First Light

A History of Creation Myths from Gilgamesh to the God Particle

G.R. Evans

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780857734983
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Did the universe start with a bang, or has it existed always? Was there a supernatural being behind it all, or just mindless forces? The beginning of things has forever tested the limits of curiosity, and such questions have both challenged atheists and inspired believers. Ancient cultures resorted to myth and symbolism to tell vibrant stories about human origins. Later civilizations added philosophical and scientific explanations: but these are not definitive. The nature and meaning of existence - the 'why' as much as the 'how' questions - are in the end mysterious. In this lively and wide-ranging book, G R Evans explores the world's myriad creation stories against the background of the biggest question there is: what are we doing here? Discussing Swahili legends that resemble the Book of Genesis, Greek tales about the Titans, Native American, Inca and Mesopotamian mythologies, and Vedic creation cycles that begin with a cosmic egg or seed, the author surveys polytheist, monotheist and dualist ideas about supernatural power.
Tracing the history of humanity as it has struggled, over many millennia, to make sense of itself, The Creation Myth will attract students of religion, history and philosophy and general readers alike.

G.R. EVANS is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge. Her many books include Belief: A Short History for Today (2006), The Church in the Early Middle Ages (2007), The University of Cambridge: A New History (2009) and The University of Oxford: A New History (2010), published by I.B.Tauris.

‘It may seem that the question of human origins has never been more controversial than today. But in this informative and elegantly written book, G.R. Evans shows how there have always been competing narratives of how the world began and about the significance of human existence. With wide-ranging scholarship and an engaging style, she offers an intriguing and thought-provoking exploration of a set of perennial questions.’

Peter Harrison, Director, Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland, formerly Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at the University of Oxford, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion

‘In First Light G.R. Evans offers a lively survey of scores of explanations of the creation of the world across periods, continents, and disciplines. She covers Eastern as well as Western religions, “primitive” myths, scientific explanations, and philosophical assessments. She continually shows unexpected similarities. But she finally gives a reluctant “no” to the question whether, as Eliot’s character Casaubon in Middlemarch asked, there is a single “key to all mythologies”. This is a delightful work.’

Robert A. Segal, Sixth Century Professor of Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, author of Myth: A Very Short Introduction and Theorizing About Myth

First Light

A History of Creation Myths from Gilgamesh to the God Particle

G.R. Evans

Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU

175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

www.ibtauris.com

Distributed in the United States and Canada

Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright © 2014 G.R. Evans

The right of G.R. Evans to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978 1 78076 155 8

eISBN: 978 0 85773 498 3

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Typeset by JCS Publishing Services Ltd, www.jcs-publishing.co.uk

Contents

List of illustrations

Preface

Introduction

PART I The universe begins

1 Disagreements about first principles

i When did the world begin?

ii Is the universe ‘real’?

iii What is the layout of the cosmos?

iv In God’s image? Was the world made for our benefit?

PART II Why it is difficult to agree

2 What is the evidence?

3 The great rival religious theories

i Polytheisms

ii Monotheisms

iii Dualisms

4 Choosing an approach

i Classical philosophy

ii The early Christian theological synthesis

iii Just ‘saying’ the world

5 Going to see

i Out of Africa

ii Redrawing the world-picture: new continents

iii Filling the empty hemisphere

iv Fact and fiction

v Created unequal?

Part III The main competing explanations

6 The beginning of the world: a one-off event?

i One creation complete and perfect

ii A single but imperfect creation

iii A single event with errors but capable of modification?

7 Creation as a system: initiation followed by a process of planned development?

i A process with built-in mechanisms for improvement?

ii Creation as a system with the Creator as supervisor?

iii The ‘phoenix’ theory of creation

8 The search for a key

i Is there a single underlying methodology?

ii Can ‘comparative religion’ provide a unifying principle?

iii Looking inward for an answer?

Conclusion

Notes

Texts and abbreviations

Select Bibliography

Illustrations

1 Large Hadron Collider element (Public domain)

2 Head of Ptah, the Egyptian creator god of Memphis (The Walters Art Museum; public domain)

3 God as geometer, from the frontispiece of a Bible Moralisée (Public domain)

4 Virgo, Libra and Scorpio, from The Wonders of the Creation and the Curiosities of Existence by Zakariya ‘ibn Muhammed al-Qazwini (Islamic School/Getty Images)

5 God resting after creation, Byzantine mosaic in Monreale (Public domain)

6 Adam and Eve with the Serpent, by Hans Baldung Grien (© National Gallery of Art)

7 Detail of the creation of the world, from a funerary papyrus of Serimen, priest of Amon (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/Getty Images)

8 Carving of Thor (Public domain)

9 The Hindu god Vishnu (Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; public domain)

10 Unusual depiction of Tara, Bodhisattva of compassion (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

11 Detail of the relief of the ‘Tomb of the Harpies’ from Xanthos, Turkey (British Museum; photo by Alinari via Getty Images)

12 Adam and Eve and their thirteen twins, from Zubdet ut Tevarih by Lokman (Turkish School/Bridgeman Art Library)

13 The Ancient Egyptian goddess Bes (Public domain)

14 A Native American dressed for war with a scalp, by George Townshend, Fourth Viscount and First Marquess Townshend (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

15 The Three Sisters, Blue Mountains, New South Wales (Public domain)

16 Aboriginal rock painting from the Kakadu National Park. The main figure is thought to represent Namondjok, a creation ancestor associated with various myths (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

17 Blanket based on a sand painting design. Two super-natural holy people flank the sacred maize plant, which was their gift to mortals in a creation myth (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

18 The Gilgamesh tablet (British Museum; public domain)

19 Fragment of a mosaic with Mithras, the Persian god of creation (The Walters Art Museum; public domain)

20 Large Hadron Collider in CERN, Geneva (Science Images/UIG/Getty Images)

Humans dream of their beginnings and imagine their ends.

(Boethius, Consolation, II, Prose 1)

All are but parts of o...

Table of contents

• Contents