Religion, in many traditions, helps to explain the unknown, that which has not been personally experienced. One these unknowns is how everything began, how humans first came into existence: in other words,creation. In most, but not all religious traditions, there are creation stories explaining the beginning of the world, life, and, most importantly, humans.
Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar, in their book From Lucy to Language, write:
“Since at least the Upper Paleolithic, some 40,000 years ago, every human society has devised a creation myth to explain how humans came to be. The need to explain our origins is one of the universals of being human. Creation myths are based on cultural beliefs that have, in one manner or another, been adopted as legitimate explanation by a particular society.”
In his book The Origin of Humankind, paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey writes:
“Every human society has an origin myth, the most fundamental story of all. These origin myths well up from the fountainhead of reflective consciousness, the inner voice that seeks explanations for everything. Ever since reflective consciousness burned brightly in the human mind, mythology and religion have been a part of human history.”
In his book Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species, Theodosius Dobzhansky writes:
“Creation myths were accordingly constructed to show that man and the universe did have a beginning. Once created, they thought, things were established forever.”
In an article in Free Inquiry, Lawrence Wood writes:
“In view of the considerable diversity of creation beliefs, creationism itself is clearly a universal belief system that meets the apparently deeply felt human need for an explanation of ourselves and our surroundings.”
In his book Prehistory: The Making of the Modern Mind, Colin Renfrew writes:
“The creation myth generally sets out how the world began, and how the human species came to be, often through the agency of the primary creative force itself. For believers of a monotheistic faith, that force was God.”
With regard to the function of creation myths or origin stories, British archaeologist Miles Russell, in an article in British Archaeology, writes:
“Every society has its origin myths: a set of creation stories which help explain the world. Origin myths shape identity, sometimes justifying a certain order of things and legitimising leadership. At other times they are deployed to stroke intolerance and a sense of cultural supremacy.”
Miles Russell also cautions:
“Origin stories are works of fiction designed to legitimise a point of view, and must therefore be understood in the context within which they were written as well as the audience for whom they were originally intended.”
Creation stories are perhaps best understood as metaphors rather than actual descriptions of what actually happened at the time of creation. In an article in Skeptic Magazine, Elizabeth Wiess writes:
“A common Christian myth, for example, is that since Adam created Eve from his rib, females have one more rib than males, which comes from Genesis (2.22).”
In teaching human anatomy, I have encountered students who firmly believed there should be a difference in the number of ribs in males and females and had difficulty in accepting the reality of human anatomy.
Creation stories, like all stories, are a reflection of the human experience. Since people are born as the result of sexual intercourse, many creation stories incorporate some form of supernatural copulation in describing the beginning. In his book Sex and Spirit, Clifford Bishop writes:
“Following the example of human behaviour, creation myths often describe a world created by the copulation of the sky and earth, the sun and moon, or simply by a god and a goddess.”
Another common theme in creation stories is the idea of a primordial chaos and out of this chaos the supernatural created order. One of the implications in many of these creation stories is that humans must enact certain rituals and adhere to certain social practices to prevent a return to chaos.
One of the questions which some creation stories attempt to answer is: Why are there different kinds of people? In 1655, the French Calvinist Isaac de la Perère put forth the idea that there had been two creations. Edmund Leach, in his book Social Anthropology, explains:
“Only the Jews were descended from Adam and only the Jews had been contaminated with original sin as a consequence of Eve’s disobedience. Noah’s Flood had been confined to the Middle East. The rest of mankind, including American Indians, were of quite separate and earlier stock, all members of which are, by their nature, lost in primeval savagery, except the Christians who have been redeemed by the grace of Christ and thus belong to God’s Elect.”
Such creation stories are often used in justifying racism, slavery, and genocide.
While there are some fundamentalists today who strongly believe that their creation stories are a factual account of creation, Karen Armstrong, in her book A Short History of Myth, writes:
“As we know, a creation story never provided people with factual information about the origins of life.”
Ian Barbour, in his book Religion in an Age of Science, explains creation stories this way:
“They locate human life within a cosmic order. The interest in origins may be partly speculative or explanatory, but the main concern is to understand who we are in a larger framework of significance.”
In their book Thinking Big: How the Evolution of Social Life Shaped the Human Mind, Clive Gamble, John Gowlett, and Robin Dunbar write:
“Origin stories remind us who we are and how and why we came to be, while folk tales are often vehicles for evaluating moral dilemmas.”
With regard to the creation myth in Genesis, Ian Barbour writes:
“A literal interpretation of the seven days would conflict with many fields of science…The attempt to find scientific information in Genesis is dubious theology as well as dubious science. By treating it as if it were a book of science ahead of its times, we tend to neglect both the human experiences that lie behind it and the theological affirmation it makes.”
In her book A Short History of Myth, Karen Armstrong writes:
“…the three monotheistic faiths claim, at least in part, to be historically based rather than mythically based.”
While some creation stories tell how the entire world was created and their believers may feel that their account of creation should be universal, in other traditions, the creation accounts may tell only of the creation of a particular place or a single group of people. In his ethnography Ulithi: A Mirconesian Design for Living, William Lessa reports:
“The gods played no part in the creation of the world. Myths do not tell us how the world originated; at best they tell only how particular islands were formed. In so doing they presuppose the existence of the world and certain supernaturals within it.”
Among the many American Indian cultures of the Americas there were many different creation stories. In their chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology, Charles Cobb and Randall McGuire write:
“The origin story defines a people and its correct relationship to the world, the environment, other peoples, and the supernatural.”
Since different tribes have different relationships with the physical and environmental world around them, American Indians tended to feel that each culture should have its own creation story rather than having a universal creation story.
Not all religious traditions have creation stories. Buddhism, for example, does not have a creation story.
Creation stories are based on human experiences and, as human experiences have changed, so have the creation stories. Clifford Bishop writes:
“Political changes, and consequent shifts in the relative status of the sexes, may be traced through the evolution of creation stories.”
Religion 101/102
Religion 101/102 is a series presenting topics about religion in which the definition of religion is not restricted to god-centered traditions. Religion 102 is an expansion of an earlier essay. More from this series:
Religion 101: Religious Prophets
Religion 101: Some Findings from Biblical Archaeology
Religion 101: God-Given Morality
Religion 101: Hidden Blasphemy