Jose Betancourt
World History 1
Pan Andrews
09/25/12
Creation
Stories: Genesis and Popol Vuh
God has been an idea and a
reality for many through out human History. In ancient civilizations, there
were those who viewed God in nature during the Paleolithic era. Then God moved
to the sky when the invention of agriculture came to be (Religion and
Technology Notes). Furthermore, in comparing to older creation stories, it
makes one see how the society f the Popel who wrote about the stories grew
together and lived and interacted. In the stories of genesis, there is a God
who is creating animals, plants, and all the other sea creatures, and birds in
the sky (38). Different form the account of Popul Vuh. Pupol Vuh has a
creation, but there is a silent world. It can make one think on how the society
lived and maybe that they were a society who were very peaceful. It seemed that
the creation accounts of Popol Vuh slowly began to create different types of
live, “then out of nowhere the mountains and valleys were formed”(39). The
sense that things come out of nothing is very similar to the accounts of
genesis, and how the God of Israel makes and creates as he Wishes. “God said, ‘Let
the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and birds fly above the
earth across the expanse of the sky”(33).
Popol
Vuh is much more simple it seems. They are quieter. The notion of quietness
changes towards the end of the story. “Like the mist, like a cloud, and like a
cloud of dust was the creation, when the mountains appeared from the water; and
instantly the mountains grew”((39).
The society of the people of the Popul Vuh is one that appreciates peace, and that also requires
humility. “There shall be neither glory nor grandeur in our creation”(39).
People in that society cared a lot about mutual respect and not becoming
egocentric. In comparison to the people of Genesis, which their God tells them
that they could in a subversive way use animals for their own good and not
limiting their actions against the animals. Further more, the Popol vuh
community had a sense of respect that was not common in many agricultural communities.
The Mesopotamians made laws as well as other civilizations, but most of the
laws were favoring the elite, or men. It Popol vuh there is much more of a
respect for the common people. It also seems that the community of the Popol Vouch
had some sense of remaking things if they made mistakes, or people who had a
lost connection with their creator (they might have gone through hardships with
their crops). The story tells the story of the Gods making humans out of mud at
first and was very fragile. Then the second time they made them with wood, but
now the problem was that the humans did not remember the God and did not
venerate them. The complexity of
the story shows the Popol Vuh people acting in natural human ways. IF we do not
get what we want we tend to reject all that exists and try to tell the rest of
the world that we are right and they are wrong. So, if there was no rain in a season,
the Popul Vuh people lost their crops and probably lost their faith on the God
of the sky.
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