• Creation Myths About Earth
• Examples Of Creation Myths
• Creation Myths With Women

The Castration of Uranus. However, Uranus was a cruel husband and an even crueler father. He hated his children and didn’t want to allow them to see the light of day. So, he imprisoned them into the hidden places of the earth, Gaea's womb. This angered Gaea, and she plotted with her sons against Uranus.She made a harpe, a great adamant sickle, and tried to incite her children to attack Uranus. A creation myth (or creation story) is a cultural, religious or traditional myth which describes the earliest beginnings of the present world. Creation myths are the most common form of myth, usually developing first in oral traditions, and are found throughout human culture.A creation myth is usually regarded by those who subscribe to it as conveying profound truths, though not necessarily in. A creation myth(or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolicnarrativeof how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term mythoften refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths.

Stories about How the World Began

Creation myths are stories about the birth of the world. They exist in just about every culture and reveal how people in ancient times speculated about how the world may have emerged. Creation stories were their kind of cosmological research, albeit of a very speculative nature.

Creation myths are stories about the birth of the world. They exist in just about every culture and reveal how people in ancient times speculated about how the world may have emerged. Creation stories were their kind of cosmological research, albeit of a very speculative nature.

Therefore, the creation myths reveal a lot about the thoughts of human beings in the very distant past - how they saw the world and tried to understand it. Since their minds were not very different from ours, their myths also teach us a lot about ourselves.

Creation Myths Around the World

How stories of the beginning might have begun. An introduction in depth to my ongoing dissertation on creation myths, where I speculate on how the myths emerged at the dawn of human civilization and what shaped them.

Creations stories have appeared in just about every culture and mythological tradition. They differ tremendously, but also have several patterns and ingredients seemingly in common.

These similarities can be traced down to how human speculation about the birth of the world was likely to begin and what inspired it. Also, many similarities between creation myths have to do with the narrative, the rules of telling a story - especially one dependent on oral tradition. Click the header to read about it.

The Bible begins with two separate creation stories, differing significantly from one another - Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is the first and probably the oldest one. In this text I discuss how to analyze and understand the myth, especially the cosmology it indicates.

I also quote some of the Genesis commentaries made by St. Augustine and Martin Luther, who both contributed to shed light on how the Bible was perceived in the past. Click the header to read about it.

One of the very oldest creation myths we have documented in its ancient form is Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story. Here I write at some length about its content and how to interpret it, especially its introductory part in which the world is created and the gods have their initial battle for sovereignity.

It is a theme that can be recognized in many other creation myths. In Enuma Elish, the babylonian god Marduk defeats the gods of old, inherited from neighboring cultures, including the divine couple making the world appear when they join. Click the header to read about it.

Every creation myth wrestles with the same problem as science does, when it comes to how the world began: What was before it?

Rig Veda, the ancient collection of hymns from India, also speculates about it - with thoughts that are perfectly relevant to us today as well. It's in the famous hymn Rig Veda 10:129, which ends in what almost seems like a joke. Click the header to read about it.

The Xingu Indians in Brazil seem not to have a myth about the world creation, or it has not yet been revealed by the anthropologists. But they do have other emergence myths. Here is the one about the birth of man, which is quite a sad story. Click the header to read about it.

How to understand and explain myth and fable? Here are the major theories through the centuries about the meanings of mythology. Click the header to read about it.

The Logics of Myth

The basic patterns and structures of myths in general, and creation myths in particular. Discussion on what constitutes a myth and what the rules are for its form and content. Six criteria are used to decide what is and what is not a myth, and these criteria also define the necessary structure of it.

There are two kinds of myth: explanatory (like creation myths) and adventures (mainly hero stories). As for the former, there are additional rules regarding dramaturgy and time-space dimensions. Click the header to read about it.

Here are the theories of Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung on myths and their origins. Both pioneers of psychoanalysis wrote extensively about myth and its significance in human culture, speculating quite daringly about how myth emerges and what can be learned about our past and our present from it.

Freud was particularly interested in myths about the appearance of gods and men, whereas Jung saw a pattern of archetypes in every myth of whatever content. This text is on my personal website stenudd.com. Click the header to go there.

Myth of Creation

Introduction to the nature of creation myths, their structure and the thoughts behind them. This is a short article explaining my angle on creation myths, their structure, meaning, and what can be learned from them about human thinking in the distant past as well as the present. The text is on my personal website stenudd.com. Click the header to go there.

What the Greek philosophers wrote on myth and cosmology. The legendary philosophers of Ancient Greece pondered the gods and the origin of the world at depth. Although they lived in a time when the gods were feared and worshipped as if very real indeed, most of them doubted their existence - at least in the way the gods were portrayed in mythology.

The Greek philosophers had alternative views on cosmos and the divine, being much more similar to present day understanding of such matters.

Here, the cosmological ideas of each one of the Greek philosophers is presented and compared. The texts are on my personal website stenudd.com. Click the header to go there.

Life Energy Ideas

There are countless examples of life energy ideas in the many cultures of the world, from the dawn of human civilization to the present. I've gathered all these concepts and similar ones (it took a few years), listing them in a little Life Energy Encyclopedia.

There are indeed many near-synonyms to the life energy concept, as we know it from the Latin spiritus, the Greek pneuma, the Indian prana, the Chinese qi (or chi), and so on. But here are also many concepts that have been regarded as examples of a life energy, although at closer examination it's clear that they are not.

Beliefs from distant times and cultures are not that easy to comprehend, so we frequently fall into the trap of expecting them to be exact counterparts to ideas of our own past. That's far from always the case.

Those concepts that are indeed examples of a life energy, though, show several similarities - but still some significant differences, which help us to understand the life energy idea in the mind of man. The texts are on my website devoted to life energy ideas. Click the header to go there.

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Creation Myths Around the World

How stories of the beginning began.

The Meanings of Mythology

Theories through history about myth and fable.

Archetypes in Myths

The mythological symbols and what they stand for.

The Logics of Myth

Patterns of creation.

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CREATION MYTHS IN DEPTH

Creation in Rig Veda 10:129

The paradox of origin, according to an Indian myth.

Genesis 1

The first creation story of the bible scrutinized.

Enuma Elish

The ancient Babylonian creation myth.

Xingu Creation of Man

The insoluble solitude of gods and humans.

ON MY OTHER WEBSITES

Psychoanalysis of Myth

What Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung thought about myths, their origins and meanings.

Myth of Creation

An introduction to the subject of creation myths and the patterns of thought they reveal.

Cosmos of the Ancients

What the Greek philosophers believed about the cosmos, their religion and their gods.

Life Energy

The many ancient and modern life force beliefs all over the world explained and compared.

Taoistic

Taoism, the ancient Chinese philosophy of life explained. Also, the complete classic text Tao Te Ching online.

My Books:

Cosmos of the Ancients

The Greek philosophers and what they thought about cosmology, myth, and the gods. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Life Energy Encyclopedia

Qi, prana, spirit, ruach, pneuma, and many other life forces around the world explained and compared. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Sunday Brunch with the World Maker

Fiction. A brunch conversation slips into the mysterious, soon to burst beyond the realm of possibility. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Fake Lao Tzu Quotes

Erroneous Tao Te Ching Citations Examined. 90 of the most spread false Lao Tzu quotes, why they are false and where they are really from. Click the image to see the book at Amazon.

Stefan Stenudd

Creation Myths About Earth

About me

I'm a Swedish author and historian of ideas, researching the thought patterns in creation myths. I've also written books about Taoism, the Tarot, and life force concepts around the world. Click the image to get to my personal website.

• Types of cosmogonic myths
• Doctrines of creation
  • Basic mythical themes
  • Theological and philosophical doctrines
• Skepticism regarding creation

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Examples Of Creation Myths

Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work! Charles H. Long

Creation myth, also called cosmogonic 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 alsomyth). 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.

Nature and significance

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.

Creation Myths With Women