The Gods Bring Order to Chaos

At the beginning of time, which was a very long time ago when our planet was young and there was only a formless, dark, chaotic and empty expanse of ocean everywhere with a mighty wind that raged across the surface of the water, the gods created the earth and the sky. Here is how it happened.

One day Yahweh, god of the Hebrew people, had an idea.  He said, “Let there be light,” and suddenly there was light shining on the dark turbulent waters of the vast ocean. Yahweh observed that light was a good idea.   Then Yahweh separated the light from the darkness, and he called the light “day” and he called the darkness “night.”  That was the first day. 

The next day Yahweh said, “Let there be sky in the middle of the water and let the sky separate the water into two parts.  So Yahweh made the sky and then he divided the waters that were beneath the sky from the waters that were above the sky—and he called the sky the “heavens.”  It all happened just as Yahweh said, and so as the evening arrived the second day came to an end. 

On the third day Yahweh said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land of the continents appear”; and it happened just as he said.  Yahweh called the dry land “earth”; and the waters that he gathered together he called “seas.” Yahweh liked the results of his work and concluded that he had done well. 

Then Yahweh said, “Let the earth grow grass and plants yielding seeds to reproduce themselves, and the fruit trees yielding fruit, each with seeds inside the fruit to reproduce more fruit.  Once again it happened—the words that Yahweh spoke resulted in things happening just as he said.  Grass appeared from the earth and plants grew that bore seeds, and trees grew yielding fruit containing seeds within the fruit to make more fruit.  Once again Yahweh saw that the result of his labor was good.  He worked all day and so the third day ended.

The next day Yahweh said, “Let there be lights in the sky to divide the day from the night.  Let these great lights in the sky be used as guides for sailors to navigate the seas and for determining the seasons of the year, for distinguishing the days of the week and for measuring the cycle of years.”   So Yahweh made two great lights, a powerful bright sun to rule the day and a weaker moon to rule the night.  He also made the stars and put them in the night sky.  Yahweh put the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky to give light to the earth,  to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.   Yahweh saw that he had done well.  So the morning and the evening ended the fourth day. 

The next day when Yahweh looked around he noticed that the earth and the sea were empty of life, so Yahweh said, “Let the waters bring forth lots of living creatures to crawl about and inhabit the earth and birds to fly above the earth in the sky.”  So Yahweh created great whales and creatures of all kinds, the insects that crawl on the earth, and the fish that swim in the seas. He created animals that came from the sea, which the waters brought forth in great quantities, each with its own species, and he created every type of bird and other winged creatures. 

Yahweh saw that the fish and the insects and the creatures from the sea he had created were good and he was pleased with his work.  So Yahweh blessed  the creatures he had made and told them to “be fruitful, and multiply, and spread throughout the land and fill the waters in the seas, and may the birds of the air fill the skies.”  So ended the fifth day.

The next day Yahweh said, “Let the earth bring forth the many species of animals, each reproducing its own species, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth;” and it happened just as he said.  So Yahweh made the animals, the wild beasts of the earth, and the cattle, each a separate species, and he created every species that creeps on the earth; and Yahweh saw that the animals were a good addition to the earth. 

So far there were no people, so Yahweh said to the gods, “Let us make human beings in our image, to look like us gods, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle—the people we make will rule over all the earth and over every creeping thing that crawls upon the earth.”  So Yahweh created human beings to look like him, and he created both males and females.  Yahweh favored the new people he had made and said unto them, “Be productive and increase the population and fill the earth with people.  You are in charge here.  Rule over the earth, the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, and over every living thing that moves or crawls upon the earth.  I give you control over every plant everywhere on all the earth, and over every tree that bears fruit, and they are for your food.  I give you every animal on the earth, and every bird in the air, and every thing that crawls on the earth—every living thing I have given you for food.” 

Yahweh saw all the things that he had made, and observed that it was a pretty good job and he was proud of himself.  Evening came, and it was the end of the sixth day.

Yahweh had been working creating things for six straight days and he was exhausted from all that work creating the earth, the sky, the creatures inhabiting the earth, and all of humanity, so on the seventh day he rested.

 

People long ago were curious about how our world was created.  They attempted to answer questions about the origins of our universe and our own origins as human beings with common sense observations. They created stories that helped explain how and why our universe exists. Most cultures and traditions have stories to explain their world. This story reflects an earlier story from Mesopotamia known as the Enuma Elish, the story of the beginnings. Today most people around the world answer questions about the origins of our universe with scientific explanations from astronomy, geology, biology and physics, rather than with pre-scientific stories and myths. Some fundamentalist religious groups believe that the biblical story of creation is a literal description of how our world was created and so they reject scientific explanations.  This creation story attempts to explain such questions as where water comes from when it rains, why Jews and Christians recognize the 7th day of week as a day of rest, and why human beings are the dominant species on earth. It was obvious to people that there was water “beneath,” because they found water when they dug a well; it was also obvious that there was a reservoir of water “above the sky,” because that was where water came from when the skies were opened and the rain came down.  They believed the sky was like an inverted bowl with holes that let the light through at night (the stars) and kept the water that was above the sky from falling until the sky was “opened” so that rain could fall. Yahweh is the personal name of the god of the Hebrew tribes.  In most modern translations of the bible the generic word god is used, but that word means any god.  The language of the bible in Hebrew actually uses the god's name, Yahweh (which was wrongly translated as Jehovah in older English translations).