Creation Myths - The Aegis Institute

Humanities 1: Creation Myths and the Beginning of All Things

We are starting this course with a multipronged exploration into several different topics.

Note that this chapter was made possible by a generous gift from Dr. Judith Johnson.

We will define mythology.
We will explore various creation mythologies and compare and contrast those myths.
We will try to understand how science differs from mythology.
We will explore scientific creation narratives.

1. Mythology

Mythology is the study of traditional stories, especially ones concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

We often take it for granted that myths have no truth value, but notice the primary definition of the word involves a traditional story. Myths typically have the connotation of being associated with a religion and being stories that take great liberties with the truth. You are undoubtedly familiar with many myths already. Oftentimes, the point of a myth is to emphasize ideas that does not depend on the magic or the outsized characters in the story.

It is fine to regard myths skeptically, but you should also always try to be respectful. It may seem silly to you that there are still people in the world that earnestly worship the classical Greek pantheon, but to them it is a defining feature of who they are. Something you'll hear again and again from the Aegis Institute is that it costs you nothing to be kind and respectful. You certainly would not like people making snide jokes about whatever your most deeply held beliefs are.

By Ethnikos1997 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47825915

By Roswell Daily Record - [1][dead link] Archived copy: [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27397055

I'd also like to make the point that most myths were propagated through most of history as oral traditions. Writing is a relatively recent development as far as humans are concerned. We have existed in roughly the same way for approximately 250,000 years, but all known writing systems are less than 6000 years old! Surely, spoken language predated written language. Remember this fact kindly when you are reading the myths and religious texts we will come across in this culture. Likely many of them were passed down for thousands of years before they were first written in a modern form.

Notice that historical events that definitely happened can be mythologized. One famous example is the Roswell incident where an experimental nuclear test

surveillance balloon was downed. Many people witnessed the event and created fantastic stories to explain it. To this day, many alien conspiracy theories and popular pieces of media pinpoint this event as a conspiratorial government coverup. Of course, there really was a conspiracy to coverup the event due to its classified technologies and potential for the release of sensitive technology and this further added to the mythos. However, in almost 80 years, no significant evidence of alien attribution has been found. This is our first example of a major difference between myth and science. Science requires that if one makes an extraordinary claim, he or she must demonstrate convincing, reproducible evidence. Myths, of course, have no such requirement!

2. Theogony

One of the very earliest creation myths in Greek Culture is known as the Theogony. Hesiod and Homer both share in the standardization and spread of this myth. It is unclear which author is first, but they both compose their myths between 800 and 700 BCE and both surely relied on earlier sources which are lost to history.

The theogony comes from the Greek words theos and genesis meaning gods and birth, respectively. This is the story of the birth of the gods! We’ll focus on Hesiod’s version for brevity’s sake. I will give you a synopsis, but the full version is linked above. Note too that for a variety of historical reasons, the Roman civilization inherit the Greek pantheon with Latinized names, but almost identical characteristics (along with a few specifically Roman additions). A secondary reason for focusing on this myth first is because it contains so many of the characteristics that we will find are common between a many creation stories.

Hesiod sets the scene with a variety of primordial deities. These creatures are elemental concepts and first amongst them- especially in later myths is Chaos. This tells us a lot about how ancient Grecians and related societies thought of themselves. The universe was, at its heart, chaotic and the dividing line between order and chaos was humanity.

Gods of Olympus, 1534-35 Giulion Romano.jpg

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The primordial deities were unknowable, undefeatable, and unpredictable. They were exercised outsized power and did not think or act in any way that humans could ever hope to understand. Greeks and many early societies thought of man as small and weak in the face of the forces of nature and to the Greeks there was no greater sin than hubris- excessive pride. Many ancient societies shared this understanding. It is likely that early Greek society descended from the Myceneans and they collectively recalled the cataclysmic end of that society due to a volcanic eruption which they neither could predict nor explain.

We continue with the myth where we find Uranus and Gaia coupling. Uranus is the sky and Gaia is the earth. This is a motif that will recur again and again with some variation as we examine other cultures. Uranus and Gaia birthed many children referred to as the Titans, the Cyclopes, and the Hecatoncheires by the Greeks. Uranus sealed away his offspring inside of Gaia because he hated them. Gaia appealed to them to save her from the repeated ravishments by Uranus and Kronos answered her call. He was given a special weapon by Gaia that could defeat even Uranus and used this to castrate him. Kronos and his sister Rhea then produced children, but Kronos became fearful that his children might usurp him as he had his father so he decided he would devour them.

Rhea tricks him by giving a swaddled stone and saves Zeus (Kronos must not have been a very discriminating eater of things). Once Zeus reaches manhood, Rhea instructs him on how to trick his father into releasing his siblings. He does this and frees them. They wage a great war against Kronos eventually defeating him and becoming the Gods of Olympus. They do a sort penance by providing Uranus with stars and Gaia with life. Eventually, they populate the Earth with people who are formed in their image and the poem ends with the story of Pandora. Hesiod and Homer differ substantially in content, presentation, length, and the focus on the realm of the immortal versus the realm of the mortal. Partially because the scripts of the Myceneans, Linear B, is still undeciphered, we do not know precisely how their religious beliefs related to those of the Greeks- though it is likely that the Greeks inherited many of their beliefs directly from them.

What is clear from both texts is that the only things with enough power to stand against the elemental forces were the Gods and even they, immortal and powerful as they were, could be killed by these forces. Early human religion started by asking for their intervention in affairs of the world where man was too weak to hope to stand against the forces of nature. Keep in mind, even these two relatively contemporary version contradict each other in many places and there many later versions of this mythos which contradict these.

In a separate work, Works and Days, Hesiod lays out the creation of man and various stories surrounding this creation myth. Particularly, the Five Ages of Man, illuminates a repetitious creation myth where man is created in 5 separate ages. In the first, the golden age, man is created by or for Kronos and knows no suffering, wants, or needs. They lived in a perpetual springtime of abundance. These golden men did not die in our way of knowing it, but eventually became daimones which roamed the world.

When Zeus usurped dominion from Kronos he created a new breed of men, but they were vastly inferior to the gods. This was the silver age. People had to work to live, but still they were sturdy and long lived when compared with the people that would follow. Zeus divided the year into 4 seasons. These people refused to honor the gods and Zeus destroyed them. They became the blessed spirits of the underworld.

In the following third age of man, Zeus crafted men of ash tree wood. This was called the bronze age as the men lived in homes of bronze and fashioned bronze tools. They were terrible and strong and warlike. The gods eventually summoned a flood to destroy them and they were cast into the underworld. The age of heroes (likely referring to the Mycenean civilization) follows. This was the period of that much of Homer’s poetry is concerned with. It is a time of heroic and just men and the world contains many scattered demigods. These men were sorted into the isle of the blessed spirits or the underworld according to their deeds and words. Finally, men of the iron were created. These men were haunted by all the afflictions of spirit one could think of. They were greedy and avaricious. They were lazy and weary. Good men were a rarity and the gods that hadn’t succumbed into the various wars between gods and titans have essentially abandoned the world. Hesiod believed that Zeus would one day destroy this race of men in a cataclysm as he had the men of the bronze age. The men of the iron age included Hesiod, all his contemporaries and all descending generations. You can see the roots of many later western mythologies and religions in Hesiod.

Keep in mind that Hesiod might be making a metaphorical statement here. It is likely he is saying each man lives in 5 distinct ages as they age progressing from the golden to the iron as they age and the characteristics of the age are inherent in the particular stage of life he is in.

3. Heliopolitan Creation Myth

First, I will note that the Egyptian creation stories share many common features, but often differ in significant details wildly from city to city. Ancient people often were not surprised or upset by this. They found no contradiction inherent in this because, to an Egyptian, it seemed likely that Greeks were created by different gods with different requirements. Moreover, when gods appeared similar across different cultural myths or religions, there were many likely reasons to ancient peoples. Perhaps the regions governed by that god were the overlapping. Perhaps that god was so powerful, he or she had established him or herself in two different pantheons. Early people rarely concerned themselves with the belief system of foreigners or distant cultures. Early people also rarely sought converts as they felt the power of a given god was largely geographic in scope. It was natural to expect a foreigner to show respect to your local gods, but it was unlikely to be compulsory.

Atum flies forth from chaos as a bennu bird and constructs a nest where he roosts atop a benben and self-immolates in the place where the city of Heliopolis will be founded. He is consumed, but rises anew afterwards. This cements his association with the sun.

Atum then calls into being other gods. Again, we see an earth and sky god in the family tree depicted here in both English and hieroglyphics. Many of them have a correspondence to the primordial gods of ancient Greece. Atum often is given the appellation Re which will be varied as Ra in some regions. In Egypt, notice that it the sun that reigns supreme over all and as they used boats to navigate and thrive on the Nile river delta, they imagined a celestial river and delta that the gods navigated upon.

Perhaps the most colorful portion of this creation myth is captured in the creation of humanity. There are many variations, but all of involve at least one bodily fluid of Atum being strewn upon the ground. Where this fluid hit the Earth, gods, the universe, and people sprang forth.

Early Egyptian history holds that people and deities lived side by side. Another somewhat confounding thing in Egyptian mythos is the existence of the various eyes of gods. The of Atum was feminine counterpart to Atum- generally associated with the moon. It was not, however, distinct from Atum unless he sent it forth separately. One creation myth variant holds that people are the tears of the Eye of Atum who cried from sorrow of separation with Atum (some myths hold forcible reunion was the cause of the tears). Interesting, different people’s of Egypt traced their lineage back to different bodily fluids of Atum. The dynastic Pharos became particularly enamored with tracing their roots to Atum’s semen and public masturbation became an important Pharaonic practice.

The importance of and references to human sexuality which are very prevalent in surviving Egyptian texts were redacted by many 19th and 20th century historians who considered it distasteful. Victorian historians were so prudish that they often removed phalluses from from the various artifacts they looted from Egypt. I bring this up to illustrate two points. One is that the lens of history often comes with the perspective of a very particular present. The other is that we should be aware that cultural attitudes towards many things including sexuality, sex, and religion have been very fluid over the scope of human history.

There is a rebellion against Atum as he grows old amongst the gods. The humans plotted with with some of the gods that wished to usurp Atum. This insurrection was ultimately unsuccessful, but Atum decided he was weary of the world and that people should be separated from the gods and the earth had been from the sky. He and his fellow gods receded from the world and left it to a race of less than divine men. This belief was a key part of life in ancient Egypt because the few that were believed to have a connection with the gods by blood or by selection were often able to wield considerable power. The Pharaoh’s right to rule rested in his divinity and lineage from Re-Atum.

The final portion of this creation myth I would like to mention is that Atum left a prophecy through the book of the dead. It says that the world will return to its original state eventually through his will. This is our first example of a cyclic creation myth.

4. Biblical Creation Myth

All of these stories are mythical cosmogonies- attempts to explain the origin of the universe. Today, even the average person is more inclined towards scientific cosmogonies. These attempt to explain the origin of the universe using data, evidence, and derived scientific laws. It is unclear how many early people viewed their creation myths as literal, but today, most major religions see them as metaphorical or inspired. In the US, a small, but vocal minority of Christians believe the bible is grammatically literal- though even this is a tenuous claim because I have not met a single Christian that believes the Earth is flat, set on unmovable pillars, and that the corners are guarded by great sea monsters. Often, this claim has been modified that the bible is inerrant on matters of faith and morality.

The reason I give this preamble is because I will synopsize both genesis stories and refer students to an additional biblical creation story in the Alphabet of Ben-Sira. My intention is not to challenge or insult anyone’s religious beliefs and I have found that pointing out that Genesis 1:1-2:3 contains one creation story and that Genesis 2:4-2:25 contains an incompatible creation story that is different from the first often generates a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in biblical literalist.

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Remember that, in this class, we are studying these as mythological cosmogonies and that we are not trying to assign truth value or religious significance to these stories. There is, however, no way we could reasonably avoid their study as Christianity has had an outsized influence on western society which continues to this day.

Current best scholarship dates the first written copies of Genesis to between 600 and 500 BCE though a vocal minority would like to place it about 400 years earlier. In either case, there is significant evidence of editing that continued well into the European medieval period.I have excerpted this from this English Standard version of the Bible. The Bible, like many religious texts contains line numbers or sentence numbers.

First Biblical Creation Story

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse[a] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made[b] the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven.[c] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth,[d] and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants[e] yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,[f] and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds[g] fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

The Seventh Day, God Rests

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

We can see numerous similarities between the two previously mentioned creation myths. Keep in mind that both of those creation myths predate the writing of this one. One of the first ones we that God calls things into being by naming them similar to Atum. True names and certain words have held mystical qualities in many cultures and do so to the present day in some. This creation myth is linear like Hesiod’s and contains a clear and distinct time line.

Second Biblical Creation Story

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. 5 Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth[a] and no plant had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground, 6 but streams[b] came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed a man[c] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. 8 Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon; it winds through the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 (The gold of that land is good; aromatic resin[d] and onyx are also there.) 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.[e] 14 The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” 18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam[f] no suitable helper was found. 21 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[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib[h] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 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.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

One interesting question we might immediately ask is how do we know these are not the same story? The first and most obvious answer to that is the story telling queues that begin each story. There are certain discrepancies that help us to pinpoint differences as well. In the first story he creates man and woman simultaneously and lastly. In the second story he molds man from dust first. There is a less clear timeline and woman is made much later from material (a rib) taken from Adam. This is a good time for a bit of allegorical analysis. Adam, in Aramaic (the language of the original text of genesis), means essentially several things: man, earth, reddish in color, or to make. Adam was likely a stand-in for the creation of all men and that would have been more apparent to speakers of Aramaic and early Hebrew.

Many myths are allegorical. This means the characters represent broader ideas or populations than just themselves. It is likely the second creation story was important to early Hebrews because they believed women should be subservient to men. The creation of Adam first and Eve second from a part of Adam represented a lineage of importance. God was primary, then man, and then woman. One of the reasons I wish to include the creation myth from the Alphabet of Ben Sira is because it shows this was not universally excepted even in early Hebrew culture!

The Alphabet of Ben-Sira is intended to be a religious commentary on religious texts and is probably satirical. It is written somewhere around 700 ACE. It contains the first complete, written story of Lilith. The Bible and texts from other regions contain mention of Lilith who is almost certainly derivative of the lamia (there are numerous variants of this appelation). I include this to show a different version of a creation myth and to offer several possible interpretations.

Soon afterward the young son of the king took ill. Said Nebuchadnezzar, “Heal my son. If you don’t, I will kill you.” Ben Sira immediately sat down and wrote an amulet with the Holy Name, and he inscribed on it the angels in charge of medicine by their names, forms, and images, and by their wings, hands, and feet. Nebuchadnezzar looked at the amulet. “Who are these?”

“The angels who are in charge of healing: [סנוי סנסנוי וסמנגלוף] (in English: Senoy, Sansenoy and Semangelof). While God created Adam, who was alone, He said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone’ (Genesis 2:18). He also created a woman, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, ‘I will not lie below,’ and he said, ‘I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.’ Lilith responded, ‘We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.’ But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air. Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: ‘Sovereign of the universe!’ he said, ‘the woman you gave me has run away.’ At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels to bring her back.

“Said the Holy One to Adam, ‘If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.’ The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God’s word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, ‘We shall drown you in the sea.’

“‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’

“When the angels heard Lilith’s words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: ‘Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.’ She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels’ names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.

First, and most obviously, we see an explanation for several events that are difficult for peoples of the time to fathom. Why do innocent children die? Why were there two creation stories? Why must women be subservient to men? This offers tongue-in-cheek answers to all of those questions simultaneously. But it is likely that the author is making deeper statements.

This book also points towards some interesting occurrences in Biblical texts. Quite a number of texts and stories did not make into the highest tier of Jewish religious canon, but references to these other texts survive. Lilith is directly referenced in the canonical Bible and so is Azazel, but his story can only be found in full in the book of Enoch.

5. Hindu Creation Myths

Hindu mythology is deep and rich and the stories belonging to the Mahabharata (the collection of Hindu religious texts) are varied and numerous. Depending on which source you consult, you may find that the official text is a mere 1200 page epic poem (the longest in the world even so!) or as many as 7000 pages (in the more liberal traditions of what is included in the Mahabharata). The Mahabharata itself belongs to a still larger canon of texts known as the Shruti. The word Hindu is not a great classification because it encompasses so many different practices, beliefs, and ideas. As a result, there is no singular creation myth particular to Hinduism.

The Hymn of Creation from the Rig Veda (one of the most texts of Hinduism) Kramer and Christian give us the following translation of this story of creation.

Brahma,_Vishnu_and_Shiva_seated_on_lotuses_with_their_consorts,_ca1770.jpg

Nasadiya Sukta

(Hymn of non-Eternity, origin of universe):

There was neither non-existence nor existence then;
Neither the realm of space, nor the sky which is beyond;
What stirred? Where? In whose protection?

There was neither death nor immortality then;
No distinguishing sign of night nor of day;
That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse;
Other than that there was nothing beyond.

Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden;
Without distinctive marks, this all was water;
That which, becoming, by the void was covered;
That One by force of heat came into being;

Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?

Whether God’s will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
The Supreme Brahman of the world, all pervasive and all knowing
He indeed knows, if not, no one knows

This is a creation myth, though in a very different form than many we are used to. It was first written between 1500 and 1000 BCE. The Vedas are all poetic. They have a very definite rhythmic structure though this may vary from one particular piece of text to the next. I find it difficult to explain precisely how the Vedas are broken down even when leaning heavily on Vedic scholarship. It is unclear whether they are chants, poems, or possibly even songs. Traditionally, they are chanted at sacred rituals, but there is no injunction against melodic chanting as far as I’m aware. Moreover, many believers argue the chanting creates a special kind of music that is supramundane. The Samaveda even gives melodic settings (some of the oldest extant notated music in the world).

Repetitive structure makes memorization easier for humans as does the introduction of rhyme and meter. The Vedas were likely an oral tradition for many years before they were written down. We will see that other epics contain similar elements.

We certainly see mention of some familiar elements though: the sky, darkness, and a god who brings himself into being. One of the most obvious differences is the uncertainty at the heart of the hymn. Since the gods were brought into being in the act of creation, who then knows precisely how creation occurred? Leah Gallo gives us the following summary (to which I have made some modifications) of a slightly different, but perhaps more prevalent and more modern Hindu creation myth.

The Hindu story of creation, as believed by modern day Hindus, begins with three gods who are part of the divine trinity and who altogether make up the Supreme One. These three gods are the creator Brahma, the preserver Vishnu, and the destroyer Shiva. In the nothingness of the beginning of the universe, Vishnu lay sleeping in the endless coils of a serpent, who was protecting his sleep. Out of the nothingness came a constant pulsing of energy, called Aum. This pulsing of energy caused Vishnu to awaken, ending night and creating dawn. Once Vishnu was awake, a lotus flower formed at his naval, with Brahma sitting on top awaiting his lord’s next command. Vishnu said, “It is time to begin”, and subsequently commanded Brahma to “Create the world.” After this, a wind and energy swept up the waters and the nothingness, which caused Vishnu and the serpent to vanish. Once this happened, Brahma remained sitting on the lotus flower.

He grew the lotus flower into a great tree, which was separated into three sections: the earth, the skies, and the heavens (in that order). Brahma then created all of the different forms of life on earth, giving each living thing feelings and a spirit. Shiva, who is not mentioned in the story, means nothingness. Shiva is interlaced with the soul and contributes to one’s sense of self. Ironically, Shiva is also the god who destroys, and transforms the universe. The universe will cycle and Shiva will destroy it, Vishnu will sleep again, and the process will begin anew though Karma may slightly the fates of the beings of the universe so it may not be identical.

Here, we see a cosmogony that obviously cyclical. We also see clear allegory. The gods themselves are the cycle of life: birth, life, and death. We see the parallelism to the biblical story in the nothingness that gives rise to the day with the creation of light and we separation of earth, sea, and sky which has been a part of almost all of the previous myths. Here, the universe starts from a lotus flower. It is interesting to note that Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, gives a lengthy speech to Prince Arjuna where he lays out a cosmogony that is similar to todays understanding of a multiverse. Keep in mind, that we could really spend an entire life time collecting and studying the various creation myths of peoples around the world. I’ve selected a few that are relevant to many cultures and people alive today, but they are neither complete nor representative of even the diversity of beliefs in Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, ect.

6. Science and Our Origins

By Artistosteles – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116416702

You may be surprised to know that the scientific creation stories we will study have changed and evolved significantly in a very short time. This is one of the most significant differences between science and mythology. Myths seek to preserve knowledge through stories. Science seeks to find better approximations of an objective truth through experimentation.

Modern people are often quick to disregard mythical stories. As Wangari Maathai will tell you in Unbowed, sometimes myths carry deeply important truths about the environment and our best relationship to the world as stewards. Myths carry deeply encoded messages about our heritage, history, and good behavioral practices. Dismissing them thoughtlessly can be a perilous thing to do.

Science, though, is the best way we’ve found to engage with the material world. It leads closer to truth more quickly than any other approach we have yet devised. One lesson that we will see in many myths is that perhaps we should be a bit more circumspect in our exercise of the resultant technology. Scientists do not use the term cosmogony. Instead, they say cosmology. The reason is that they want to make it clear that the story they generate is subject to revision based on new data and experiments.

Sir James Jean first proposed the (modern) steady-state universe theory in the 1950s. (Recall, a scientific theory is a set of assumptions that gives rise to a logically consistent model) This idea was not new. It was certainly religious in origin going back to at least the 13th century where we find tracts written by monks and clergy that opine the universe is perfect and unchanging with no beginning or end. Early cosmologist adopted this model even as their understanding of what constituted the universe grew and changed. They sought to harmonize a variety of western creation myths through science. By the 17th century the tools of calculus began to demonstrate something was deeply flawed with an eternal, unchanging universe. Things changed. Stars were clearly producing energy and, in order to do this, needed to consume some sort of fuel. Moreover, since we could determine the mass of a given star such as the sun, we then had to reason that it could not have an infinite supply of fuel. Laws of conservation of matter and energy were cropping up all over chemistry and physics and this had a profound impact on the thinking of some of these cosmologist. Unfortunately, they liked their model and, at that point, had no real alternative model.

Edwin Hubble made an astronomical measurement in 1929 that blew an enormous hole in this theory. He noted that galaxies were all receding from one another and that the more distant two galaxies were, the faster they receded from one another. James Jean proposed that new matter must be created spontaneously between galaxies in order to maintain the fixed density of matter and energy in the universe. This theory enjoyed some brief minority support, but a preponderance of evidence would demonstrate that the universe was not locally homogeneous so the density varied greatly between areas. Additionally, Hubble’s observations gave a way to rewind the clock of the Universe. At some point, all galaxies were much closer together.

These observations about the astronomical universe tied into other observations about the microscopic universe. If all matter was closer together, it would previously have been much hotter and denser. We built particle accelerators to replicate these conditions and they gave us insight into previously unknown particles. We made predictions about distributions of these particles, the existence of an afterglow from an event that came to be known as the big bang, and ever more accurate measurements of astronomical distances and velocities of various objects.

We replaced the steady state universe with the big bang. The big bang posits that all matter in the observable universe was once coalesced into a single, tiny point. Energy and matter in that point were not perfectly even distributed- there were anisotropies and these fluctuations allowed for a radiative explosion that eventually settled into our modern universe.

7. Exploring Creation Myths through Music and Dance

The Creation of the World by Darius Milhaud

(La Création du Monde)

This is one of the first pieces of classical music to incorporate elements of the nascent Jazz movement from the United States. It is a ballet based upon African creation mythology. Milhaud was a regular visitor to the US and spent much of his time frequenting the Jazz clubs of Harlem. In Milhaud’s own words, “At last in La création du monde, I had the opportunity I had been waiting for to use those elements of jazz to which I had devoted so much study. I adopted the same orchestra as used in Harlem, seventeen solo instruments, and I made wholesale use of the jazz style to convey a purely classical feeling.”

The Origin of Love by Steph Trask

This piece is interesting because it presages elements of mythology that are incorporated into early philosophy. This piece is taken from a rock musical movie that subtly plays on various ideas of surrounding the philosophy of Love. This piece, in particular, borrows from Plato’s symposium which gives us a story of a creation. Plato was attempting to explain both why love is so ubiquitous and powerful and also why some people seemed to be primarily romantically attached to people of the same gender. In a roundabout way, Plato’s tract is what gives rise to the expression: “searching for your other half.”

Here, we have a setting of the creation story from Genesis in the style of Gregorian chant. This is a modern composition, but hues closely to what the chant would have likely sounded like. Often, chant settings would be well known, relatively simple, and memorized. Many different scriptural readings would be read to a given chant setting.

Finally, we’ll end with a lesson concerning Raga Hindolam. This is one of the oldest forms of notated music known and perhaps the oldest still taught in close to its original form. This creation story is more about the creation of music. Raga Hindolam uses what’s known as a pentatonic scale. Without going into too much detail, a pentatonic scale can be assembled from the black keys on a piano. Almost all early human cultures seem to develop some sort of pentatonic scale and then elaborate on it to create more sophisticated scales that give rise to more complicated music. There is even a complicated and interesting debate in the linguistic community that music may have predated language!