Creation, the creating of the universe, and often also of the creatures that inhabit it, explained in mythological terms. One of the principal purposes of mythological tradition worldwide is to give an account of the creating of the cosmos. Mythographers (i.e. those who record and analyse myths) often make a distinction between “creation myths” (cosmogonies), which tell how the world arose or was created from a primal state, and “myths of origin”, which explain how later features of the known world, such as human beings, animals, or the social order, came into being. In reality, myths of origin are usually continuations of a cosmogony, revealing the further action of an original creative impulse. In the biblical book of Genesis, for example, the Hebrew god Yahweh (see Jehovah) is first a primary creator deity, separating the elements and forming the Earth. Later, after he has made the first humans, Adam and Eve, Yahweh becomes a law-giver; and the myth of the exile from the Garden of Eden accounts for the origin of such aspects of life as the need to cultivate the soil, the pain of childbirth, and the presence of death. One aspect of the telling of a “living myth” (i.e. a myth that belongs to the religious experience of its audience) is that it enables the listener to re-enter the “strong” time of creation when the world was in its infancy.

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Cosmogonies usually take for granted the existence “from the beginning of time” of primal matter, or even of the world itself, which is then shaped into a recognisable form either by the action of cosmic forces or by creator deities. Certain images of the uncreated cosmos often recur in different traditions: it may be represented as a void, as a state of chaos or of unformed elements, as a primeval sea, or a “cosmic egg” containing all things in embryonic form. Creation myths may reflect the environmental circumstances of a particular society. In Mesopotamia, the land between the great rivers ...

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