Omar Mack

Mr. Boyte
IB Theory of Knowledge
Creation and Destruction Myths

Creation Myths
1. Middle Eastern mythology (Judaic, Christian, Islamic)
A. Babylonian: In the beginning there was Apsu (sky god) and Tiamat (chaos
goddess). Their union is the basis of all other gods, who grew restless and chose
Marduk as their champion, who slew Tiamat and her lover Kingu.
B. Biblical: Genesis
a.First day – God created the heavens and the earth; light-divided light from
darkness (day and night)
b.Second day – “vault…divided the waters above the vault from…
under”—“heaven”
c.Third day – dry land and waters-“earth” and “seas”~vegetation
d.Fourth day – sun and moon (indicate festivals, days and years)
e.Fifth day – sea creatures and winged creatures
f. Sixth day – living creatures~male and female
g.Seventh day – He rested
I. Second account: Yahweh God “fashioned a man out of the dust
from the soil…breathed life into his nostrils”
i. Eden (“in the east”)
a.Every kind of tree; “life” and “knowledge of good
and evil” in the middle
b.River divided into four streams
1. Pishon: encircles the whole land of Havilah
and there is gold
2. Gihon: encircles the land of Cush
3. Tigris
4. Euphrates
ii. “…of the tree of knowledge…you are not to eat…you shall
most surely die.”
a.Creation of woman: put the man into a deep sleep…
took one of the ribs and enclosed it in flesh
1. “This at last is bone from my bones
and flesh from my flesh;
This is to be called woman
for this was taken from man.”
C. Talmudic (Jewish): first word of God was “baruch,” meaning “blessed”
a. 1st day – created heavens and earth; threw a stone into the great void which
became the core of the Earth
b. 2nd day – created angels
c. 3rd day – plants and Gan Eden
d. 4th day – sun, moon, stars
e. 5th day – the sea creatures and birds
f. 6th day – beasts and human beings
 I. Man made from soil from the four corners of the world
g.Samael (“venom of God”), aka Satan; God cast him and his followers into
Hell
h.Lillith – first woman; arrogant
i. Eve – “good” woman
D. Notes on the serpent, water, and the tree
a.Serpent – phallic symbol; “wise”
b.Water – baptism creates a “new being;” essential to life
c.Tree – immortality; wisdom
E. Iran
a.Ormazd is the Wise Lord
I. The enemy of creation is Ahriman, the source of all suffering, sin
and death
b.Ormazd began by casting a pure light into the abyss that separated him
from Ahriman
I. Ahriman declared war on creation
i. Ormazd recited a sacred verse which causes Ahriman to
fall into hell and remain there for 3,000 years; Ormazd
continues creation
c.Eternal Attendants (Immortals)
I. Personification of the principles of good
i. Vohu Mana (good mind)
ii. Asha (truth)
iii. Sraosha (obedience)
iv. Armaiti (devotion)
v. The twins Haurvetat (integrity) and Ameritat (immortality)
vi. Collectively god “the children of God”
d.The Yazatas (angels)
I. Serve Ormazd as messengers and warriors against evil
e.He has no body, however he has a male and female aspect (Father and
Mother)
f. Gayomart (the first man) and his ox
I. Gayomart shone like the sun while his ox, the moon
II. Lived for thirty year (at the end of which Ahriman was released
from hell…)
g.Ahriman created…:
I. Demons
II. Flies
III. Germs
IV. Disease
V. Vermin
VI. “Lord of the flies”
h.Johi (attendant to Ahriman)
I. Volunteered to make Gayomart suffer and die
II. Personification of all feminine evil
i. Source of prostitution, vanity, gossip, nagging
III. Gave the ox a disease; the Wise Lord gave it marijuana to ease the
pain; ox dies
 IV. Gayomart dies
i. Decomposed body deposits gold and silver in the earth
ii. Sperm formed a tiny plant from which sprang a great tree
that bore 10 races of mankind
a.Tree separated to produce Mashya (man) and
Mashyane (woman)
i. Mashya and Mashyane told themselves that Ahriman created them
I. First lie
i. First sin of man
ii. Ormazd told them they would have to work for a living and
have sex to perpetuate their kind
iii. Ahriman and Johi took the couple’s sexual desire for fifty
years
iv. When they (eventually) had children, the demons ate them
but the Wise Lord saved humankind by taking some of the
sweetness of the children (became the children of today)
2. Hindu mythology
A. “There was nothing” – one arose through the power of hear
B. “The thoughts of Brahma” – created and recreated the world many times
a.Four yugas (ages) make one kalpa (eon). At the end of each kalpa, the
creation is destroyed and starts all over again.
b.Beings were born from his mind
I. Body of darkness – out of his rectum came a wind – demons born.
He discarded this body and it became the night
II. Body of light – out of his mouth came devas (shining gods). This
body became day
III. Body of satva (goodness) – ancestor spirits
IV. Fourth body – from his thoughts, humans were created. This body
became the moon
V. Body of energy and darkness – horrible creatures that wanted to
devour the primordial sea of chaos (ogres)
VI. His hair falls out in disturbance, which creates all the creatures that
crawl on their bellies, i.e. snakes and other reptiles
C. “Brahma is lonely” – yearned for company so created man and woman
3. Norse mythology
A. No heaven, no earth, only an abyss in an atmosphere of mist, out of which was a
fountain from which 12 rivers flowed out and as they traveled, they froze.
B. South of the mist was a world of light
a. A warm wind from the south melted the ice and became clouds, which
formed the frost giant Ymir and his cow Audhumbla.
b.As the ice melted, Audhumbla lick the exposed ice, under which was a
buried man.
I. First day – hair exposed
II. Second day – whole head and shoulders
III. Third day – entire body free of ice
IV. This man became the first god, the father of Odin, Vili, and Ve
c. The three younger gods slew Ymir and his salty blood (he was nourished
by his cow who licked the salt from the ice) flowed out to create the seas.
 d. His bones formed mountains and his flesh formed the earth.
e.From his hair came all manner of plants, among which were Aske (ash
tree) and Embla (elm tree)
I. From Aske Odin fashioned a man and from Embla a woman
i. From Odin they received life and soul, from Vili the
received reason and motion and from Ve they received
speech and motion
f. Odin separated dark from light creating light and day
g. Odin fashioned Midgard (“Middle Earth” á la Tolkien’s The Lord of the
Rings) for man to dwell in
h.Fashioned Asgard, home of the gods
i. The universe is supported by Yggdrasil (mighty ash tree)
I. One root touches Asgard, one touches Midgard and one lies
underground where the souls of the dead dwell under the eye of
Hel, Odin’s sister
j. Ymir was not completely destroyed. When his body stirs the earth quakes.
4. African mythology
A. The Yoruba (West Africa)
a.In the beginning, the world was a formless Chaos; neither land or sea, but
a marshy waste
b.In the sky lived Olorun (supreme being) who was attended by other gods
including Orisha Nla (Great God)
c.Olorun orderd Orisha Nla to make the world
I. Orisha Nla was given a snail shell full of magic earth, a pigeon,
and a five-toed hen
i. He threw the earth into a small patch, which the pigeon and
the hen began to scratch at until land and sea were entirely
separated
II. The first place on earth was known as Ifé (Yoruba: “wide”); later,
the word Ilé (Yoruba: “house”) was added.
i. Today, Ifé-Ilé is the most sacred to the Yoruba people
III. Creation took four days and on the fifth, Orisha Nla rested
IV. He returned to earth to plant trees and Olorun made rain to water
the seeds which grew into a great forest.
d.Orisha Nla fashioned the first people from earth but only Olorun could
give them life.
B. Madagascar
a.The Three People and the Statue
I. The Creator made two men and a woman
i. Each wandered the earth unaware of the others
II. The first man became lonely and carved a statue of a beautiful girl
out of wood
III. The second man passed by and fell in love with it, however he was
shocked by its nakedness and clothed it with beautiful flowers.
IV. The woman passed by and was also lonely so she took the statue
home and asked the Creator to give it life.
i. The statue slept in bed with her and by the morning was a
living girl
 V. The two men searched for the statue and when the three met for the
first time, they argued.
i. The woman would not give the girl to them; the Creator
intervened
VI. He proclaimed that the first man was the father of the girl, the
woman was the mother of the girl, and the second man is the girl’s
husband.
Destruction Myths
1. Middle Eastern mythology (Judaic, Christian, Islamic)
a. Islamic
i. The holy prophet tells Muhammad of the signs of the end of the world:
1. People will no longer study the Koran but spend their time seeking
material wealth, pleasure, and worldly power
2. Will be an epidemic in Jedda, a famine in Medina, and a plague in
the holy city of Mecca
3. Earthquakes throughout Maghreh—thunderstorms
4. People will be wiped out through floods
5. Morality that binds societies will be loosened (every man for
himself)
6. The Dajjal (Antichrist) will appear, riding on a donkey and
subjecting all to his rule
7. Dajjal will rule 40 days through terror
8. Then God will send Jesus from Heaven on a white horse to subdue
Dajjal, who is defeated but alas not killed
9. Jesus rules for 40 years—peace and justice
10. After Jesus goes back to Heaven, Gog and Magog (monsters)
imprisoned by Alexander the Great, break free, ruining civilization
11. God will call on two angels
a. Azrail (Angel of Death)
i. To believers: he will appear as a star that calls them
to their rest in a sweet voice
ii.To wicked: appears as a monster that rips souls
b. Israfil (blows the trumpet of the last day)
i. 1st blow – mountains crumble, 40 years of
earthquakes
ii.2nd blow – souls of faithful dead will reunite for
resurrection; spend 40 years praising Allah
iii.3rd blow – Muhammad returns to earth on his horse,
Burak, led by angel Gabriel
ii.Throne of God will be visible to all
iii.Secret sins of everyone will be known to all
1. Secret sins weighed on the left side of the scale; good deed on the
right
a. If right outweighs left, the soul is saved. If opposite, soul is
dammed.
b. Christian
i. The Revelation to John
 1. The Beast 666
a. “…the number of the beast: it is the number of a man, the
number 666…”
2. The Final Battle of the End
a. Faithful and True – rider of the white horse
i. A judge with integrity, a warrior for justice
ii.Eyes were flames, his head was crowned with many
coronets, and his cloak was soaked in blood
iii.“The Word of God”
3. The Judgment
a. The One sat on a great white throne
i. In his presence the earth and sky vanished
ii.The dead stood in from of the throne while a book
of life was opened, which held the record of what
they had done in their lives, by which they were
judged
iii.Death and Hades were thrown into a burning lake,
which is known as the second death
1. Anybody whose name could not be found in
the book of life was thrown into the burning
lake
4. The Heavenly Jerusalem
a. The first heaven and earth disappeared and a new heaven
and earth appeared, with the holy city, the new Jerusalem,
coming out of heaven
b. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the
End…”
2. Hindu mythology
a. Destruction of the universe is inevitable in every cycle
i. At the beginning, the world is created by Brahma, the world is then
sustained by Vishnu, and finally destroyed by Shiva
b. “Day of Brahma” lasts 12,000 years of the devas, or 4,320,000 human years
c. Every cycle is divided into 14 manvantaras (ruled by Manu [“teacher”])
i. Followed by a great flood that destroys everything
d. “Day of Brahman” may also be divided into 1,000 yugas
e. When the universe is exhausted of its resources, it is ready for recreation
i. Vishnu takes the form of Rudra (storm god; destroyer of all things)
ii.Rudra enters the sun and dries up all water on earth then breathes out
clouds
iii.Brahma sends a wind that drinks up the water
iv.The world is now watery chaos, the primordial state from which a new
world can be created