Myth & Knowing Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Creation Myths

I.

II.

1

The Birth of Order

a. Creation myths offer a cosmogony, meaning “the birth of order.”

b. Cosmogony can be distinguished from cosmology, which studies the universe at large

and throughout its existence, and which technically does not inquire directly into the

source of its origins.

Classifying Cosmogonies

a. Usually the most important myth in a culture because it becomes the exemplary model

for all other myths

i. Cosmogonies relate how the entire world came into being

1. Some narratives relate the creation of the world from nothing (creation

ex nihilo)

a. Hebrew – Book of Genesis

b. Egyptian, Ptah creates through speech

c. Australian,

d. Greek, Hesiod’s Theogony begins with great abyss, void

e. Mayan, Popul Vu

b. Another type of cosmogonic myth is known as the earth-diver creation story

i. A divinity typically sends a waterfowl or amphibious creature to dive to the

bottom of the primordial waters and bring up mud from which the world grows

c. Other cosmogonic myths describe creation as emerging from the lower worlds

i. Navajo and Hope tell of a progression upwards from lower worlds resulting in

the final progression into the world of humanity

ii. A Polynesian myth tell of various layers within a coconut shell

d. Other cosmogonic myths describe creation emerging from a world or cosmic egg

i. Myths from Africa, China, India, South Pacific, Greece and Japan speak of

creation symbolized as breaking forth from a fertile cosmic egg

ii. The Dogon people of West Africa describe this egg as the “placenta of the

world”

e. Yet another type of cosmogonic myth is the world-parent myth

i. The Enuma Elish is the creation story of the Babylonians; Apsu and Tiamat bear

offspring who later oppose their parents; the result of this confrontation is the

creation of the world (more on this story later)

1. This myth (as well as others like it) are also associated with creation

from dismemberment

ii. Other...