The World and Its Origin - Essay Example

s Creation Myths The world and its origin has piqued the curiosity of everyindividual the world; before the theory of evolution was brought forward every culture had their own take on the creation of the world. Besides cultural, there is a strong religious connotations attached to the creation of the world; out of all the tales the Judeo-Christian version highlighted in the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible has become synonymous with everyone and has established the framework for sexual identities and gender roles in the society. The substance of this prose will not only discuss the Christian version of the origin of this world but will also highlight Islamic version that closely follows the same Christian version but with some stark differences in its depiction. The myth covered in the book of Genesis delves deep in to the state of the world which was “a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…” (Genesis, 1:2). The universe was completely shapeless and as God’s spirit hovered over the waters, he said, “Let there be light” and the world came into being. He separated the light from the darkness and called it ‘Night’ and “Day”. The creation of the world according to Christian scriptures took 6 days and each day signified the creation of one aspects of the world. On the first day, God separated the dome from the waters “God called the Dome Sky” (Genesis, 1:8). The second day was the birth of land and seas and “plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth to bear fruit with the seed in it.”(Genesis 1:11) The process of creation continued and on the third day the stars, moon and the sun were fashioned. The fourth day saw the creation of sea monsters, all living and winged creatures came into being. The fifth day is described in the following verse as it saw the creation of “… the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps along the ground of every kind.” (Genesis 1:25). Finally, it was the sixth day when God actually came up with the idea of creating man, this aspect of the myth was outlined in the following verse and this was how the humankind came into existence. The Bible says, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26). The creation of the first man named Adam was then followed by the creation of a woman, who was named Eve. According to the Bible, Eve’s creation was ordained by the Lord to make a “helper suitable for (man)” (Genesis 2:18). The Biblical scriptures further described how Eve was made as she was fashioned out of Adam’s rib, “… one of his [Adam’s] ribs…the rib… he made into a woman and brought her to the man.” (Genesis 2:22) Both the man and woman were required to live in peace in Eden, until Eve was seduced by the serpent to eat the forbidden and she also led Adam astray that led to their eviction from there abode. Their eviction is a sign of God’s fury, but their punishment did not end there. The myth further highlights God’s discourse with Adam and Eve where he says to the woman “I will greatly increase your pangs of childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16). The man on the other hand was cursed by the Lord and it was ordained that “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:17). That is how the world came into being according to Christian beliefs, on the other hand the Islamic version followed the similar pattern but to describe the length of time that took for the creation to take place the Islamic scripture uses the word “Youm”. The Arabic word ‘youm’ means a day but in metaphorical terms it could also be used to mean eons. Furthermore, the scripture also takes the ‘Big Bang Theory’ into regard in the following verse "The heavens and the earth were joined together as one unit, before We clove them asunder" (Holy Quran, 21:30). Following this massive explosion, the world came in to existence. Biblical structure delve into great detail regarding various aspects of the creation whereas, Quranic account of creation is brief and only superficial. The Islamic actually recounts the creation of Man and states, “We created man from sounding clay, from mud molded into shape...” (Holy Quran 15:26). Quranic scriptures do not delve in much detail regarding the creation of a female counterpart for the man but it does rule out the Christian belief of viewing women as inferior or as mere helpers to man in the following where it is stated, “It is He Who created you from a single person, and made his mate of like nature, in order that he might dwell with her in love" (Holy Quran 7:189). Therefore, it is abundantly clear that the gender roles in Christianity and Islam bear a striking difference and neither the woman nor the man is deemed inferior. Moreover, the Christian version of the creation tale actually highlights some very interesting aspect regarding female behavior and a strong element of heterosexuality. As the tale recounted, it was the woman who actually lost her self-control and gave in to the satanic machinations of the serpent and then she further led the man astray thereby, a man is naturally inclined to being seduced by a woman and follows the wrong path if he is manipulated by her. On the other hand, both man and woman were held responsible for their expulsion from Eden, and unlike the biblical scripture that explicitly describes the role of women as “yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis, 3:16) Critical analyses of the scripture further highlights a strong correlation between sex and the sin committed by both Adam & Eve in the Christian version. Besides the fact that in the Christian version the man has adopted a higher and superior status both in terms of virtuosity and in their general as the woman is considered a “suitable helper” for man, and the incorporation of sexuality is only done as an undertone and there is no brazen or overt reference to sexual activities or any form of deviancy in either versions. However, as mentioned earlier, the fact that women are often given the role of a seductress can be understood with proper analysis of the myth and that is why men so easily fell to the manipulations of his woman. Furthermore, the violation of God’s law was symbolic of vulnerability to sin as well. In Genesis, it is described that both man and woman “were both naked and felt no shame” (Genesis, 2:25), the nakedness is symbolic of the fact that they did not feel any sort of vulnerability towards each other but once they consumed the forbidden fruit it was their vulnerability to sin and in other words, their susceptibility actually had a strong reference towards sexual encounters. Furthermore, the creation of man and woman, and their relationship was highly sexual in its nature because once they were expelled it was required of them to multiply and populate this world, therefore, that vulnerability became a pre-requisite to further strengthen and lay foundations for that kind of union. (Clark & Rakestraw, 1995, p. 152) The latter aspect is discussed in greater detail in the Islamic version than the Christian version, whereby it is stressed that the first man and woman were created from the same soul and nature, and in this regard both versions incorporate a very sex-positive themes. Hence, it is their duty to procreate and multiply out of love, not out of lust that manifested in the form of them violating God’s one and only rule. In conclusion, both Christian and Islamic points of view are essentially the same but there are some differences in the detail of the sin and gender roles. (Clark & Rakestraw, 1995, p. 152) Works Cited Clark, David K. & Rakestraw, Robert V. “Readings in Christian Ethics: Issues and Application.” Cambridge: Baker Academic. 1995: p. 152 The Holy Bible: The Book of Genesis. Revised Standard Version. New York: Harper, 1983 The Holy Quran. Trans. Abdullah Yusuf Ali. TTQ, NNC. 1998 Read More