Creation Myths (Similarities and Differences)

Because the creation of the universe has intrigued mankind for ages, creation stories are formulated in attempt to provide answers to the question of existence. People want to explain phenomenon and the unknown. Creation myths serve to give reasoning to these mysteries, no matter how bizarre and unrealistic they may be to us now. There are many myths in the current world but not all of them capture as much attention as creation myths. Every religion and every culture in the world seems to have its own creation myth. Creation myths have several distinct similarities primarily in their supreme beings, things that existed before creation, and their creations and the order of the creations, which can be compared and contrasted in order to analyze both the university and individualism of different cultures.

All four creation stories have different supreme beings that were the ones that created all that followed. In the biblical myth, there was only one supreme being, unlike some of the others. God was the only one who existed, and from him came all of the creations. In the Greek myth, there were many different Supreme beings that created many different things on earth. The Greek mythology was unlike the others because it was the only one to strongly use many different creatures and stories of how different things came to be on earth. Some of the main supreme beings that we can see are Chaos, Uranus, Mother Earth, the Titans, and Prometheus. In the Chinese creation myth, there are only two supreme beings P’anku and Nu’kua. “The first living thing was P’anku. He evolved inside a gigantic cosmic egg, which contained all the elements of the universe totally intermixed together,” (Doyle). In the last creation myth based on Ugandan writings, there was only one Supreme Being Kabezya-Mpungu. He was the highest god, and there was little known about him.

There was also a variation of things that existed before creation in some of the myths mentioned above. In all of these myths, Earth was created from very little or nothing. In the Chinese story, everything is created from one egg containing chaos and Pan Ku, which was the supreme being. Pan Ku split open the egg and from that emerged the Earth. In the Chinese story there was an empty space, which the Chinese called chaos too. According to Fisher, “There was only one Existence and no other. The One thought that there should be many others and that they should grow. So the One created a universe out of Him and created beings. Then the One himself entered into every being” (Fisher 87). In the Greek myth the empty space and darkness was also called Chaos. In this myth, the big ball of chaos, contained all of the things that were to be created, but they were all mixed up and confused. Here we can see a very big similarity, which can tell us that people though about creations in similar ways. Unlike those two stories, in the Christian story there was nothing before God created everything. All of these stories claim that the Earth was created from nothing, but at the same time, they all have different ways of explaining how it came to be what it is today. These myths may have set up a theory that is widely known in today’s world as “The Big Bang” theory.

The final point in which creation myths are compared to each other are in the order of how things were created. In the biblical creation story there is a specific order of how things were created. First it was the earth, sky, moon, sun, and all the earthly things, but the humans. Humans were the last things created in the biblical story. According to Bible, God said, “Let us make man in our own image according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over ALL the earth, and over everything that creeps or moves” (Gen. 1.26). This shows importance, because if you create something last, it usually means it’s the thing you like and value the most, since u create it last.

In the Chinese creation myth, the order of things to be created is virtually the same, except the story goes into more details. It talks about clouds, stars, rivers, and other things which are just mentioned in general in the biblical myth. The Greek myth varies from the above two in the way that there aren’t only earthly things created, but also gods and goddesses. This shows that people in that culture, also tried to explain how some of the creators came to be, from other supreme beings. The Ugandan myth didn’t talk a lot about the creations. But as all the other ones, it had humans as last on the list. The fact that all of the four myths included humans as last on the list can tell us that in all of the cultures they were very significant.

Creations myths from around the world will always be able to capture our attention and fascination because each myth is creative, different, and similar at the same time. All of these myths shared some similarities and differences in their orders of creation, things that existed before creation, and their supreme beings. The origins of these myths will always be a secret, and these myths will never cease to be myths. This is why to some people they will be realities, and to some only pure myths.