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«Истории творения» перенаправляются сюда. Для биографического фильма Алана МакГи 2021 года см. « Истории сотворения» (фильм) .
Картина Джеймса Тиссо «Сотворение мира» (ок. 1896–1902) [1]

Миф создания (или космогонический миф ) является символическим повествование о том , как начался мир и как люди первым пришел заселять его. [2] [3] [4] В то время как в популярном использовании термин миф часто относится к ложным или вымышленным историям, представители разных культур часто приписывают различную степень правды своим мифам о сотворении мира. [5] [6] В обществе, в котором он рассказывается, миф о творении обычно рассматривается как передающий глубокие истины  - метафорически , символически , исторически или буквально . [7] [8]Их обычно, хотя и не всегда, считают космогоническими мифами, то есть они описывают упорядочение космоса из состояния хаоса или аморфности. [9]

Мифы о сотворении часто имеют несколько общих черт. Их часто считают священными, и их можно найти почти во всех известных религиозных традициях . [10] Все это истории с сюжетом и персонажами, которые являются либо божествами , либо человеческими фигурами, либо животными, которые часто говорят и легко трансформируются. [11] Они часто происходят в смутном и неопределенном прошлом, которое историк религии Мирча Элиаде назвал in illo tempore («в то время»). [10] [12] Мифы о сотворении мира затрагивают вопросы, имеющие большое значение для общества, которое их разделяет, и раскрывают их центральное мировоззрение.и рамки самоидентификации культуры и личности в универсальном контексте. [13]

Мифы о сотворении мира развиваются в устных традициях и поэтому обычно имеют несколько версий; [3], встречающиеся во всей человеческой культуре , они являются наиболее распространенной формой мифа. [7]

Определения [ править ]

Определения мифов о сотворении мира из современных источников:

  • «Символическое повествование о начале мира, как оно понимается в конкретной традиции и сообществе. Мифы о сотворении мира имеют центральное значение для оценки мира, ориентации людей во Вселенной и основных моделей жизни и культуры. . " [14]
  • "Мифы о творении рассказывают нам, как все началось. Во всех культурах есть мифы о творении; это наши основные мифы, первая стадия того, что можно было бы назвать психической жизнью вида. Как культуры, мы идентифицируем себя через коллективные мечты, которые мы называем мифами о творении. , или космогонии ... Мифы о творении метафорически объясняют наше представление о том, кем мы являемся в контексте мира, и тем самым раскрывают наши настоящие приоритеты, а также наши настоящие предрассудки. Наши образы творения многое говорят о кто мы." [15]
  • «Философское и теологическое развитие первичного мифа о творении в религиозном сообществе. Термин« миф »здесь относится к образному выражению в повествовательной форме того, что переживается или воспринимается как основная реальность… Термин творение относится к началу вещей, независимо от того, волей и действием трансцендентного существа, эманацией из некоего изначального источника или любым другим способом ». [16]

Профессор религии Мирча Элиаде определил слово миф с точки зрения творения:

Миф повествует священную историю; в нем говорится о событии, имевшем место в исконном Времени, в легендарное время «начал». Другими словами, миф рассказывает, как в результате деяний Сверхъестественных существ возникла реальность, будь то вся реальность, Космос или только ее фрагмент - остров, вид растений, особый вид растений. человеческое поведение, институт. [17]

Значение и функция [ править ]

В даосском мифе о творении «Путь породил единство; единство породило двойственность; двойственность породила троицу; троица породила бесчисленное множество существ». ( Даодэцзин , 4 век до н. Э.) [18]

Все мифы о творении в определенном смысле этиологичны, потому что они пытаются объяснить, как был сформирован мир и откуда пришло человечество. [19] Мифы пытаются объяснить неизвестное, а иногда и преподать урок. [20] [21]

Этнологи и антропологи [ какие? ] , изучающие эти мифы, говорят, что в современном контексте теологи пытаются отличить человеческий смысл от открытых истин, а ученые исследуют космологию с помощью инструментов эмпиризма и рациональности , но мифы о творении определяют человеческую реальность очень по-разному. В прошлом историки религии и другие исследователи мифа думали о них как о формах примитивной или ранней стадии науки или религии и анализировали их буквально.или логический смысл. Однако сегодня они рассматриваются как символические повествования, которые следует понимать в контексте их собственного культурного контекста. Чарльз Лонг пишет: «Существа, упомянутые в мифе, - боги, животные, растения - представляют собой формы власти, схваченные экзистенциально. Мифы не следует понимать как попытки выработать рациональное объяснение божества». [22]

Хотя мифы о творении не являются буквальным объяснением, они действительно служат для определения ориентации человечества в мире с точки зрения истории его рождения. Они являются основой мировоззрения, которое подтверждает и направляет то, как люди относятся к естественному миру, к любому предполагаемому духовному миру и друг к другу. Миф о творении выступает в качестве краеугольного камня для различения первичной реальности от относительной реальности, происхождения и природы бытия от небытия. [23] В этом смысле они служат философией жизни, но выраженной и переданной посредством символов, а не систематического разума. И в этом смысле они выходят за рамки этиологических мифов.которые означают объяснение специфических особенностей религиозных обрядов, природных явлений или культурной жизни. Мифы о сотворении мира также помогают ориентировать людей в мире, давая им представление о своем месте в мире и о том внимании, которое они должны испытывать к людям и природе. [2]

Историк Дэвид Кристиан резюмировал проблемы, общие для множества мифов о творении:

Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. ... Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. ... There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery .... And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.[24]

Classification[edit]

See also: List of creation myths
In Maya religion, the dwarf was an embodiment of the Maize God's helpers at creation.[25]

Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types:[26]

Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha.
  • Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream or bodily secretions of a divine being.
  • Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world.
  • Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world.
  • Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being.
  • Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos.

Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.[26]

An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:[26]

  • Primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space.
  • Originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss.
  • Originator deity poised above the abyss.
  • Cosmic egg or embryo.
  • Originator deity creating life through sound or word.
  • Life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity.

Ex nihilo[edit]

Main article: Creatio ex nihilo
Creation on the exterior shutters of Hieronymus Bosch's triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1490–1510)

The myth that God created the world out of nothing – ex nihilo – is central today to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared.[27] Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible.[28] The authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function.[29] In the early 2nd century CE, early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God, and by the beginning of the 3rd century creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.[30]

Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda, and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania and North America.[31] In most of these stories the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator's bodily secretions.

The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is "from nothing" but in many creation myths the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In ex nihilo creation myths the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void.[32]

Creation from chaos[edit]

Main article: Chaos (cosmogony)

In creation from chaos myth, initially there is nothing but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word "chaos" means "disorder", and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to "order" (cosmos) which is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss.[33] One example is the Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.

World parent[edit]

In one Maori creation myth, the primal couple are Rangi and Papa, depicted holding each other in a tight embrace.

There are two types of world parent myths, both describing a separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as Sky (usually male) and Earth (usually female) who in the primeval state were so tightly bound to each other that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as the result of a sexual union, and serve as genealogical record of the deities born from it.[34]

In the second form of world parent myth, creation itself springs from dismembered parts of the body of the primeval being. Often in these stories the limbs, hair, blood, bones or organs of the primeval being are somehow severed or sacrificed to transform into sky, earth, animal or plant life, and other worldly features. These myths tend to emphasize creative forces as animistic in nature rather than sexual, and depict the sacred as the elemental and integral component of the natural world.[35] One example of this is the Norse creation myth described in Gylfaginning exactly in the poem Völuspá.[36]

Emergence[edit]

In emergence myths humanity emerges from another world into the one they currently inhabit. The previous world is often considered the womb of the earth mother, and the process of emergence is likened to the act of giving birth. The role of midwife is usually played by a female deity, like the spider woman of several mythologies of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Male characters rarely figure into these stories, and scholars often consider them in counterpoint to male-oriented creation myths, like those of the ex nihilo variety.[19]

In the kiva of both ancient and present-day Pueblo peoples, the sipapu is a small round hole in the floor that represents the portal through which the ancestors first emerged. (The larger hole is a fire pit, here in a ruin from the Mesa Verde National Park.)

Emergence myths commonly describe the creation of people and/or supernatural beings as a staged ascent or metamorphosis from nascent forms through a series of subterranean worlds to arrive at their current place and form. Often the passage from one world or stage to the next is impelled by inner forces, a process of germination or gestation from earlier, embryonic forms.[37][38] The genre is most commonly found in Native American cultures where the myths frequently link the final emergence of people from a hole opening to the underworld to stories about their subsequent migrations and eventual settlement in their current homelands.[39]

Earth-diver[edit]

The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories a supreme being usually sends an animal into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.[40]

Motif distribution[edit]

Earth-diver myths are common in Native American folklore but can be found among the Chukchi and Yukaghir, the Tatars and many Finno-Ugrian traditions. In addition, the earth-diver motif also exists in narratives from Eastern Europe, namely Romanian, Bulgarian, Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian mythological traditions.[41] The pattern of distribution of these stories suggest they have a common origin in the eastern Asiatic coastal region, spreading as peoples migrated west into Siberia and east to the North American continent.[42][43]

However, there are examples of this mytheme found well outside of this boreal distribution pattern, for example the West African Yoruba creation myth of Obatala and Oduduwa.[44][45]

Native American narrative[edit]

Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found.[46]

See also[edit]

  • Anthropology of religion
  • Australian Aboriginal religion and mythology
  • Big Bang
  • Creationism
  • Creator deity
  • Evolutionary origin of religions
  • Mother goddess
  • Origin myth
  • Origin-of-death myth
  • Poles in mythology
  • Religious cosmology
  • Theism
  • Xirang

References[edit]

  1. ^ An interpretation of the creation narrative from the first book of the Torah (commonly known as the Book of Genesis), painting from the collections Archived 2013-04-16 at archive.today of the Jewish Museum (New York)
  2. ^ a b Encyclopædia Britannica 2009
  3. ^ a b Womack 2005, p. 81, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions."
  4. ^ "Creation Stories". Signs & Symbols – An Illustrated Guide to Their Origins and Meanings. DK Publishing. 2008. p. 157. ISBN 978-1405325394. For many they are not a literal account of events, but may be perceived as symbolic of a deeper truth.
  5. ^ "In common usage the word 'myth' refers to narratives or beliefs that are untrue or merely fanciful; the stories that make up national or ethnic mythologies describe characters and events that common sense and experience tell us are impossible. Nevertheless, all cultures celebrate such myths and attribute to them various degrees of literal or symbolic truth." (Leeming 2010, p. xvii harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help))
  6. ^ Long 1963, p. 18
  7. ^ a b Kimball 2008[page needed]
  8. ^ Leeming 2010, pp. xvii–xviii, 465 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  9. ^ See:
    • Leeming 2010 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
    • Weigle 1987
    • Leonard & McClure 2004
    • Honko 1984, p. 50
  10. ^ a b Johnston 2009
  11. ^ See:
    • Johnston 2009
    • Encyclopædia Britannica 2009
    • Leeming 2011a
    • Long 1963
  12. ^ Eliade 1963, p. 429
  13. ^ See:
    • Johnston 2009
    • Long 1963
    • Encyclopædia Britannica 2009
    • Leeming 2010 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  14. ^ Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions 1999, p. 267
  15. ^ Leeming 2010, p. 84 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  16. ^ creation myth, Encyclopædia Britannica (2009)
  17. ^ Eliade 1964, pp. 5–6
  18. ^ Mair 1990, pp. 9
  19. ^ a b Leeming 2011a
  20. ^ Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes. Ancient Civilizations. US History.org
  21. ^ Culture, Religion, & Myth: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Cora Agatucci. Central Oregon Community College.
  22. ^ Long 1963, p. 12
  23. ^ Sproul 1979, p. 6
  24. ^ Christian, David (2004). Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History. California World History Library. 2. University of California Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN 978-0520931923. Retrieved 2013-12-29. How did everything begin? This is the first question faced by any creation myth and ... answering it remains tricky. ... Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. ... Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. ... There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery .... And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.
  25. ^ Description from Walters Art Museum
  26. ^ a b c Leonard & McClure 2004, pp. 32–33
  27. ^ Soskice 2010, p. 24.
  28. ^ Nebe 2002, p. 119.
  29. ^ Walton 2006, p. 183.
  30. ^ May 2004, p. 179.
  31. ^ Leeming 2010, pp. 1–3, 153 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  32. ^ Leeming & Leeming 1994, pp. 60–61
  33. ^ Leeming 2010 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  34. ^ Leeming 2010, p. 16 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  35. ^ Leeming 2010, p. 18 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  36. ^ Leeming, David Adams (2010). Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1598841749.
  37. ^ Leeming 2010, pp. 21–24 harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFLeeming2010 (help)
  38. ^ Long 1963
  39. ^ Wheeler-Voegelin & Moore 1957, pp. 66–73
  40. ^ Leeming 2011b
  41. ^ Laurinkienė, Nijolė. "Pasaulio kūrimo motyvai lietuvių pasakojamojoje tautosakoje" [The Motifs of creating the world in the Lithuanian narrative folklore]. In: Liaudies kultūra Nr. 5 (2002), p. 9. ISSN 0236-0551.
  42. ^ Booth 1984, pp. 168–70
  43. ^ Vladimir Napolskikh (2012), Earth-Diver Myth (А812) in northern Eurasia and North America: twenty years later
  44. ^ [1], P. C. Lloyd, "Sacred Kingship and Government among the Yoruba," Africa 30, no. 3: pp. 222-223.
  45. ^ R.D.V. Glasgow (2009), The Concept of Water, p. 28
  46. ^ Leonard & McClure 2004, p. 38

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Further reading[edit]

On the Earth-diver motif:

  • Delpech, François. "Le plongeon des origines: variations méditerranéennes". In: Revue de l'histoire des religions, tome 217, n°2, 2000. pp. 203-255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rhr.2000.1055; www.persee.fr/doc/rhr_0035-1423_2000_num_217_2_1055

External links[edit]

  • Creation myth – Encyclopædia Britannica
  • Japanese Creation Myth
  • Mayan Creation Myth
  • Egyptian Creation Myth
  • Norse Creation Myth
  • Indo-European Creation Myth