Description
Book SynopsisImagining Creation is a collection of views on creation by noted authors from different disciplines. Topics include creation accounts and iconography from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and cosmologies from India and Africa. Special attention is devoted to creation in the Scriptures (Bible and Koran) and related oral traditions on Genesis from Slavonic Europe, as well as Kabbalah. Some of the creations myths are earlier and some later than the Bible, while a number of the discussed texts offer alternative approaches to the beginnings of the universe. The contributions provide many new perspectives on the origins of man and his world from diverse cultures. The volume is the proceedings of a symposium on creation stories held at University College London.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Foreword Markham Geller and Mineke Schipper Chapter One Introduction Mary Douglas Chapter Two Mesopotamian Creation Stories W. G. Lambert Chapter Three Creation Stories in Ancient Egypt Stephen Quirke Chapter Four You Can’t Get Here from There: The Logical Paradox of Ancient Indian Creation Myths Wendy Doniger Chapter Five Stories of the Beginning: Origin Myths in Africa South of the Sahara Mineke Schipper Chapter Six Modern Jewish Attitudes to the Concept of Myth Wout Jac. van Bekkum Chapter Seven Extract from Genesis 1–2 Translation and Commentary, Norton, NY 1996 Robert Alter Chapter Eight The Bible in the Making: Slavonic Creation Stories Florentina Badalanova Chapter Nine Arab Creation Stories beyond the Pale Abdullah al-Udhari Chapter Ten Lurianic Creation Myths Daphne Freedman Index
