Select three of the stories from the Near East and discuss the following: What is humanity’s place and role in the sacred reality portrayed in each of these stories?  Then compare and contrast the visions of humanity with the other stories of this area and determine if the similarities are strong enough to enable us to speak of a Near Eastern view of human identity.  Explain your answer. Finally, compare and contrast the view/views of human identity you found in the Near East with the view/views you found in Africa.

“The Repulsing of the Dragon and the Creation” (Sproul 87-90).

     The ancient Egyptians had a pantheon of gods, each with different purposes. But “Re” (sometimes “Ra”) was a major deity, and plays the starring role in this story, which was also an oral history sometimes acted out in ritual ceremonies. Re was synonymous with the sun, and the sun is a major component in many creation stories and myths. Primitive peoples didn't know how our solar system (and beyond) was organized, but they did know that the sun was crucial for life. Its disappearance every evening, and re-emergence at the opposite horizon in the morning, was a mystifying event. The fact that the earth's rotation was responsible was not yet known, so the sun was often thought of as a “god” that journeyed through the skies. The Egyptians envisioned Re's travels as dangerous, because of a dragon named Apophis that waited for him in the darkness (the Egyptian night) with hopes to destroy him. It sounds a little paranoid to us in modern times, but when you imagine them seeing a solar eclipse, with no scientific explanation available, it begins to make sense.

     The ways in which Re created the other gods, the world, and humans are where things get bizarre in the Egyptian domain. Re speaks: “Many were the beings which came forth from my mouth... I was the one who copulated with my fist, I masturbated with my hand. Then I spewed with my own mouth” (88). Re removes one of his eyes so it can watch two of the gods he made (“air” and “moisture”), and later this eye returns to him, and weeps. Re again: “That is how men came into being from the tears which came forth...” (88, 89). The remainder of the story is Re's account of how he defeated Apophis, the dragon, and a curse/spell on the same that the Egyptians were instructed to utter during rituals.

     These ancient Egyptians were a brazen sort, it would seem.

“From Berossus' Account of the Babylonian Genesis” (121-2)

     For me, this creation story epitomizes the idea of order being created out of chaos. The universe is originally a vast watery expanse ruled over by the goddess Omorka, and there are numerous creatures that come into being there. But they are all weird mutations of common animals and humans- men with wings, or with legs of goats, men with two heads. It almost presages the concept of evolution- nature itself no doubt has had similar failed experiments. It's a charmingly imaginative way to symbolize a world in disarray.

     A god named Bel comes to the rescue, and cuts Omorka the goddess in halves, with one becoming the earth and the other the sky. In doing so, the mutant creatures are destroyed and the universe is brought into order. As his final act, Bel cuts off his own head, and the resultant blood mixes with the earth and becomes men.

     It's a similar concept to the Egyptians in its creation of men from a god's body fluids, but there's also the primordial waters that will arise in the next story.

“Genesis 1-2:3” (122-5).

     This is the creation story that the majority of us are most familiar with. But it becomes readily apparent that it borrowed components from earlier religions in the area. Notice how the ocean, or the “deep” comes up across the spectrum of world myths. There seems to be a consensus that our planet was originally just a vast ocean and nothing else. Astrophysics refutes this- it's simply not true. Earth was an extremely hot and waterless spherical rock for a very long time after it was first formed.But the ocean/creation connection is correct- it's just not the original state of things. Life did come from the oceans, but the oceans didn't come into being until about 200 million years after the earth was here.

     I think it's difficult to find much unity in the Near East creation stories for a view of humanity. There were many diverse cultures in the region, and these myths span a long amount of history there. The one aspect I did notice, in comparison to the African stories, is that humanity tends to play a much smaller role. The Near East's gods are more powerful. Could it be because these societies were more powerful than the Africans'? It's also noteworthy that the older myths have more gods, and that monotheism evolved over time. Egypt's very explicit references to bodily functions are in stark contrast to the restraint shown in Genesis, and the Babylonians could be viewed as a bridge between the two. For me the Near East myths were a lot more complex to sort through, and in the case of Babylon's "Enuma Elish" (91-113), to get through at all.

Sproul, Barbara C.  Primal Myths Creation Myths Around the World.  New York:  HarperCollins,

            1991.  Print