Mythology compare - Research Paper Example

Social insights are much more prevalent as each culture is able to pull out those elements of a story that has specific meaning within that culture. In relaying important cultural and societal ideologies, myths are also useful learning tools for the young people of society as they begin to learn what is expected of them individually and the consequences if they fail to behave according to plan. These differences in social and individual outcomes are often due to the differences in religion and environment in the region in which the myth originated.

These ideas can be best understood when comparing myths from two different cultures, such as the myth of creation found among the Iroquois people of the North American continent as compared to the Judeo-Christian creation myth we are more familiar with today. The Judeo-Christian creation myth is presented to us in the Book of Genesis in the Bible, which is purported to be the actual word of God given to us through the hand of man. In this myth, there is a divine being that exists in some kind of void.

Tired of this existence, He decides to make something, which turns out to be the land as it is separated from the sky, the sun and the moon; then as it is separated from the sea and then as it is covered in plants and made to be teeming with life of various different forms. All of these things were created by this Divine Being, God, as He called them forward out of the nothingness during a period of five days. On the sixth day, He created people, one man and one woman, gave them the entire Earth to live on with one area in particular, the Garden of Eden, being the most perfect place for them to live as long as they didn’t eat from a specific tree.

Of course, the people did eat from this tree and so they were banned from the garden and forced to work for their welfare and to raise children to populate the earth. In Iroquois legend, the world was formed as a