FYS 100: Creation: Welcome

Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature ofcivilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself.

Addressed to students of classical mythology, religion, and comparative mythology, this volume contains myths of creation from three ancient cultures. Included are selections from the Hebrew Bible, the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish and Atrahasis, and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days. The textsare complemented by essays on the cultural contexts in which the myths arose.