2017 at 5:00

Although I see this is an older post, I felt compelled to add an answer to it.

I came across an article on Bible.org and found it very interesting about the creation stories from Egypt. Genesis 1-2 In Light Of Ancient Egyptian Creation Myths

The Egyptians held a view of 3 different creation stories, concurrently, each having some differences, but a similar line of thought. The Memphis and Heliopolis versions are especially similar. The Memphis story is nearly identical to the Biblical Gen 1 creation story, of how the earth was formed. Human creation however is a different story and not tied into the earth's creation, but even the creation of man has similarities to the biblical story.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged genesis astronomy creation history or ask your own question .

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ENGL 470: Oh, Canada

Just another ubc blogs site, 3:5 similarities and differences between creation stories.

What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ?

I was raised Catholic and I practiced up until I moved to Kelowna for post-secondary education. I had my doubts growing up, but they weren’t strong enough that I could be labelled atheist. I simply stopped practicing and that pushed religion aside altogether for me. Having said that, I’m quite familiar with “Genesis” and I see a handful of similarities in it when compared to King’s “The Earth Diver” in The Truth About Stories .

First of all, both stories begin with water. The interesting thing about that is a lot of other creation stories begin with water. Kind of interesting. On a side note, although Buddhism has no universal and mutually shared creation story, some branches believe the origin of existence began with water as well . I know water is important since more than half of what we’re comprised of is water, but when you get down to it… why water? Why was God in “Genesis” “moving over the surface of water”? Why couldn’t it have been over a surface of dirt? Why did water have to be present before everything else? Why couldn’t he create water afterwards ? I should stop before I go insane.

So, both “Genesis” and “The Earth Diver” begin with water. In the latter, Charm falls into Earth which was nothing but water. Another similarity is the presence of animals. In “Genesis”, God creates animals before even creating man. In “The Earth Diver”, it is unknown if the animals preceded Charm, or if Charm preceded them, but animals appear to exist in abundance too. Additionally, animals who talk to the humans exist in both of these creation stories. The snake who gets Eve to break the one and only rule in the Garden of Eden, and the moose and sea creatures who interact with Charm from beginning to end.

Parallels and binaries are also ubiquitous in both “Genesis” and “The Earth Diver”; they are more so apparent in the former, but the latter has them too. God in “Genesis” creates heaven and hell, night and day, and man and woman. The twins born of Charm in “The Earth Diver” create summer and winter, roses and thorns, sunshine and shadows; just like God in “Genesis”, the twins create man and woman.

The major differences between the two stories are few, but significant. In “Genesis” there is an omnipresent, omniscient, and powerful creator who exists before everything else. In “The Earth Diver”, no such figure exists; although it is unclear whether Charm was present before the existence of the Moose and the world/universe she inhabited prior to her accidental arrival on Earth, it is clear she is not as powerful and authoritative as God in “Genesis”. The world is built through cooperation in “The Earth Diver”, while one powerful figure creates everything in “Genesis”. Additionally, in “Genesis”, the readers are taught to distinguish right from wrong, and good from bad; Adam and Eve are asked not to eat from the tree of knowledge and are punished for doing so. In “The Earth Diver” there is nothing right or wrong, good or bad. The animals, Charm, and the twins simply work with what’s in front of them and are happy with whatever outcome.

As I said in a previous blog, I was irked by King’s tirade about how the world may have been a better place if a story like “The Earth Diver” took precedence instead of “Genesis”. In general, I think creation stories are troublesome. We’re always going to ask the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s, why’s, and how come’s. Did Charm exist before the Moose? Who created Charm and who created the person/being/figure who created Charm? Why did they do so? The questions are endless. In Buddhist teachings, Buddha advices people not to worry about the origin of the world because it’s counter-productive to what we should be doing. In Buddhism, the point is to escape suffering and to do so is to escape the cycle of birth and rebirth. To gain enlightenment. Following the eightfold path and meditation are methods which help achieve enlightenment and Nirvana. According to Buddha, questioning how life came to be only slows us down from enlightenment.

To end this blog, here is a quotation by Buddha which sums up why he thinks creation stories are problematic:

A person approached the Buddha asking, “What will happen after I die? What was my form before my birth? What is the source of all we see? Answer these questions and I will become your disciple.” The Buddha replied in this manner: A man is shot with a poison arrow. Wounded, he refuses any aid, demanding answers to his questions. “Who shot the arrow? What is the poison? Of what wood is the shaft? From which bird came the feathers for the flight?” Surely he will die with these questions still unanswered.

Works Cited

Allan, John. “The Eight-Fold Path.” Buddha Net. Buddhist Studies, n.d. Web. 10 Jul 2015.

Paw, Maung. The Agganna Sutta: On Knowledge of Beginnings Of Humankind . California: n.p, n.d. Web.

“The Poison Arrow.” That Buddha Guy . The Buddha Guy, n.d. Web. 11 Jul 2015.

4 thoughts on “ 3:5 Similarities and Differences between Creation Stories ”

ok………………………ok………………..pretey good lad

Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates

Stephen C. Barton and David Wilkinson (eds): Reading Genesis after Darwin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. xiv + 254. S/b $24.95

Kim Paffenroth 1

Evolution: Education and Outreach volume 3 , pages 297–299 ( 2010 ) Cite this article

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This anthology consists of 13 essays written by professors trained in biblical studies or theology, writing on the interpretation of Genesis (by which they almost exclusively mean the first chapter of Genesis) since Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). After a brief Introduction by the editors, the book is then divided into three parts: “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” “Understanding the History,” and “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance.” It includes an index of modern authors and a subject index. References of works cited are included in the notes for each chapter, though a bibliography at the end would’ve been a welcome addition.

Section 1, “Engaging again with the Scriptures,” includes four essays. In “How Should One Read the Early Chapters of Genesis?” Walter Moberly discusses the implications of taking Genesis as “a literary phenomenon.” His conclusion is probably unremarkable to anyone trained in modern, liberal biblical criticism, and it will recur in similar terms in several of the other essays: Moberly challenges us to see in Genesis biblical ideas such as “wonder and delight of the world, creaturely contingency, creaturely responsibility, the gift of relationship between creature and Creator, and the difficulty that humans have in genuinely trusting God as a wise Creator and living accordingly”. I think he is quite correct that this view maintains the text’s meaning and relevance, without insisting on a literal reading of it.

Francis Watson takes the history of controversy much further back, in his essay, “Genesis before Darwin: Why Scripture Needed Liberating from Science.” He traces what he calls the “annexation” of the Bible by astronomy and geology in the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries: harmonization of the biblical account with scientific findings (e.g. the “days as eons” solution) was done to the detriment or obfuscation of both. Darwin put forth his theory with no reference to Genesis, and according to Watson, this shows a more fruitful and beneficial relationship between Genesis and science—separation or liberation from one another.

In “The Six Days of Creation according to the Greek Fathers,” Andrew Louth discusses the interpretation of Genesis by Theophilos of Antioch and Basil. Louth’s conclusions echo Moberly’s, in that he counsels some of the same attitudes toward creation, showing how ancient theologians regarded the created world with “wonder” and “humility” and were convinced of its “interconnectedness”.

In “The Hermeneutics of Reading Genesis after Darwin,” Richard S. Briggs examines the comparison of Genesis with other ancient Near Eastern texts (a method of biblical study that was coming into vogue contemporaneously with Darwin), concluding that the process and implications of such “triangulating” are similar, whether one is comparing Genesis to the Enuma Elish or to Darwin.

Section 2, “Understanding the History,” includes three essays. It starts with John Rogerson’s “What Difference Did Darwin Make?: The Interpretation of Genesis in the Nineteenth Century,” which examines some biblical commentaries published shortly before and shortly after Darwin’s work, to see what effect (if any) it had on their interpretation of the Genesis text. The examination does a good job of showing there was no unanimity among interpreters as to the meaning of Genesis, and a range of interpretations were advocated, both before and after Darwin. Perhaps even more interestingly, even within the group that rejected his theory, interpretations of Genesis often differed.

John Headley Brooke, in “Genesis and the Scientists: Dissonance among the Harmonizers,” returns to some of the scientific controversies already examined in Watson’s essay, concluding similarly that Darwin’s theory may be more amenable to Christianity than attempts at harmonizing Genesis with current scientific theories, since Darwin “purged it [Christianity] of a semi-deistic position”. This is an important distinction for those who would “defend” the Bible, who too often seem to be defending a deistic position that God created the universe and let it go on its own subsequently, rather than defending the idea of a God who wishes to be in communion with humans (the more narrowly biblical concept of God, in either Jewish or Christian interpretation). He also speaks in terms similar to Moberly and Louth, counseling a “nonliteral reading of the text”, and focusing on the text’s primary relevance to “our human existential condition”. David Brown concludes the section with a discussion of some paintings in his essay, “Science and Religion in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Landscape Art.” The most familiar of these to readers is probably Dali’s “The Sacrament of the Last Supper.”

Section 3, “Exploring the Contemporary Relevance,” includes six essays. David Wilkinson’s “Reading Genesis 1-3 in the Light of Modern Science” gives perhaps the fullest summary of the interpretive issues, compared to the other essays in this collection. He puts Darwin in the context of other, sometimes more fundamental and intractable controversies with the Bible; he briefly describes the creationist alternative (pp. 132-135); he traces the various attempts at harmonization, with their pros and cons; and he lays out possible points where Genesis may still speak to the human condition and understanding. Echoing previous essays in the volume, his conclusion is that a primarily literary approach is needed to understand or appreciate the text, and this will yield an interpretation that does not address cosmogonic or biological data, but rather our “unique conscious intimacy with God”.

In “All God’s Creatures: Reading Genesis on Human and Nonhuman Animals,” David Clough argues that in light of evolution (and other observations of animal consciousness and rationality), Christians should abandon anthropocentric readings of Genesis (what he calls “human-separatist” readings throughout). Jeff Astley argues in “Evolution and Evil: The Difference Darwinism Makes in Theology and Spirituality” that evolution exacerbates the problems of theodicy by making suffering (and large amounts of it) intrinsic to creation.

In “’Male and Female He Created Them’ (Genesis 1:27): Interpreting Gender after Darwin,” Stephen C. Barton examines constructions of gender in the classical world, in the Bible, and in subsequent biblical interpretation, contrasting these with modern and postmodern analyses. Ellen F. Davis looks at how organisms fit into their environment in her essay, “Propriety and Trespass: The Drama of Eating,” drawing some conclusions for our current environmental situation and its (un)sustainability. Finally, Mathew Guest’s essay, “The Plausibility of Creationism: A Sociological Comment,” examines the current popularity of creationism in the USA (and to a much lesser degree in the UK), suggesting some sociological forces that may contribute to its acceptance, despite its logical or factual shortcomings.

Although I was excited when I first began reading this volume, this wore off in the course of study. I would single out three essays for praise. Moberly’s is a very helpful look at how believers could still maintain the importance and sacredness of the biblical text, without interpreting it literally. Rogerson’s is a wonderful and suggestive illustration of how Christian belief and interpretation are never monolithic, and never a matter of “good guys” versus “bad guys.” Wilkinson’s is a thorough and accessible discussion of the issues at stake. But overall, I was struck by how little the book deals with Darwin: it could be entitled “Reading Genesis in the Modern World” with little loss of focus. Several of the essays make only the barest nod toward Darwin before moving on to some topic only tangential to his work. The suggestions for the future interpretation of Genesis (literary criticism, a reading that encourages a sense of wonder and humility, the acknowledgment of human incompleteness and contingency, etc.), while sober and encouraging, are repeated by several contributors without much expansion or specificity (Moberly, Louth, Brooke, Wilkinson); such heuristic suggestions are also commonplace in biblical studies, so I found little new here that couldn’t be found in many introductory classes or texts on Genesis.

Several essays were much more deficient, in my estimation. Briggs’s idea that comparing Genesis to other, contemporaneous myths, and comparing it to a scientific treatise written 2,500 years later, are somehow similar comparisons, and the two interpretive acts can shed light on one another, struck me as odd, if not misleading. It overlooks the more fundamental difference in genre: comparing Genesis to other myths (contemporary with it or not) is probably more helpful to understanding it, than comparing it to scientific writings (from whatever time period, though especially a work that eschews teleological questions, and therefore has a completely different outlook than Genesis). Brown’s essay has little to do with the topic of this collection and barely mentions Darwin or Genesis: its observations would make a fine beginning to a chat about “art and spirituality,” but it has no place here. Clough’s essay doesn’t deal with “stewardship,” which many interpreters today would see as the crucial way to understand the biblical teaching on how humans differ from, and yet are immersed in, the created order. Neither Clough’s nor Barton’s essay deals with the differences between Genesis 1 and 2, again a crucial interpretive issue for understanding the text’s ambiguities (and discrepancies) on anthropocentrism and gender.

I say all this from the perspective of a biblical scholar of a decidedly liberal Protestant bent, for whom these issues are well-worn. Perhaps if I try to step outside of this context (and many of the essays in this collection properly remind us of how much context determines meaning), I might better see where some of these essays could fit into a useful discussion. I’d say that for someone who thinks (as many of my atheist and agnostic friends do) that all Christians are creationists, that all Christians immediately opposed Darwin’s ideas and continue to do so today, or that there is only one way to interpret Genesis—for a reader with such impressions, the better written, more thorough of these essays would prove enlightening, and might promote a dialogue that goes beyond secularists versus Biblicists, those who would discard the text versus those who cling to a literal interpretation of it. Such a dialogue might even become a mutual search for truth, conducted with real exchange, understanding, and respect.

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The Enuma Elish (Babylonian Genesis) and Genesis: A Comparison Essay

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Enuma Elis and the Holy Bible are very similar to each other. In fact, leading researchers across the globe are of the opinion that the New Testament was written on the basis of the Enuma Elis. While not all the text is similar, there are instances wherein the Holy Bible has contents, especially pertaining to the creation of the universe, which clearly showcase its similarity to Enuma Elis, which in turn was written several years earlier.

Introduction

Enuma Elis is a Babylonian myth which was created by an anonymous writer and recovered in 1849 by Henry Layard in the ruined library of Ashurbanipal, which in turn is located in Mosul Iraq. It was published in 1876 by George Smith. The Enuma Elis is recorded in The Old Babylonian and it contains thousands of lines that are written on seven clay tablets. Each tablet holds approximately 115 to 170 lines of text and out of the seven tablets, the fifth tablet is incomplete. Nonetheless, researchers found a duplicate copy of Tablet V in Sanlurfa, a town which lies in Turkey. The epic has been centered around the supremacy of Murduke and it has been written to understand the view of the Babylonian culture. It also states that humankind has been created to serve Gods. Nonetheless, the primary purpose of Enuma Elish is not to expose theology but it is centered on elevating the status of Marduke, who happens to be the chief God of the Babylonians over other Mesopotamian Gods. The text exists in various copies and has extracts from Babylonia and Assyria. The library statistics reveal that the story was found in 7 th century BC, whereas the story was apparently created in the 18 th century BC, when Marduke had achieved prominent status.

The epic has named two prominent Gods, namely Apsu and Timat. Numerous other Gods are created as the story progresses and are present within the body of Timat. Now, the Gods present within Timat’s body are quite boisterous and they create so much noise that the babble irritates both Timat as well as Apsu. Annoyed at the daily commotion, Apsu expresses his desire to kill all the Gods but Timat disagrees. Nonetheless, the vizir Mumu agrees to help Apsu and together the two contemplate a plan to annihilate all the Gods. Timat comes to know of the plan and warns the most powerful god named, Ea. Ea uses her magical power and kills Apsu after putting him in coma. Thereafter, Ea banishes Mumu. Thereafter, Ea becomes the chief of Gods and rules along with her consort Damkina. They have a son named Marduk, who is allowed to play with wind. Marduk creates tornadoes and dust storms and disrupts Timat’s body and stops the other Gods from sleeping in peace. This prompts the Gods to help Timat take the revenge on her husband’s death. As more and more Gods join force with her, Timmat increases her powers and creates 11 monsters to help her win the battle against Ea. Thereafter, Timat crowns Kingu, her new husband as the king of all Gods. Then, the defeated Gods select Marduke to seek revenge against the slain Gods and he also becomes very powerful. Soon, he defeats Timmat and creates Earth from her corpse. Thereafter, the subsequent 100 lines are lost in the tablet V.

The Gods who had sided Timmat are forced into labor in the service of the loyal Gods and later released when Narduke agrees to create mankind from the blood of the slain body of Kingu. In this episode Marduke is held in higher esteem when compared to Enlin, the earlier king of Gods in the Mesopotamian civilization. The Genesis 1 and Enuma Elish describe the creation of the world in a similar manner.

Enuma Elish and the English Bible

The Hebrews as well as the ancient Mesopotamians always believed that earth was a flat circular disk that was filled with salt water. The Mesopotamian Myth is considered to be older as it is older than the Hebrew Bible. In fact, researchers claim that Enuma Elis was used to create the Hebrew Bible. Here, earth was a habitable land which was inside a sea and it floated on a second sea called the freshwater apsu. The freshwater apsu provided drinking water from the wells, springs and the rivers and was connected to the vast ocean of saltwater. The sky was a circular disk that was located above the earth and touched the surface of the earth with its rims. The gods resided in solid ground which was located right above the sky and at times the Gods also dwelled somewhere between sky and the earth. If we are to compare Mathews’s testament with Enuma Elsih, we would notice that the geography was identical of both works of art, wherein the sea was a flat circular ground floating on freshwater that was surrounded by saltwater and the sky was a circular dome which housed the Gods and was located directly above the earth’s surface. In both the Genesis as well as Enuma Elish, the creation was the result of a divine speech. The sequence of creation is also very similar in both Genesis and Enuma Elis-light, the firament, the dry land, luminaries and finally man (the tohu wa bohu of Genesis 1:2),. In both Enuma Elis and Genesis, the primordial land is formless and empty. (Genesis 1:6-7, Enuma Elis4 137:40). The firement is also similar and is perceived as a solid inverted bowl which is created in the midst of the water so as to separate earth from the skies (Genesis 1:6–7, Enûma Eliš 4:137–40). Similarly, the creation of luminous bodies is preceded with days and nights (Gen. 1:5, 8, 13, and 14ff.; Enûma Eliš 1:38), the main function of which is provide light and regulate the time(Gen. 1:14; Enuma Elish 5:12–13). Gods always consult before creating man in Enuma Elish (6:4), while the Genesis clearly states that “Let us make man in our own image…” (Genesis 1:26). The creation of man in both is followed by divine rest. It can therefore be stated that English Bible has content which is seemingly similar to its earlier Mesopotamian creation ( Kings James Version , Genesis.20.11- 12).

The Topic of Creation

When we compare the creation f mankind in both Enuma Elis and the Hole Bible, we come to a conclusion that both have very similar content and they both approach the manner pertaining to the creation of universe in much a similar manner. The only difference lies in the fact that Enuma Elis was written and documented prior to the Hole Bible. A few similarities in the creation are that it was indeed God who created heaven and earth. The earth at that time was devoid of any life form or light and it was the spirit of the God which moved upon the face of the waters. When God said ‘let there be light’, there was light. The light was considered good and was separated from darkness. God called the light as day and darkness as night. God allowed firemament within the water which separated salt water from fresh water. God termed firmament as heaven and God separated the water and land and made them into two separate entities. The land was called earth and the water was termed as the sea. God also made two lights, wherein the greater light ruled the day and the lesser light ruled the night. This happened in the fourth day. The next day, God allowed life to survive on water and graze on fields and permitted fowls to fly in the skies. Then God created whales and all sorts of winged creatures that were considered good for humanity and allowed them to multiply. Thereafter, God created man and woman and he created living beings in his own image. Then, god blessed them and permitted them to multiply and fill the earth’s surface and he also stated that the greatest meat on earth would be trees. As per God, the trees and plants were the green herbs for meat. Thereafter, on the sixth day, God saw to it that everything was good and in working order (History, Christianity and ancient texts, “ The Bible, Moses, Sumerian, Enuma Elish, Gilamesh Epics” )

Although there are numerous similarities between the Hebrew Bible and Enuma Elis, we cannot clearly state that the Holy Bible was entirely based upon Enuma Elis. Nonetheless, numerous texts are fairly similar and this forces us to acknowledge the fact that the Mesopotamian myth was in reality the content provider in the formation of the Holy Bible. When we discuss the creation of the universe, then both the texts are symbolic to each other and apart from slight changes in certain areas, the overall concept remains more or less the same. Scholars have yet to ascertain the fact that how Enuma Elis wrote an account of a flood that was later reenacted in Noha’s episode, although the Mesopotamian text was written many years before the Holy Bible was even created.

Works Cited

“History, Christianity and ancient texts”. The Bible, Moses, Sumerian, Enuma Elish, Gilamesh Epics (2009): n.pag. Web.

The Holy Bible: Kings James Version . New York: American Bible Society, 1999. Print.

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Table Of Contents

creation myth , philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community . The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality ( see also myth ). The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.

The myth of creation is the symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood by a particular community. The later doctrines of creation are interpretations of this myth in light of the subsequent history and needs of the community. Thus, for example, all theology and speculation concerning creation in the Christian community are based on the myth of creation in the biblical book of Genesis and of the new creation in Jesus Christ . Doctrines of creation are based on the myth of creation, which expresses and embodies all of the fertile possibilities for thinking about this subject within a particular religious community.

Myths are narratives that express the basic valuations of a religious community. Myths of creation refer to the process through which the world is centred and given a definite form within the whole of reality. They also serve as a basis for the orientation of human beings within the world. This centring and orientation specify humanity’s place in the universe and the regard that humans must have for other humans, nature, and the entire nonhuman world; they set the stylistic tone that tends to determine all other gestures, actions, and structures in the culture . The cosmogonic (origin of the world) myth is the myth par excellence. In this sense, the myth is akin to philosophy, but, unlike philosophy, it is constituted by a system of symbols; and because it is the basis for any subsequent cultural thought, it contains rational and nonrational forms. There is an order and structure to the myth, but this order and structure is not to be confused with rational, philosophical order and structure. The myth possesses its own distinctive kind of order.

Myths of creation have another distinctive character in that they provide both the model for nonmythic expression in the culture and the model for other cultural myths. In this sense, one must distinguish between cosmogonic myths and myths of the origin of cultural techniques and artifacts . Insofar as the cosmogonic myth tells the story of the creation of the world, other myths that narrate the story of a specific technique or the discovery of a particular area of cultural life take their models from the stylistic structure of the cosmogonic myth. These latter myths may be etiological (i.e., explaining origins); but the cosmogonic myth is never simply etiological, for it deals with the ultimate origin of all things.

The cosmogonic myth thus has a pervasive structure; its expression in the form of philosophical and theological thought is only one dimension of its function as a model for cultural life. Though the cosmogonic myth does not necessarily lead to ritual expression, ritual is often the dramatic presentation of the myth. Such dramatization is performed to emphasize the permanence and efficacy of the central themes of the myth, which integrates and undergirds the structure of meaning and value in the culture. The ritual dramatization of the myth is the beginning of liturgy, for the religious community in its central liturgy attempts to re-create the time of the beginning.

From this ritual dramatization the notion of time is established within the religious community. To be sure, in most communities there is the notion of a sacred and a profane time. The prestige of the cosmogonic myth establishes sacred or real time. It is this time that is most efficacious for the life of the community. Dramatization of sacred time enables the community to participate in a time that has a different quality than ordinary time, which tends to be neutral. All significant temporal events are spoken of in the language of the cosmogonic myth, for only by referring them to this primordial model will they have significance.

In like manner, artistic expression in archaic or “ primitive ” societies, often related to ritual presentation, is modelled on the structure of the cosmogonic myth. The masks, dances, and gestures are, in one way or another, aspects of the structure of the cosmogonic myth. This meaning may also extend to the tools that people use in the making of artistic designs and to the precise technique they employ in the craft.

Mention has been made above of the fact that the cosmogonic myth situates humankind in a place, in space. This centring is at once symbolic and empirical : symbolic because through symbols it defines the spatiality of human beings in ontological terms (of being) and empirical because it orients them in a definite landscape. Indeed, the names given to the flora and fauna and to the topography are a part of the orientation of humans in a space. The subsequent development of language within a human community is an extension of the language of the cosmogonic myth.

The initial ordering of the world through the cosmogonic myth serves as the primordial structure of culture and the articulation of the embryonic forms and styles of cultural life out of which various and differing forms of culture emerge. The recollection and celebration of the myth enable the religious community to think of and participate in the fundamentally real time, space, and mode of orientation that enables them to define their cultural life in a specific manner.

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Creationism Vs Evolution Debate

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Creationism vs. evolution: exploring perspectives on the origins of life, the creationism perspective, the evolutionary perspective, societal implications and education, harmony or conflict, conclusion: bridging the gap.

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Compare and Contrast the Creation Story

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Most cultures have a creation story, and while they may differ in details, there are many themes and ideas that remain the same. Read another creation story from one of many mythologies in different cultures. Create a storyboard that compares the two stories, either as a standalone project or as preparation for a longer written assignment. Consider comparing similarities and differences between two myths' characters, plot progression, or themes.

Example Compare and Contrast T-Chart

Greek Creation Story	Both	Judeo-Christian Tradition
Gaea, Eros, and Tartaros emerged from Chaos.	Both stories have an origin from a single being.	God created the universe and separated the light from the darkness.
Ouranos was born from Gaea.	The sky is one of the earliest parts of the world that was made.	God created the sky and separated it from the water.
Ouranos and Gaea had many children. Ouranos imprisoned his children underground in Gaea's womb.	The earth began to take shape: bodies of water and landforms.	God separated land from water and caused plants to grow.
Kronos castrated Ouranos with a sickle and takes power from his father, the sky.	Both stories show a stark shift in the sky. There is the transfer of power from father to son in the Greek myth, and in the Judeo-Christian tradition, dark and light are regulated.	God created the moon and the sun so there would be night and day.
Kronos fears losing power.	Both Kronos and God show they are preparing for the future; Kronos is trying to ensure his power remains, and God is providing food and living areas for animals.	God created sea creatures and birds.
Zeus triumphs over Kronos with the help of Giants and reigns as king of the gods.	The world as humans know it was finally finished and fully formed.	God created domesticated animals and humans.

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Student Instructions

Create a storyboard comparing and contrasting the Greek Creation Story with the Judeo-Christian Tradition.

Use the template provided by your teacher.
Add additional rows as needed.
In the middle column, describe the things that are similar about the creation story.
In the left column, describe the things that are unique to the Greek creation story.
In the right column, describe the things that are unique to the Judeo-Christian story.
Illustrate each cell with appropriate scenes, descriptions, and characters.

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Greek Mythology: The Creation of the World

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Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History Essays

Mesopotamian creation myths.

Ira Spar Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Stories describing creation are prominent in many cultures of the world. In Mesopotamia, the surviving evidence from the third millennium to the end of the first millennium B.C. indicates that although many of the gods were associated with natural forces, no single myth addressed issues of initial creation. It was simply assumed that the gods existed before the world was formed. Unfortunately, very little survives of Sumerian literature from the third millennium B.C. Several fragmentary tablets contain references to a time before the pantheon of the gods, when only the Earth (Sumerian: ki ) and Heavens (Sumerian: an ) existed. All was dark, there existed neither sunlight nor moonlight; however, the earth was green and water was in the ground, although there was no vegetation. More is known from Sumerian poems that date to the beginning centuries of the second millennium B.C.

A Sumerian myth known today as “ Gilgamesh and the Netherworld” opens with a mythological prologue. It assumes that the gods and the universe already exist and that once a long time ago the heavens and earth were united, only later to be split apart. Later, humankind was created and the great gods divided up the job of managing and keeping control over heavens, earth, and the Netherworld.

The origins of humans are described in another early second-millennium Sumerian poem, “The Song of the Hoe.” In this myth, as in many other Sumerian stories, the god Enlil is described as the deity who separates heavens and earth and creates humankind. Humanity is formed to provide for the gods, a common theme in Mesopotamian literature.

In the Sumerian poem “The Debate between Grain and Sheep,” the earth first appeared barren, without grain, sheep, or goats. People went naked. They ate grass for nourishment and drank water from ditches. Later, the gods created sheep and grain and gave them to humankind as sustenance. According to “The Debate between Bird and Fish,” water for human consumption did not exist until Enki, lord of wisdom, created the Tigris and Euphrates and caused water to flow into them from the mountains. He also created the smaller streams and watercourses, established sheepfolds, marshes, and reedbeds, and filled them with fish and birds. He founded cities and established kingship and rule over foreign countries. In “The Debate between Winter and Summer,” an unknown Sumerian author explains that summer and winter, abundance, spring floods, and fertility are the result of Enlil’s copulation with the hills of the earth.

Another early second-millennium Sumerian myth, “Enki and the World Order,” provides an explanation as to why the world appears organized. Enki decided that the world had to be well managed to avoid chaos. Various gods were thus assigned management responsibilities that included overseeing the waters, crops, building activities, control of wildlife, and herding of domestic animals, as well as oversight of the heavens and earth and the activities of women.

According to the Sumerian story “Enki and Ninmah,” the lesser gods, burdened with the toil of creating the earth, complained to Namma, the primeval mother, about their hard work. She in turn roused her son Enki, the god of wisdom, and urged him to create a substitute to free the gods from their toil. Namma then kneaded some clay, placed it in her womb, and gave birth to the first humans.

Babylonian poets, like their Sumerian counterparts, had no single explanation for creation. Diverse stories regarding creation were incorporated into other types of texts. Most prominently, the Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish is a theological legitimization of the rise of Marduk as the supreme god in Babylon, replacing Enlil, the former head of the pantheon. The poem was most likely compiled during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar I in the later twelfth century B.C., or possibly a short time afterward. At this time, Babylon , after many centuries of rule by the foreign Kassite dynasty , achieved political and cultural independence. The poem celebrates the ascendancy of the city and acts as a political tractate explaining how Babylon came to succeed the older city of Nippur as the center of religious festivals.

The poem itself has 1,091 lines written on seven tablets. It opens with a theogony, the descent of the gods, set in a time frame prior to creation of the heavens and earth. At that time, the ocean waters, called Tiamat, and her husband, the freshwater Apsu, mingled, with the result that several gods emerged in pairs. Like boisterous children, the gods produced so much noise that Apsu decided to do away with them. Tiamat, more indulgent than her spouse, urged patience, but Apsu, stirred to action by his vizier, was unmoved. The gods, stunned by the prospect of death, called on the resourceful god Ea to save them. Ea recited a spell that made Apsu sleep. He then killed Apsu and captured Mummu, his vizier. Ea and his wife Damkina then gave birth to the hero Marduk, the tallest and mightiest of the gods. Marduk, given control of the four winds by the sky god Anu, is told to let the winds whirl. Picking up dust, the winds create storms that upset and confound Tiamat. Other gods suddenly appear and complain that they, too, cannot sleep because of the hurricane winds. They urge Tiamat to do battle against Marduk so that they can rest. Tiamat agrees and decides to confront Marduk. She prepares for battle by having the mother goddess create eleven monsters. Tiamat places the monsters in charge of her new spouse, Qingu, who she elevates to rule over all the gods. When Ea hears of the preparations for battle, he seeks advice from his father, Anshar, king of the junior gods. Anshar urges Ea and afterward his brother Anu to appease the goddess with incantations. Both return frightened and demoralized by their failure. The young warrior god Marduk then volunteers his strength in return for a promise that, if victorious, he will become king of the gods. The gods agree, a battle ensues, and Marduk vanquishes Tiamat and Qingu, her host. Marduk then uses Tiamat’s carcass for the purpose of creation. He splits her in half, “like a dried fish,” and places one part on high to become the heavens, the other half to be the earth. As sky is now a watery mass, Marduk stretches her skin to the heavens to prevent the waters from escaping, a motif that explains why there is so little rainfall in southern Iraq. With the sky now in place, Marduk organizes the constellations of the stars. He lays out the calendar by assigning three stars to each month, creates his own planet, makes the moon appear, and establishes the sun, day, and night. From various parts of Tiamat’s body, he creates the clouds, winds, mists, mountains, and earth.

The myth continues as the gods swear allegiance to the mighty king and create Babylon and his temple, the Esagila, a home where the gods can rest during their sojourn upon the earth. The myth conveniently ignores Nippur, the holy city esteemed by both the Sumerians and the rulers of Kassite Babylonia . Babylon has replaced Nippur as the dwelling place of the gods.

Meanwhile, Marduk fulfills an earlier promise to provide provisions for the junior gods if he gains victory as their supreme leader. He then creates humans from the blood of Qingu, the slain and rebellious consort of Tiamat. He does this for two reasons: first, in order to release the gods from their burdensome menial labors, and second, to provide a continuous source of food and drink to temples.

The gods then celebrate and pronounce Marduk’s fifty names, each an aspect of his character and powers. The composition ends by stating that this story and its message (presumably the importance of kingship to the maintenance of order) should be preserved for future generations and pondered by those who are wise and knowledgeable. It should also be used by parents and teachers to instruct so that the land may flourish and its inhabitants prosper.

The short tale “Marduk, Creator of the World” is another Babylonian narrative that opens with the existence of the sea before any act of creation. First to be created are the cities, Eridu and Babylon, and the temple Esagil is founded. Then the earth is created by heaping dirt upon a raft in the primeval waters. Humankind, wild animals, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the marshlands and canebrake, vegetation, and domesticated animals follow. Finally, palm groves and forests appear. Just before the composition becomes fragmentary and breaks off, Marduk is said to create the city of Nippur and its temple, the Ekur, and the city of Uruk, with its temple Eanna.

“The Creation of Humankind” is a bilingual Sumerian- Akkadian story also referred to in scholarly literature as KAR 4. This account begins after heaven was separated from earth, and features of the earth such as the Tigris, Euphrates, and canals established. At that time, the god Enlil addressed the gods asking what should next be accomplished. The answer was to create humans by killing Alla-gods and creating humans from their blood. Their purpose will be to labor for the gods, maintaining the fields and irrigation works in order to create bountiful harvests, celebrate the gods’ rites, and attain wisdom through study.

Spar, Ira. “Mesopotamian Creation Myths.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History . New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/epic/hd_epic.htm (April 2009)

Additional Essays by Ira Spar

Spar, Ira. “ Flood Stories .” (April 2009)
Spar, Ira. “ Gilgamesh .” (April 2009)
Spar, Ira. “ Mesopotamian Deities .” (April 2009)
Spar, Ira. “ The Gods and Goddesses of Canaan .” (April 2009)
Spar, Ira. “ The Origins of Writing .” (October 2004)

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Comparing and Contrasting The Iroquois and Genesis Creation Stories
The similarities in this story are very general but tell the readers more about the story than comparing the differences do. One similarity is that both accounts have a set of twins that represent good and evil. ... Creation Myth Essay. The creation myth of "The World on the Turtle's Back" is a fascinating tale that offers insight into the ...
A Summary and Analysis of the Creation Story in the Book of Genesis
Genesis creation story: summary. The Book of Genesis famously opens with the words: 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Although we know the first book of the Bible as the Book of Genesis, in Hebrew, where this book begins the Torah, the book is known as Bereshith, which literally means 'in the beginning', as the ...
Compare and contrast the creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2
Compare and contrast the creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Quick answer: Genesis 1 and 2 narrate God's creation of the world, but they differ in style, details, and perspective. Genesis ...
3.5 : Comparing and Contrasting the Native Creation Story with the
3. What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ? I was raised in a Christian home so since I was old enough to attend Sunday school I've had the biblical creation story recounted to me more times than I can remember.
The Two Creations in Genesis
In Gen 1, God creates plants, then animals, and then simultaneously creates man and woman. In Gen 2, God creates a human, plants, then animals, and later he divides the human into female and male. Additionally, the two stories employ different names for the deity. The first account uses the Hebrew word Elohim, meaning "God," whereas the ...
Understanding the Creation Story from Genesis
By interpreting creation in a human-centered manner, the stage is set for the entire biblical drama. The story unfolds from this beginning. It is the story of humankind within the human world—both created by God—and their progressive relationship with the God who speaks, creates, evaluates, and gives. Comparing humans to the rest of creation
PDF Teaching Comparative Creation Stories
explore a unique account of the god Ptah in the act of creation by divine word. The 1st dynasty in ancient Egypt established Memphis as the capital, making the Memphite god Ptah higher than other gods, and recognized over other creator-gods. With this text, students can compare this story with the biblical creation story where creation is also the
Comparing Genesis' Creation Stories
In his book entitled, "The Two Creation Stories in Genesis", James S. Forrester, says that internal evidence shows that the story of the second creation comes down from a later period than the story of the first creation. He describes how in the second story, the creator is no longer spoken of under the name 'Elohim, but Jahveh Elohim.
A Fresh Look at Two Genesis Creation Accounts: Contradictions?
one—because it begins with the creation of man (2:7) and culminates with the creation of woman and the institution of marriage (2:22-25). These activities correspond with God's actions performed on the sixth day in Gen 1:26-28. 2. Names of God The first story consistently uses the Hebrew term Elohim as the name of God.
Lesson 1: The Metamorphoses and Genesis: A Comparison of Creation-Flood
The lesson's initial comparison of creation narratives will be reinforced through a further comparison of the Biblical story of destruction by flood with Ovid's story of destruction by flood. This lesson is one part of a three lesson unit on The Metamorphoses. The three lessons may be taught in sequence, or each lesson can stand on its own.
The Creation Story: Summary and Study Guide
The Creation Day by Day. The creation story takes place in Genesis 1:1-2:3. Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night." Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky." Day 3 - God created the dry ground and gathered the waters, calling the dry ground ...
What are the similarities and differences between the Genesis creation
Enuma Elish and Genesis have the strongest connection in their first lines--"In the beginning" vs. "When on high." Some say that Genesis is written as a polemic against Enuma Elish.They are very different.. 1a. Enuma Elish starts with the elemental representatives of chaos, Apsu and Tiamat. They are the father and mother of the gods respectively.
Comparing Two Creation Stories
In each story there are major differences but they also have great similarities. In chapter 1 of genesis the story begins with the seven days of creation, but in chapter two of genesis story is based on of Adam and Eve. The first story of creation spanning from genesis 1:1 to genesis 2:4 unpack the creation of the earth in a time of seven days.
3:5 Similarities and Differences between Creation Stories
The twins born of Charm in "The Earth Diver" create summer and winter, roses and thorns, sunshine and shadows; just like God in "Genesis", the twins create man and woman. The major differences between the two stories are few, but significant. In "Genesis" there is an omnipresent, omniscient, and powerful creator who exists before ...
Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates
Several essays were much more deficient, in my estimation. Briggs's idea that comparing Genesis to other, contemporaneous myths, and comparing it to a scientific treatise written 2,500 years later, are somehow similar comparisons, and the two interpretive acts can shed light on one another, struck me as odd, if not misleading.
Comparing Two Creation Stories In The Book Of Genesis
In this paper, I will compare and contrast the events in the first two chapters of Genesis and determine if the two creation stories theory is probable. Towards the end of this paper, I will give my own opinion on the two creation stories theory based off of the scriptures that I read. In the beginning of Genesis chapter one, God creates the ...
The Enuma Elish (Babylonian Genesis) and Genesis: A Comparison Essay
Introduction. Enuma Elis is a Babylonian myth which was created by an anonymous writer and recovered in 1849 by Henry Layard in the ruined library of Ashurbanipal, which in turn is located in Mosul Iraq. It was published in 1876 by George Smith. The Enuma Elis is recorded in The Old Babylonian and it contains thousands of lines that are written ...
Creation myth
creation myth, philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality (see also myth). The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act ...
Creationism vs Evolution Debate: [Essay Example], 696 words
While creationism posits that life and the universe were created by a divine being, evolution proposes that life has evolved over billions of years through natural processes. This essay delves into the complexities of this debate, examining the key arguments, scientific evidence, and societal implications surrounding creationism and evolution.
Creation of World Stories
Both stories have an origin from a single being. God created the universe and separated the light from the darkness. God is an active creator. Ouranos was born from Gaea. The sky is a being of his own. The sky is one of the earliest parts of the world that was made. God created the sky and separated it from the water.
Mesopotamian Creation Myths
Stories describing creation are prominent in many cultures of the world. In Mesopotamia, the surviving evidence from the third millennium to the end of the first millennium B.C. indicates that although many of the gods were associated with natural forces, no single myth addressed issues of initial creation. It was simply assumed that the gods existed before the world was formed.

A Summary and Analysis of the Creation Story in the Book of Genesis

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Understanding the Creation Story from Genesis

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Comparing Genesis' Creation Stories - Similarities and Differences

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Thirteen Essays on Evolution and Creationism in Modern Debates

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