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by joepiler on January 27th, 2011

joepiler

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If all civilisations resulted from Adam and Eve, and oral traditions about the god that created them were passed down from generation to

generation, why are there so many other creation stories in the world? Why didn't all civilisations keep their 'true' religion?

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Answers. 13 helpful answers below.

  • by iwnit on January 27th, 2011

    iwnit

    1) We should not take a mythical account literally.

    The fact that so many creation accounts exist, and that they are so different, probably means that many people need to have a creation myth.


    2) "A creation myth or creation story is a symbolic narrative of a culture, tradition or people that describes their earliest beginnings, how the world they know began and how they first came into it. Creation myths develop in oral traditions, and are the most common form of myth, found throughout human culture. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths, although not necessarily in a historical or literal sense. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths—that is they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions.
    Several features are found in all creation myths. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human like figures or animals who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past, what historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore. And all creation myths speak to deeply meaningful questions held by the society that shares them, revealing of their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context."
    Source and further information:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth

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  • by RosieGHM Jetpacker on January 27th, 2011

    RosieGHM Jetpacker

    Because all religios are "the one true religion". :)

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  • by RefreshPerspective on January 27th, 2011

    RefreshPerspective

    It makes sense if you don't think about it.

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  • by Anonymous on January 27th, 2011

    Anonymous

    Well, keep in mind that the starting point should actually be Noah's family after the Flood. The religions and beliefs of the rest of Earth's population would have been wiped out along with all other human life.

    I imagine the explanation for such widely differing creation myths would be either intentional (they were attempting to defy God in order to live their lives they way they wanted) or unintentional (the game of Telephone).

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  • by vew573 on January 28th, 2011

    vew573

    Why didn’t all civilizations keep their “true” religion?

    Adam and Eve were created perfect. If they had been obedient, they would have been granted everlasting life and the opportunity to fill the earth with their perfect offspring who would all worship the one true God Jehovah.

    Satan, an ambitious angel, rebels, wants humans to worship him and follow him. -------He tells lies to deceive Eve into rebellion and Adam follows suit. Thus, they choose to follow Satan rather than God.

    Satan has now set himself as a rival ruler. He brings into question the rightfulness and righteousness of God’s ruler ship. He told Adam and Eve: “…God knows that the day you eat of that fruit, you will be able to choose for yourself what is right and what is wrong. (You will be able to rule yourself you don’t need God).

    God could have destroyed them. That would have proved who is the most powerful. But, it wouldn’t have answered the challenge and there were many other angels watching to see how God would handle this.

    Therefore, God in his wisdom has allowed time for Satan and his followers to try and prove themselves. The terrible state that the world is in today proves beyond any doubt who was telling the truth. Man, under Satan’s direction, cannot successfully rule himself and solve the many problems that has resulted from this rival ruler ship. Satan has been proved the liar that he is.

    Now, when God destroys Satan and all other rebels, no one can rightly say: “But they didn’t have a chance, perhaps they were right.” At the same time, a precedent has been set so that if anytime in the future any creature, spirit or fleshly, decides to rebel he can be destroyed immediately. There will be no reason to let anyone disrupt the peace again.

    So you see, Satan has set up, not only a rival ruler ship, he has also set up rival religions…Anything to confuse the masses and keep them under his control.

    If this makes any sense to you, and if you want to know how I came to this conclusion Scripturally, I will be glad to answer any questions.

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  • by landmarker on January 28th, 2011

    landmarker

    the bible has the answer to this question. in genesis the statement is made that men began to do what was right in their own eyes.

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  • by AnonymousGirl on February 3rd, 2011

    AnonymousGirl

    Perhaps this can be likened to the game "Telephone".

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  • by vew573 on January 28th, 2011

    vew573

    joepiler, It's true, Some people do seek to associate the Biblical account of creation with mythological pagan accounts, such as the well-known Babylonian Creation Epic. Actually, there were various creation stories in ancient Babylon, but the one that has become well known is a myth having to do with Marduk, Babylon’s national god. Briefly, the story tells of the existence of the goddess Tiamat and the god Apsu, who became the parents of other deities. The activities of these gods became so distressing to Apsu that he determined to destroy them. However, Apsu was killed by one of these gods, Ea, and when Tiamat sought to avenge Apsu, she was killed by Ea’s son Marduk, who then split her body, using half of it to form the sky and using the other half in connection with the earth’s establishment. Marduk’s subsequent acts included creating mankind (with Ea’s aid), using the blood of another god, Kingu, the director of Tiamat’s hosts.

    Did the Bible borrow from Babylonian creation stories as some claim?
    In his book, P. J. Wiseman points out that, when the Babylonian creation tablets were first discovered, some scholars expected further discovery and research to show that there was a correspondency between them and the Genesis account of creation. Some thought that it would become apparent that the Genesis account was borrowed from the Babylonian. However, further discovery and research have merely made apparent the great gulf between the two accounts. They do not parallel each other. Wiseman quotes The Babylonian Legends of the Creation and the Fight Between Bel and the Dragon, issued by the Trustees of the British Museum, who hold that “the fundamental conceptions of the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts are essentially different.” He himself observes: “It is more than a pity that many theologians, instead of keeping abreast of modern archaeological research, continue to repeat the now disproved theory of Hebrew ‘borrowings’ from Babylonian sources.”—Creation Revealed in Six Days, London, 1949, p. 58.

    While some have pointed to what seemed to them to have been similarities between the Babylonian epic and the Genesis account of creation, it is readily apparent from the preceding consideration of the Biblical creation narrative and the foregoing epitome of the Babylonian myth that they are not really similar. Therefore, a detailed analysis of them side by side is unnecessary. However, in considering seeming similarities and differences (such as the order of events) in these accounts, Professor George A. Barton observed: “A more important difference lies in the religious conceptions of the two. The Babylonian poem is mythological and polytheistic. Its conception of deity is by no means exalted. Its gods love and hate, they scheme and plot, fight and destroy. Marduk, the champion, conquers only after a fierce struggle, which taxes his powers to the utmost. Genesis, on the other hand, reflects the most exalted monotheism. God is so thoroughly the master of all the elements of the universe, that they obey his slightest word. He controls all without effort. He speaks and it is done. Granting, as most scholars do, that there is a connection between the two narratives, there is no better measure of the inspiration of the Biblical account than to put it side by side with the Babylonian. As we read the chapter in Genesis today, it still reveals to us the majesty and power of the one God, and creates in the modern man, as it did in the ancient Hebrew, a worshipful attitude toward the Creator.”—Archaeology and the Bible, 1949, pp. 297, 298.

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  • by WABOO on January 27th, 2011

    WABOO

    Because of Nebucadnezzar. Just kidding.

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  • by moonkicker on January 27th, 2011

    moonkicker

    Actually if you read the Genesis account, god created humans, and then in the next chapter he created Adam.

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  • by stonedsober on January 27th, 2011

    stonedsober

    So that we could act all ignorant and lost.

    To afford your vanity.

    Do you doubt the promise of Revelation?

    Have we been consumed by our own pride to deny the power of the unseen?

    Would we have been able to have children if the polarities were not of satan being "in control?"

    A matter of means to an end.

    Eternity for you, them, and us.

    im a dumb lunatic, with nothing to lose.

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  • by spreader on January 28th, 2011

    spreader

    God created Adam to live on earth, not in heaven. Earth was not to be a mere testing ground to see if Adam qualified for heaven. God formed the earth “to be inhabited,” and Adam was its first human inhabitant. (Isaiah 45:18;) Later, when God created Eve as a wife for Adam, God’s purpose for them was that they should populate the earth and turn it into a paradise as humankind’s eternal home.(Genesis 1:26-31)
    Nowhere does the Bible say that part of Adam was immortal. On the contrary, his existence was conditional, based on obedience to God’s law. If he broke that law, Eternal life in the spirit realm? Not at all. Instead, he would “positively die.” (Genesis 2:17) He would go back where he came from: “Dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 2:7; 3:19) Adam had no existence before he was created, and he would have none after he died. So he had only two choices: (1) obedience and life or (2) disobedience and death. If Adam had not sinned, he would have lived on earth forever. He would never have gone to heaven, the same with you and me,

    Adam and Eve’s rebellious course resulted in their losing God’s favor and the opportunity of living forever in an earthly paradise. The perfect bodies that God had given them began to deteriorate, finally to the point of death. Now prone to sickness and death, they could only bring forth children similarly handicapped. “Who can produce someone clean out of someone unclean?” Job once asked and then went on to answer: “There is not one.” (Job 14:4) As each generation gets farther away from mankind’s perfect start, imperfections increase.If we do not accept the Bible’s, account of Adam and Eve, then how do we explain why, despite technological and scientific progress, man continues to get sick and die?
    But Immediately after Adam and Eve rebelled, God promised that not all was lost. He foretold a “seed” who would eventually restore righteous conditions and do away with badness. (See Genesis 3:15) This “seed” turned out to be Jesus Christ, who ransomed mankind and prepared the way for restoring God-rule for the benefit of obedient people.

    While the majority people allow their attention and time to be occupied with the knowledge of this world’s systems offer, a steadily increasing number of persons are looking elsewhere. They now feel a definite and urgent need for gaining a clear understanding of the Bible. They want knowledge that is solid and reliable, facts on which to base their convictions and hopes. They seek a guide to help solve the everyday problems of life, to aid in making right decisions in times of crisis. And, above all, they are interested in God’s promise of everlasting life and in knowing his requirements. This information the Bible will give them, but they need to understand what they read (John 17:3)

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  • by vew573 on January 28th, 2011

    vew573

    joepiler, It's true, Some people do seek to associate the Biblical account of creation with mythological pagan accounts, such as the well-known Babylonian Creation Epic. Actually, there were various creation stories in ancient Babylon, but the one that has become well known is a myth having to do with Marduk, Babylon’s national god. Briefly, the story tells of the existence of the goddess Tiamat and the god Apsu, who became the parents of other deities. The activities of these gods became so distressing to Apsu that he determined to destroy them. However, Apsu was killed by one of these gods, Ea, and when Tiamat sought to avenge Apsu, she was killed by Ea’s son Marduk, who then split her body, using half of it to form the sky and using the other half in connection with the earth’s establishment. Marduk’s subsequent acts included creating mankind (with Ea’s aid), using the blood of another god, Kingu, the director of Tiamat’s hosts.

    Did the Bible borrow from Babylonian creation stories as some claim?
    In his book, P. J. Wiseman points out that, when the Babylonian creation tablets were first discovered, some scholars expected further discovery and research to show that there was a correspondency between them and the Genesis account of creation. Some thought that it would become apparent that the Genesis account was borrowed from the Babylonian. However, further discovery and research have merely made apparent the great gulf between the two accounts. They do not parallel each other. Wiseman quotes The Babylonian Legends of the Creation and the Fight Between Bel and the Dragon, issued by the Trustees of the British Museum, who hold that “the fundamental conceptions of the Babylonian and Hebrew accounts are essentially different.” He himself observes: “It is more than a pity that many theologians, instead of keeping abreast of modern archaeological research, continue to repeat the now disproved theory of Hebrew ‘borrowings’ from Babylonian sources.”—Creation Revealed in Six Days, London, 1949, p. 58.

    While some have pointed to what seemed to them to have been similarities between the Babylonian epic and the Genesis account of creation, it is readily apparent from the preceding consideration of the Biblical creation narrative and the foregoing epitome of the Babylonian myth that they are not really similar. Therefore, a detailed analysis of them side by side is unnecessary. However, in considering seeming similarities and differences (such as the order of events) in these accounts, Professor George A. Barton observed: “A more important difference lies in the religious conceptions of the two. The Babylonian poem is mythological and polytheistic. Its conception of deity is by no means exalted. Its gods love and hate, they scheme and plot, fight and destroy. Marduk, the champion, conquers only after a fierce struggle, which taxes his powers to the utmost. Genesis, on the other hand, reflects the most exalted monotheism. God is so thoroughly the master of all the elements of the universe, that they obey his slightest word. He controls all without effort. He speaks and it is done. Granting, as most scholars do, that there is a connection between the two narratives, there is no better measure of the inspiration of the Biblical account than to put it side by side with the Babylonian. As we read the chapter in Genesis today, it still reveals to us the majesty and power of the one God, and creates in the modern man, as it did in the ancient Hebrew, a worshipful attitude toward the Creator.”—Archaeology and the Bible, 1949, pp. 297, 298.

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