Preview

Creation Myths Vs Greek Mythology

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
914 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Creation Myths Vs Greek Mythology
Each religion found a way to explain the origins of both the world and themselves. Many myths seem share different origins and reasons why nature and other parts of the world came into being. Such myths also have a “creator,” and a “void.” Aside from that, some myths in similar areas of the world share a concept of hieros gamos and utilize it within the creation stories. Finally, some of the creation stories share similarities beyond their creators and abysses at the beginning of time.
The ancient creation myths explain the creation of the basic elements of the world in comparable ways. In nearly every myth, Earth was only the second element created. In both the Grecian and Hebrew stories, Earth comes from nothing or a “void.” In the Maya myths,
…show more content…
In the Greek myths, the beginning of the world, or being that began the world was Chaos who Gaia or Ge sprang from. Gaia then mated with Uranus, the sky, and the rest of the earthly creations were begot. Amid the Maya creation stories, everything came from the “silent sea and sky,” except for the creator, Heart-of-the-Earth-and-Sky. Heart-of-the-Earth-and-Sky henceforth creates everything on Earth including the animals and plants, although he was joined by other gods in order to create mankind. The Norse myths have two places that could be considered a “void” in their creation myths: Ginnungagap and Niflheim, which are both beyond Mudspell. According to the myths, everything earthly was created from the death of Ymir, for example, the Earth was made “from his flesh.” Ymir could then be considered the “creator” in the Norse myths. Both the Egyptian and Hebrew myths have their creators—Ra and God—call the elements into being, though Ra’s calling creators new deities that embody each element that is called. The Egyptian myths, similarly to the Maya, have the Earth rising out of the surrounding waters. The Hebrew creation story tells of a void before “God created heaven and earth.” The decision to have a creator in every creation myth shows that …show more content…
In almost every myth, the sea was one of the first things—either already in place before the rest of the world was being created or was created by the world’s creator first. Every myth, except for the Maya and Norse, has the creator directly creating the light or the light source. The Hebrew and Egyptian mythologies also called from the man to either look exactly like the creator or for the creator to eventually look like the man—God and Ra in that order. Last, both the Greek and Norse myths have places that were described as “dark”. In the Norse mythology it was Niflheim, which was described as both cold and dark. The Greek myths has Tartarus which sprang from Chaos and holds the evils of the world in Greek

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations are similar yet differ in the way in which they were created. Civilizations were created years and years ago with many mythological characters and beliefs. Religion, gender, culture, gods, and society are impact the creation of these civilizations.…

    • 352 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reviewing and researching the many creations of Myths I have finally narrowed it down to two creations that are excite me to tell you about. Egyptian creation, starting from a creation of water, and Inca creation, a creation starting from a bright burning ball of fire we call the sun. I will give insight to how each Myth was created and compare the creators as well as give you my thoughts and findings of their similarities and differences.…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When the world is destroyed, it is born again through the sacrifice of one of the gods. The world began as a lonely, dark place. The god of duality, Ometecuhtli created itself and it was good and bad. Ometecuhtli had four children: Huitzilopochtli (south), Quetzalcoatl (east), Tezcatlipoca (west), and Xipe Totec (north). These gods created the world. First they made fire and half a sun. Then, they created humans during four days by sacrificing a god. Then, the gods created the lords of the underworld, the heavens and waters, the rain god (Tlaloc), and a sea monster named Cipactli . The creations of the gods would fall into the water and be eaten by Cipactli. This lead to a war where the four gods attacked and destroyed the sea monster. The universe was created from Cipactli: all 13 heavens were created in her head, the earth was created in the middle, and the underworld was created in her tail. Following the creation of the world, “The Legend of the Five Suns” states that five different worlds have existed with each one ending in destruction. The first sun was earth, the second sun was air, the third sun was fire, the fourth sun was water, and the fifth sun is the age we are currently in. The myth states that this era will end with…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Egyptian and Zulu myths are the ones that are going to be talk about in this paper. At the beginning of both myths the worlds were dark. In the Zulu as mention it was dark. No man or animal could be seen, the only thing that was seen was a seed. This particular seed “sank into the earth” and from there long reeds began to grow from it. These seeds were called “Uthlanga”, which means the source of all things.” Out of this seed one reed began to grow and this grew into the first man and he was called Unkulunkulu who was the creator of all things. When became grown he was too heavy for the reed so he fell to the earth. Unkulunkulu walk up and down the earth noticing that their other men and women forming from other reeds. According to this myth all the living things that we see today Unkulunkulu created. Unkulunkulu taught all the men and women how to care of themselves and others. Unkulunkulu sent out this chameleon with a message, the chameleon took so long that is when he sent out this lizard that arrive at the village with the message “that his people will never die”. After the message was deliver death follow.(bigmyth.com)…

    • 713 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cosmic Creations

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Norse creation myth begins with a void that is called Ginnungagap that means “beginning gap”. To the south of Ginnungagap was a fiery realm of Muspell that had really hot rivers full of poison and lakes of fire. To the north there was a dark and cold realm of Niflheim, with freezing rivers and the mountains were blocks of solid ice. Over numerous years the heat from Muspell began to melt the icy mountains of Niflheim began a giant Ymir and a cow. Ymir was the first being of the Ginnungagap. As the cow licked the salt from the ice mountains, Ymir drank the cow’s milk and grew larger every day. Eventually, she licked away enough ice that two more beings appeared, Buri and his goddess wife. Together they had a son named Bor and his son was named Odin. In time Odin became the king of all gods.…

    • 987 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    These creation myths are very similar to each other when referring to how the humans were created. First of all, they all believe that the humankind and the universe was created by a superior force that had control over everything. In order to create humans and the universe, theses superior force entered in a conflict which resulted in theses creations. For example, the conflict between Cronos and his wife. This conflict happened because in fear that his sons would over run him, he ate his on children even though his wife was totally against it.Finally, many of the creation myths believed that humans originated from the mud, the mix of earth and water. One example is Obatala creating humans from the clay form the edge of the pond. In conclusion,…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Each culture has their own myth to make sense of how the world came to be. The Zulu Creation myth believes that the world came from complete darkness, then a large seed sprouted and brought life to earth. The Hawaiian Creation myth concludes that the world came from endless darkness and that individuals came and created creatures that varied by where they belonged. Some creatures lived in the complete darkness and others lived when dawn arrived. The myths have variations, but also have some common ideas.…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    For ages now, humans have used mythology to help them understand life and why things are the way they are. Cultures from across the globe have created their own belief systems. The ancients had a way of telling great tales of immortals, beasts, and demigods. However, there was more to it than that. People devoted their lives to their religion and saw that it gave them purpose and meaning. Some of the most famous mythologies come from ancient democracies and empires such as Greece and Rome. Greek and Roman mythology is sometimes thought of as one in the same, but their differences have simply been overlooked. Both the Greeks and Romans had well-defined beliefs with similarities and differences, including time periods, mortals and worship, traits…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many mythologies in the world, and all of these have things in common as well as differences. A very popular mythology would be Greek mythology, Which many people know about it or at least know of it. Another not as popular mythology is Norse mythology; Norse mythology is the religion of the Norse people. The Norse people are the ancient people of northern Europe (Scandinavia, Iceland, Denmark, Northern Germany etc.) (World Book 259).…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Norse and Greek were one of the many cultures to create epic stories to fill the gap of ignorance. Whatever they could grab from their imagination that satisfied their craving for explanations was used to define their world's creation. From these to cultures there are patterns within their creation stories that are obvious, but differing values give each story it's uniqueness. I'll first summarize the Norse and Greek's version of creation, then I'll…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Oceanic Mythology

    • 2105 Words
    • 9 Pages

    In Oceania, particularly in the area of Polynesia oceanic people believed that ‘Forever’, Darkness, and the Sea have always existed (Pantheon). “Scholars believe that humans first migrated to Polynesia from Southeast Asia about 2,000 years ago. These people carried with them their mythological traditions about events, deities, and heroes” (mythencyclopedia). And thus, a tale of creation was cooked up. The tale starts with a giant Spider finding a giant clam, and crawling inside of it. It was extremely dark inside of the clam, but the spider managed to find a snail inside of the clam. The spider asked the snail to open the shell a bit, because it was so dark. The snail cracked open the mouth of the clam, and it became the moon shedding some light in the pure darkness. Another snail came to help the spider push the top of the clam’s shell open further, and the sky was created, (and referred to as goddess Rangi). The spider then pushed open on the bottom of the shell, and the earth was created, (referred to as a god, Papa). This is one version of the story that it told throughout Oceania. The other version of this…

    • 2105 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Norse

    • 391 Words
    • 1 Page

    According to the Norse Mythology the Ginnungagap was the begging of the universe emptiness/endless spaces, there wasn’t anything full darkness. There were two lands Muspellheim the land of fir and there lived the Surt, and Niflhiem land of the ice. Latter on they connected together and created the giant Ymir and somewhere else Andhumbla which was pure a cow. The cow fed of the ice and created or came out Buri the god. This part of the Norse Mythology I believe it’s true because if you think about it Unversed was empty when it begin there was no building or what not. Far as my understanding fire, water and air where the first elements on earth and as they connect created rock, land, plants to the point where human begin able to live, but the cow Andhumbla and giant Ymir I don’t have any understanding how human came but I guess where myth has its own view of how human begin came to be.…

    • 391 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Creation And Theogony

    • 172 Words
    • 1 Page

    The bible speaks of God’s creation of Existence in genesis, The Shabaka Stone tells the story of creation and unification of Egypt, as the Enuma Elish tells of the creation time as order was brought forth through the chaos, and the Theogony tells of when everything was first created. Each is a belief of creation from different eras but all agree that the earth was created in the grandest cosmic way. This is understandable knowing that for them to get people to respect their belief the creation of their existence had to be epic. Since they are only stories they can be very mythical.…

    • 172 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Creation Myths

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Creation myths evolve in nearly as many ways as there are cultures. Sometimes they are used to solidify political power, as when Egypt moved back and forth from the gods Aten and Amen. More frequently they are used to explain the unknown. Some cultures used the familiar (animals, clay, mud, etc) to explain their existence, while others used the sun and moon, which were IN their lives, but not OF them. The Inuit creation myth turns the emergence tradition upside down; the sea goddess is the survivor of acts of extreme violence. Her parents cannot feed her and cast her into the sea to drown. When she survives and swims back to their canoe, they cut her fingers off, to prevent her from clinging to the boat. Those fingers becomes all the features of the sea, but she returned to the depths, sealed in by ice.…

    • 801 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Norse Creation Myth

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages

    At the beginning of time, nothing existed. The earth, the gentle oceans lapping up against its shores, man and animal had not yet been created. Only a great yawning abyss was present in the void of nothingness. Out of the abyss, a land of eternal mist, darkness and terrible cold was formed to the North; to all beings, this land was known as Niflheim. In the midst of the Dark Land surged a fountain known as Hvergelmir, from which spread the freezing glacial waters of twelve rivers throughout the void. To the South lay the land of Fire, Muspellsheim; an infernal region of unbearable, insatiable heat and flames. From there poured rivers of fire whose waters contained a bitter poison which, little by little, gathered and became a solid mass. From the ice flowing from the North, this mass of venom was covered in a thick layer of frost. With the heat blowing from the lands of Fire, the frost began to melt, and the giant Ymir was born from poison and ice.…

    • 1485 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays