Creation

“	There's a value - a glory - in creation, that's greater and truer than my pride or my ego. Call it grace, call it being; whatever it is, it did not come from my hands. It was there. Awaiting its birth. It just is.	„
	~ God

The Creation, also known as Genesis, is the beginning before the beginning itself. It is the moment that everything and everyone, from the largest of bodies to the tiniest of molecules, came into existence.

Overview[]

The tale of the Creation varies considerably but it is shown that there is a repeating pattern of motifs in many creation myths within other mythological tales. These repeating patterns imply that the gods of pagan belief and their ancestors aided the Abrahamic God in the creation of all things which would also imply that the universe itself is far more infinite than people seem to think.

History[]

Background[]

In the beginning, there was nothing but darkness. An endless, shapeless, and formless void of nothingness. The only things that existed at the time was God, Asherah, Chaos, and Night, which were the Void itself. Eventually, God decided to create something and by doing that he must separate the void and abyss from the latter. He first did this by declaring "Let There be Light" and when His light shone, it cast a shadow upon the waters of chaos and the shadow took form of his dark half which came to be known as Azathoth. Azathoth was immediately bombarded by the light and its intensity brought him pain and anger and he warred with the Almighty.

While the duration of the battle between these two cosmic forces is unknown due to the fact that the concept of Time was nonexistent, it is written that it took six days for God to finally defeat Azathoth. On the second day of the battle, God and Asherah created the Archangels, Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, in order to combat Azathoth. On the third day, Azathoth dipped into Chaos and from it he created the Ogdru Jahad in order to combat God, while on the fourth day God and Azathoth, through their collision, created the essence that would later develop into the Primordials. On the fifth day, Asherah took hold of this primordial essence, and after cupping her hands with the waters of Chaos, was able to mold it like clay, in order to fashion the Primordials that would finally end the stalemate in the battle by combating the Ogdru Jahad. At last on the sixth they were finally able to defeat both Azathoth and its creations.

However, God was unable to destroy Azathoth fully nor was he able to do the same to most of the Ogdru Jahad, only successful in destroying some of them, and had no choice but to instead imprison what remained of Azathoth in a chrysalis state and chained him using what can only be described as metaphysical existential chains that held all of everything together. Moreover, Azathoth fell into a deep and endless slumber due to the surrounding of creation being too much for it with God then exiling the Ogdru Jahad into the Outerverse.

Creation of All[]

On the seventh day, God and Asherah laid to rest alongside His creations as the collision between the darkness and His own was starting to form the universe. After they plant the Tree of Life, the sovereigns rested on the seventh day. It is said that they rested beneath the Tree of Life, where the aroma from the dews from its leaves gave them comfort. As they rested, the inexhaustible profusion of their thoughts overflow, and a new being, Barbelo, emerges from that intellectual flood which traversed through the stem of the tree, and blossomed into a flower. From the flower, emerged Barbelo, the first emanation. And this resulted in the spontaneous emergence of other Aeons from the Tree of Life, becoming the conceptual embodiments of principles for creation and all that dwell within it.

As they rested, they commissioned the archangels and the primordial gods to rearrange the scattered Universe and restore order to the cosmos, eventually bringing it up to the state in which we find it today. With the laws of reality coming into place, the first second of the first day came with the formation of Time and together with Night formed the Endless, with the first among them being Destiny who was born when the first ever thing was fated to do anything, followed by Death when the first ever thing died, then Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and finally Delight. While the universe was being properly formed, thirteen artifacts were created in the process. These artifacts became the living manifestations of the aspects of creation itself.

God then created Heaven with the archangels, helping Him cement the fundamental cogs that make up all that there is when the Primordials were done. After He created Heaven and Earth, God noticed several artifacts that took form during His war against Azathoth. He scattered these artifacts upon the newborn Earth as a way for it to be nurtured. By creating a Firmament between Heaven and Earth which is supposedly a dome of some sort that separated the two from one another, it cannot be accessed by the inhabitants of Earth unless God allows it. The firmament is then populated by luminaries which become the stars and the light to signify morning and night. The Primordials' children, who were referred to as the Giants or Titans, were also allowed to inhabit the Earth to protect it from any invading Old One. During their reign they would also reproduce and spawn the countless polytheistic pantheons of deities.

Before He created man, God made the first beasts which each ruled over a part of the Earth. The first among them was the Leviathan, a primordial creature that swam within the oceans of chaos and was tamed by God to then roam within the depths of the Earth's waters, lording over the creatures of the sea. The second was the Behemoth, who lorded over the earth and its creatures and the third was the Ziz, who lorded over the skies and its creatures. These beasts were created as representations of the Earth's majesty and to express the dominant power of nature over man and are the only three beasts that Adam and Eve have no lordship over.

Creation of Man[]

After which, the angels were then created and acted as both His emissaries and soldiers. Their ranks were made and each given a specific task that was overseen by His archangels and Himself. Lucifer, the first born, was the most perfect of all His creations and thus appointed him into lightening the stars by condensing clouds of hydrogen into star-masses and set them alight, earning him the title of "Morning Star", and also being the brightest angel in existence. Lucifer was so loved by God, even more so than Michael himself. Because of this he was prideful of himself. When God created the animals of the Earth, He created the last of His creations which was man.

He placed His two beloved creations known as Adam and Lilith in the Garden of Eden alongside His most prized creations. However, upon seeing that Lilith would not submit to Adam, He had his angels escort her out of Eden before forming the woman known as Eve from Adam's rib as a replacement for Lilith. Samael, later to be called Satan, was then tasked with watching over the humans, however, ruled over by his pride and his role as an arbiter, Samael saw that these humans were flawed and was angered that he would be tasked that he would have to guide and protect such creatures. Lucifer in the meantime, due to being His favorite, was exposed to God's plans and would only see that everything, including His children, would be under His rule and thus having no free will of their own. Lucifer was against this and rebelled against His creator.

Lucifer gathered a one third of the angelic host and waged war against God. However, there was resistance as God tasked His greatest soldier, Michael, into leading His armies and defeating his brother. After a titanic struggle, Lucifer and Samael were defeated and was cast out unto the Earth alongside their legion of rebellious angels by Michael. The collision of the fallen angels to Earth were like an endless stream of powerful fiery lightning, which soon created a deep abyss of its own and later be known as Hell that became a realm of endless punishment for the sinful.

God then continued to oversee Adam and Eve's development in the Garden of Eden, He told them that they could do anything they wanted but were prohibited to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam would name all the animals and creatures in Eden whilst Eve would name all the plants. Seeing this, Lucifer had the fallen angel Samael to possess a serpent before entering the Garden, then enticed Eve into eating the Forbidden Fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, in order for Samael to show how flawed they are and for Lucifer to cut God's hold over free will of mankind. He succeeded as Eve and then Adam was tempted into eating the fruit, from which God specifically stated not to. In the process, God had Uriel cast Adam and Eve to Earth and were cursed with the mark of sin; Eve would have labor pains while giving birth and menstrual cycles.

Cain and Abel[]

When Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, Abel became a herder of sheep while Cain was a tiller of the soil. And it happened in the course of time that Cain brought from the fruit of the soil an offering to the Almighty. And Abel too had brought from the choice firstlings of his flock, and God regarded Abel and his offering but did not regard Cain and his offering. And Cain was very incensed, and his face fell.

Jealous of God's favoritism towards Abel, Cain led his brother, while being under the influence of the Mark of Cain, out into the wilderness to kill him. Upon returning, God asked Cain, "Where is Abel your brother? And he said, "I do not know: am I my brother's keeper?" Upon realizing what he had done, God cursed Cain and his descendants, saying, "Your brother's blood cries out to me from the soil. And so, cursed shall you be by the soil that gaped with its mouth to take your brother's blood from your hand. If you till the soil, it will no longer give you strength. A restless wanderer shall you be on the earth." The curse that Cain was given prevented him from dying and being slain, which would eventually drive him mad. Cain's killing of Abel tainted the Earth with sin.

Classification[]

Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. The classification identifies five basic types:

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.

Some mythologists 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.

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

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[]

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. Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible. The authors of Genesis 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. 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.

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. 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.

Creation from Chaos[]

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.

World Parent[]

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.

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.

Emergence[]

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.

Earth-Diver[]

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.