Genesis And Theogony... Plagiarism Essay - 1483 Words

Genesis and Theogony†¦Plagiarism? The Book of Genesis is a compilation, and like every compilation it has a wide variety of contributors who, in turn, have their individual influence upon the final work. It is no surprise, then, that there exist certain parallels between the Theogony, the cosmogony of the early Greeks, and the Book of Genesis, the first part of the Pentateuch section of the Bible. In fact, arguments may be made that the extent of this borrowing, as it were, is not limited to Genesis; the Theogony has its own roots in Greek mythology, predating the Book of Genesis by a thousand years. A superficial examination of this evidence would erroneously lead one to believe that Genesis is somewhat a collection of older mythology†¦show more content†¦The message remained constant, but the context would subtly change. There were tribes of Israel in Egypt during the Egyptian Middle Kingdom period, which certainly exposed these people to Egyptian culture as well as Babylonian culture as a result of trade between the two kingdoms. Having placed Abraham and certain early Semites in this time, we now understand the culture they knew and the impact it had on the creation of Genesis. The book of Genesis is about the beginnings of creation and life on earth. It begins with â€Å"nothingness† and in the first seven days following God creates the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, the seas, plant life, then came the sun and the moon, the fowls and the creatures who roam the lands, followed by humankind to finish it all off. Comparing the creation aspects of Genesis to Theogony, we see that the earth was again created out of â€Å"nothingness† known as Chaos. Chaos, instead of creating everything on earth, created several other godly beings to create the earth as it is today. Therefore, it can be deduced that the stories of Genesis we derived from the stories of the gods and goddesses of Theogony. Another similarity the stories possess is in the identity and condemnation of women as evil. In Theogony women were created to be an evil placed upon the earth to cause suffering for men because Iapetos, a mischievous god, stole fire from Zeus and pres ented it to man. In retaliation, Zeus had his lame smith mold the shape of a â€Å"modest