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creation ex nihilo

I finally managed to hit pay-dirt searching through Egyptian texts antedating the P Document creation story in Genesis 1. While I came across a number of texts that speak of a transcendent god, who existed independent of the primordial watery abyss, perhaps the best one is the Papyrus Hunefur, written during the nineteenth dynasty, ca. 1285 BCE, which resides in the British Museum. Referring to Ra, it states:

Thou art the one god who came into being int the beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth. Thou didst fashion man. Thou didst make the watery abyss of the sky [i.e. Nut]. Thou didst form Hapi [i.e. the Nile]. Thou didst create the great deep. . . .

Since, according to this Late Bronze Age papyrus, the universal godhead created Nut, the watery abyss out of which, in many earlier Egyptian creation myths, the gods themselves arose, this has to constitute creation ex nihilo. Thus, Genesis 1, written ca. 750 BCE is not unique in the ancient world, nor is it even the first creation myth featuring a god that transcends the material world, including the primeval abyss.
 
TimCallahan said:
I
Thou art the one god who came into being int the beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth. Thou didst fashion man. Thou didst make the watery abyss of the sky [i.e. Nut]. Thou didst form Hapi [i.e. the Nile]. Thou didst create the great deep. . . .
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I wonder if they are talking about the Milky Way - the oldest reference I have is Greek and talks about the Milky being breast milk that Hercules failed to drink hence forfeiting his chance to be a God
 
TimCallahan said:
I finally managed to hit pay-dirt searching through Egyptian texts antedating the P Document creation story in Genesis 1. While I came across a number of texts that speak of a transcendent god, who existed independent of the primordial watery abyss, perhaps the best one is the Papyrus Hunefur, written during the nineteenth dynasty, ca. 1285 BCE, which resides in the British Museum. Referring to Ra, it states:

Thou art the one god who came into being int the beginning of time. Thou didst create the earth. Thou didst fashion man. Thou didst make the watery abyss of the sky [i.e. Nut]. Thou didst form Hapi [i.e. the Nile]. Thou didst create the great deep. . . .

Since, according to this Late Bronze Age papyrus, the universal godhead created Nut, the watery abyss out of which, in many earlier Egyptian creation myths, the gods themselves arose, this has to constitute creation ex nihilo. Thus, Genesis 1, written ca. 750 BCE is not unique in the ancient world, nor is it even the first creation myth featuring a god that transcends the material world, including the primeval abyss.
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Reminds me of Brahman.
 
MG1962 said:
I wonder if they are talking about the Milky Way - the oldest reference I have is Greek and talks about the Milky being breast milk that Hercules failed to drink hence forfeiting his chance to be a God
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Yes I would think so, although their mystics would use a deeper concept I think. Along the lines of an infinite void or what we might refer to as timespace or the multiverse.
 
If this site is correct, the mythology of the Mik'Maq - the native people of the maritime provinces of Canada - has a creation ex nihilo:
link above said:
Gisoolg is the Great Spirit Creator who is the one who made everything. The wor[d] Gisoolg in Mik'Maq means "you have been created". It also means "the one credited for your existence". ...
The Mik'Maq people do not explain how the Great Spirit came into existence only that Gisoolg is responsible for everything being where it is today. Gisoolg made everything.
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So even if the myth in Genesis describes a preexisting creator, it wouldn't be unique; not even unique to the Middle East, apparently.
 
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punshhh said:
Reminds me of Brahman.
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Yes, he's another who created ex nihilo. In the Rig Veda, written anywhere from 1400 to 1000 BCE the question is asked (as quoted by David A. Leeming in his 2010 book Creation Myths of the World, p. 3):

If in the beginning there was neither Being nor Non-Being, neither air nor sky what was there? Who or what oversaw it? What was it when there was no darkness, light, life or death? We can only say that there was the One that which breathed of itself deep in the void, that which was heat and became desire and the germ of spirit.

I looked up other sources for ex nihilo creation after I read that the Wallis Budge translation of the Papyrus Hunefur, which I used, might be open to criticism, since a number of his translations have been challenged. Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to find a later translation against which to check the one I quoted.
 
blobru said:
If this site is correct, the mythology of the Mik'Maq - the native people of the maritime provinces of Canada - has a creation ex nihilo:


So even if the myth in Genesis describes a preexisting creator, it wouldn't be unique; not even unique to the Middle East, apparently.
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Yes, there are a lot ex nihilo creation stories in the world. I haven't used those of non-literate peoples, because they are always subject to being interpreted as the product of cultural contamination from Christian missionaries, whereas ancient written documents are not subject to such a charge.
 
Perhaps punshhh can draw all these old primitive myths together and tell us where the universe really came from. After all, he's a mystic.
 
The translations of Egyptian material by E.A. Wallis Budge are, it turns out, often considered outdated and possibly faulty. However, in a more up to date translation of another text, a hymn to the god Ptah in the Papyrus Harris I, written during the reign of Ramesses III (1182 – 1151 BCE), also speaks of a transcendent god (from Hymns, Prayers and Songs, An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Lyric Poetry John L Foster, translator 1995, p. 109):

Greetings to you exalted ancient one,
O Tatenen [Ptah] father of the gods,
Eldest god of the primeval time,
who shaped mankind and formed the gods,
Who began Becoming, is the first primeval god -
every event that occurred came after him.
Who created the sky according to what his heart imagined
and raised it like a feather
Who founded the world as his own creation,
circled it about with Ocean and the Great Green Sea
Who made the underworld, province for the dead
allowing Ra o sail across below to comfort them
Ruler of Eternity forever.

That Ptah is credited here with creating the sky and the sea, the two abysses from which the gods emerge, demonstrates that Ptah, in this hymn, was seen as independent of the abyss. This is reinforced a few lines down from those quoted above when Ptah is hailed as (ibid):

Who created the offerings for all the gods
when he embodied himself as Nun, the primeval chaos.

Since, in those Egyptian creation stories in which the gods do rise out of the primordial chaos, that chaos or watery abyss is Nun, Ptah, by embodying himself as Nun becomes transcendent.
 
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dafydd said:
Perhaps punshhh can draw all these old primitive myths together and tell us where the universe really came from. After all, he's a mystic.
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I can't tell you where the universe really came from because that is a mystery.

But I can draw all these old primitive myths together. Each myth has a deity which is described along the lines of an almighty creator, the creator of the creators, the causeless cause personified. They are mythic characters, but they refer to something real. They are derived from early philosophical ponderings on the nature of existence and how this world came to be.

Simply, God is a cypher for the origin and meaning of our world, whatever that is.

Early philosophers on thinking about it realised that a creator which didn't create everything was only a bit part and must have been created by some other earlier bigger creator. Which would be a better candidate for being called God. So over time God came to be a deity who was so early, so all pervading in its creative act that it did literally create everything. Nothing came before and there was no larger world in which God was a bit player. Perhaps they found the idea of regression (turtles all the way down) and creation ex nihilo was the antidote for that.

Thus was born the omnipotent God. But all it is and ever was referring to was the ultimate origin of our world whatever that is, anthropomorphized into a person.

Creation ex nihilo = the origin of existence itself.

The human condition is impelled to think that all things had a cause, because thats how things work in our world. Therefore existence itself must have a cause. Whatever that cause is is God, Brahman etc etc...
 
punshhh said:
I can't tell you where the universe really came from because that is a mystery.
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What a surprise...

punshhh said:
But I can draw all these old primitive myths together. Each myth has a deity which is described along the lines of an almighty creator, the creator of the creators, the causeless cause personified. They are mythic characters, but they refer to something real. They are derived from early philosophical ponderings on the nature of existence and how this world came to be.
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No.

punshhh said:
Simply, God is a cypher for the origin and meaning of our world, whatever that is.
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No, it's not. You don't get to redefine words. At the very least you have to qualify it with "for me".

punshhh said:
Early philosophers on thinking about it realised that a creator which didn't create everything was only a bit part and must have been created by some other earlier bigger creator. Which would be a better candidate for being called God. So over time God came to be a deity who was so early, so all pervading in its creative act that it did literally create everything. Nothing came before and there was no larger world in which God was a bit player. Perhaps they found the idea of regression (turtles all the way down) and creation ex nihilo was the antidote for that.
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Which is it now, a cypher or a creator? Could you at least try to be consistent in a single post?

You're also begging the question by assuming a creation took place and that "God" did it. By the way, how can it be creation ex nihilo if "God" was there to begin with?

punshhh said:
Thus was born the omnipotent God. But all it is and ever was referring to was the ultimate origin of our world whatever that is, anthropomorphized into a person.
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No. You'd be surprised how few share your idea of "God".

punshhh said:
Creation ex nihilo = the origin of existence itself.
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Except it's not really ex nihilo if there's something already there doing the creation, now is it? And if something exists and is performing creation ex nihilo, how can that be the origin of existence itself? You haven't thought this through, have you?

punshhh said:
The human condition is impelled to think that all things had a cause, because thats how things work in our world. Therefore existence itself must have a cause. Whatever that cause is is God, Brahman etc etc...
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Kalam is so outdated, punshhh... That's not how all things work in our world.
 
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laca said:
What a surprise...



No.



No, it's not. You don't get to redefine words. At the very least you have to qualify it with "for me".



Which is it now, a cypher or a creator? Could you at least try to be consistent in a single post?

You're also begging the question by assuming a creation took place and that "God" did it. By the way, how can it be creation ex nihilo if "God" was there to begin with?



No. You'd be surprised how few share your idea of "God".



Except it's not really ex nihilo if there's something already there doing the creation, now is it? And if something exists and is performing creation ex nihilo, how can that be the origin of existence itself? You haven't thought this through, have you?



Kalam is so outdated, punshhh... That's not how all things work in our world.
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I was explaining the way the myths developed. Myths don't have to be logically consistent to be myths. They required a kernel of truth or relevant meaning. For example the turtles all the way down myth.
 
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