Universal Themes in Creation Stories Across Cultures

There are many stories that talk about the creation of the earth and have been passed from generation to generation. However, each culture and each region has its own stories about the creation. They are unique in some way but still share the same themes that are universal to many civilizations. Almost all the themes talk about how we and everything on earth were created or how the universe and humanity developed. Two of the most popular creation stories are the Book of Genesis and the Popol Vuh.

While the Genesis and Popol Vuh are different in the way God created iving things and their explanation of creation, their similarities are important because they tell us how everything come from and the people's belief in Gods. First of all, the Genesis creation myth is known as one part of the Hebrew Bible that explains how God created human and living things. Therefore, their entire traditional stories seem as the views of a monotheistic world, praising one, all-perfect deity.

Genesis focuses mainly on the relationship between God and humans beings in the earth. While the Popol Vuh is one of the Maya creation stories and also showed the perspectives of a polytheistic culture, believing and living under various Gods. In this story, the Gods tried to create something that would praise them and thanks to them. In Genesis myth, God created man and woman to live and love each other. However, one strict rule that Gods did not want them to violate was not to eat an apple from the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. Of every tree in the garden thou mayest freely eat: but one of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou halt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. " (Genesis 67). Meanwhile, in the Popol Vuh, Gods did not create human at first. Instead, they created animals first and then they created mud people and wood people secondly. Gods finally created humans who made from the corn and have the shape exactly like what human nowadays beings. Unfortunately, in both stories, the creation did not satisfy their creators. They did mistake and fail to meet the Gods' expectations.

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For the Genesis, Adam and Eve were nticed by a serpent and ate the fruit anyway even though they were warned before by the God. Feeling angry from their mistake, God forced them out of the Garden and began to be multiplied and full-filled in the earth. From another part of the Genesis, God was unhappy from what he created because the humans at that time were very greedy and did not follow God's expectations. Therefore, he created a great flood on the earth, destroying everything and killing everyone from this flood. "l will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth,... or it repenteth me that I have made them. (Genesis 70). In contrast, in the Popol Vuh, when animals, mud people and wood people could not reach Gods 'expectations because they did not praise the creators as they wanted them to do. Therefore, Gods made a flood to kill all the mud and wood people. "The manikins, woodcarvings were killed when the Heart of Sky devised a flood for them. " (Popol Vuh 82). While God in Genesis gave humans a second chance to live by saving life for Noah's family after destroying everything, Gods in Popol Vuh began to create the corn people after a flood to serve for their desire because they could praise the Gods and did everything that they wanted. as created and how it was ended. Gods in both stories created humans on the earth, gave them food and shelters but also destroyed humans by a great flood as a symbol of their anger when they failed to their expectations. One more similarity between two stories that all Gods were selfish and being scared when people gain too much knowledge. For example, in the Genesis, God did not want Adam and Eve at the forbidden fruit because they will know everything about the nature as the Gods were doing.

While in the Popol Vuh, when the Gods saw the corn people were very intelligent and perfect after created, so they felt threatened by the corn people as they would be more powerful than them. miet they'll become as great as gods, unless they procreate, proliferate at the sowing, the dawning, unless they increase. " (Popol Vuh 85). In order to solve this problem, Gods took away some In conclusion, even though the Book of Genesis and the Popol Vuh were written by wo different cultures, they also have some similarities in general such as the creation of the flood and human's knowledge.

However, their myths were also different in some way. For the Genesis, God Just wanted people to live happily and healthily on the earth while the Gods in the Popol Vuh stories want people to praise for their merit and keep their day together. Therefore, as we can see that the differences between two stories are very important because they showed us how different cultures and regions affect human's life and thinking about their creation.

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