Creation and the
Cosmos (Volume A)
General Concepts
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cosmogony
ex nihilo
theomachy
hierarchical structure
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
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el-Amarna
monism
Hapy
dat
etiological myths
Enuma Elish
• “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
Marduk
Ziggurat
Sanctity of the Text
The first one should reveal them
The wise and knowledgeable should ponder
them together
The master should repeat, and make the
pupil understand
The “shepherd” and “herdsman” should pay
attention (38).
Hesiod
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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
Nine Muses
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Kleio
Euterpe
Thaleia
Melpomene
Terpsichore
Erato
Polymnia
Ourania
Kalliope
Aphrodite and the Titans
Prometheus and Hubris
Pandora
The Races of Mankind
Philosophers
• 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
Lucretius
• 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).
Discussion Questions
What do these creation myths tell us about
original societies, their cultures, and their
understanding of the universe?
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