Bart D. Ehrman: Creation Myths in the Ancient World

Jul 11, 2023 | Readers of the Bible are familiar with the stories of creation in Genesis 1-2, but far less familiar with similar tales from much earlier times in the world surrounding Israel. In this special edition of the podcast Bart interviews Dr. Joseph Lam, an expert on the languages, religions, and cultures of the Ancient Near East (and Bart's colleague at UNC), who has just produced a Wondrium Course on the Creation Stories in the Ancient World. Among other things they talk about the reasons for thinking Genesis contains two very different creation stories (side by side) and how other older stories from Mesopotamia appear to have influenced the author(s) of Genesis.

God Is Not the Creator, Claims Academic
THE TELEGRAPH: The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.

The Earth was already there when God created humans and animals, says academic. Photo: The Telegraph
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth[.]"

According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing. >>> Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent | Thursday, October 08, 2009