Journal of Seven Heavens

Journal of Seven Heavens

The Myths of Creation in Ancient Greece

Document Type : Original Article

Author
Narjes Aboulghasemi
M. A in Religions and Mysticism
Abstract
Man's encounter with the world raises a great many questions for him. He asks: How is the world created? What is the nature of the world? What is going to happen to the world? And especially: How does the world work? Man's attempt to answer these questions gives birth to cosmology. The diversity of the answers to these questions causes the diversity of cosmologies. Cosmology has had three periods: magical, mythological, and geometrical. This paper is concerned to examine the cosmology of the ancient Greece, which is closely associated with mythology, especially the myths of creation. The way in which the world is created and the existence and the nature of its ruling force are the points with which the myths are concerned. The myths of creation can be divided into six groups: 1. Creation out of nothing; 2. Creation out of Chaos; 3. Creation out of the cosmic seed; 4. Creation out of the cosmic parents; 5. A supernatural and sudden creation; 6. And creation through diving. There are a wide range of accounts of the myths of creation in the ancient Greece; they are given by Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, Pelasgians, Pherecides, and Diodorus Siculus. This paper is concerned with these accounts.
 
Keywords
Myth of creation
ancient Greece
chaos
cosmic parents
cosmic seed
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  • Receive Date 25 March 2011
  • Revise Date 26 May 2011
  • Accept Date 26 June 2011