The World's Five Great Creation Myths Follow the Same Order

The five great creation myths share the same sequence

Humanity has lived in different languages and cultures. Egyptians, Hindus, Greeks, Hebrews, and the Sumerians before them all, believed in different gods. And yet, remarkably, the basic structure of their creation myths is almost identical.

① Primordial chaos ② The first being appears ③ Heaven and earth are separated ④ An ordered world is born

1. Primordial chaos

At first, the world is not a finished world.

In Sumer, only Nammu, the goddess of the primordial sea, exists. There is no sky and no earth yet.
In Egypt, only Nun, the endless primeval waters, exists.
In Hinduism, only a cosmic ocean in darkness exists.
In Greece, there is Chaos, where sky and earth are not yet separated.
Genesis says the same: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep."

The world does not begin in order. It begins in chaos and darkness.

2. The first being appears

Out of the chaos, a first being appears. And that being creates the world.

In Sumer, An (sky) and Ki (earth) emerge from the primeval sea Nammu.
In Egypt, Atum rises by himself out of the primeval waters.
In Hinduism, Vishnu rests on the cosmic ocean; a lotus blooms from his navel and Brahma is born.
In Greece, Gaia appears out of Chaos.
In Genesis, God exists above the chaos and begins creation by His Word. Christians understand this Word as Jesus, and some see Him as the first light, the source of life.

In every case, after the chaos comes the first divine being, and that being creates the world.

3. Heaven and earth are separated

The next step is similar too.

In Sumer, Enlil, the wind god born of An and Ki, separates heaven and earth and forms the universe.
In Egypt, Shu pushes apart Nut, goddess of the sky, and Geb, god of the earth.
In Hinduism, Brahma divides heaven and earth and creates the layers of the world.
In Greece, Uranus and Gaia are separated and the structure of the cosmos takes shape.
In Genesis, God divides the waters from the waters and makes the expanse, separating heaven and earth.

The first act that turns chaos into order is almost always separation.
Heaven from earth, light from darkness, above from below.

4. An ordered world is born

Once the separation is done, the world is complete.

In Sumer, Enki kneads clay into a human form, and Ninmah, goddess of birth, gives it life.
In Egypt, the lineage of gods continues and nature and civilization come into being.
In Hinduism, Brahma creates humans and animals, mountains and rivers.
In Greece, after generations of gods, Zeus establishes the order of the universe.
In Genesis, God forms a man from the dust and breathes the breath of life into his nostrils.

Chaos becomes order, and emptiness becomes a world.

In the end, the structure is the same

All five myths begin with primeval water or chaos: Sumer's Nammu, Egypt's Nun, the Hindu cosmic ocean, Greece's Chaos, the "deep" of Genesis. Different names, same state. Out of it a first being appears, whether An and Ki, Atum, Vishnu and Brahma, Gaia, or God. Their first act is separation: heaven and earth, waters and waters, above and below. When the separation is complete, an ordered cosmos stands, and a human shaped from earth is born.

Whatever myth you read, it begins with chaos. There is darkness, there is water, there is emptiness. From it, a first being appears, divides heaven from earth, and establishes order.

The Sumerians, Egyptians, Hindus, Greeks and Hebrews used different names, but the skeleton of the story is astonishingly alike.

So why are they all the same?

The simplest and strongest explanation is this: a story heard from the first ancestors.

Humanity originally branched off from a single root, and each people simply dressed a story, handed down from before the languages scattered, in its own language and culture. The names changed, the gods' appearance changed, but could it actually be the same God?

There are other explanations: cultural diffusion, Mesopotamian influence, the shared wiring of the human mind. But the structure fits together too neatly for those alone. A story told by your grandmother's grandmother's grandmother is far tougher than you think.

If, after the confusion of languages at Babel, the Sumerians called Him Nammu, the Egyptians called Him Atum, the Hindus called Him Vishnu and Brahma, the Greeks called Him Gaia and the Hebrews called Him God, then perhaps we all share the origin of the same God.