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A creation myth (or creation story) is a cultural, religious or traditional myth which describes the earliest beginnings of the present world. Creation myths are the most common form of myth, usually developing first in oral traditions , and are found throughout human culture.
Hesiod's Theogony, (c. 700 BC) which could be considered the "standard" creation myth of Greek mythology, [1] tells the story of the genesis of the gods. After invoking the Muses (II.1–116), Hesiod says the world began with the spontaneous generation of four beings: first arose Chaos (Chasm); then came Gaia (the Earth), "the ever-sure foundation of all"; "dim" Tartarus (the Underworld), in ...
Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued.
Ideas similar to the cosmic egg myth are mentioned in two different sources from Greek and Roman mythology. One is in the Roman author Marcus Terentius Varro , living in the 1st century BC. According to Varro, heaven and earth can respectively be likened to an egg shell and its yolk.
Also in Greek mythology, Prometheus moulds a clay statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom to whom he is devoted, and gives it life from a stolen sunbeam. [23] Pandora, from Greek mythology, was fashioned from clay and given the quality of "naïve grace combined with feeling". [24]
In Greek mythology, Centaurus (Ancient Greek: Κένταυρος, romanized: Kentauros) is the son of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river-god Peneius and the naiad Creusa. He is the twin brother of the hero Lapithes [1] and father of the race of mythological beasts known as the Centaurs or Ixionidae (Ιξιονίδαι, Ixionidai). The ...
Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place after the initial origin. These stories aim to explain the origins of natural phenomena or human institutions within an already existing world.
The idea of creatio ex materia is found in ancient near eastern cosmology, early Greek cosmology such as is in the works of Homer and Hesiod, [1] and across the board in ancient Greek philosophy. [2] It was also held by a few early Christians, although creatio ex nihilo was the dominant concept among such writers.