Creation and the Cosmos (Volume A)
• cosmogony• ex nihilo • theomachy• hierarchical structure
General Concepts
Cannibal Spell for King Unis“Unis’s privileges will not be taken from him, for he has swallowed the Perception of every god” (28).
Great Hymn to the Aten• el-Amarna• monism• Hapy• dat• etiological myths
• “when on high”• Akkadians• Tiamat (mother ocean)/ Apsu (father, fresh
water)• Marduk/ Ea • Esharra and Babylon• Qingu’s blood, human creation as “artful”• Anunna and Igigi (higher, lesser) gods
Enuma Elish
Marduk
Ziggurat
The first one should reveal themThe wise and knowledgeable should ponder
them togetherThe master should repeat, and make the
pupil understandThe “shepherd” and “herdsman” should pay
attention (38).
Sanctity of the Text
• Theogony, “birth of the gods”• Gaia / Uranus (mother earth/ father sky)• Titans• Hesiod as a shepherd “tending sheep at
the foothills of god-haunted Helikon” • invocation to the Muses
Hesiod
Nine Muses• Kleio• Euterpe• Thaleia• Melpomene• Terpsichore• Erato• Polymnia• Ourania• Kalliope
Aphrodite and the Titans
Prometheus and Hubris
Pandora
The Races of Mankind
• Thales of Miletus, water as prima materia• Heraclitus, theory of transformation• Empedocles, conjunction of the elements,
laws of attraction and repulsion• Anaxagoras, intelligence and process
Philosophers
• Epicureanism• “But if I knew nothing of atoms, of what
they were, still from the very ways of the heavens, from many other things I could name, I’d dare to assert and prove that not for us and not by gods was this world made” (55).
• “Surely the heavens and earth must also have a time of origin and a time of death” (56).
Lucretius
What do these creation myths tell us about original societies, their cultures, and their understanding of the universe?
Discussion Questions
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The Norton Anthology
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