What are some myths on the origin of man?

Answer 1

Probably every culture in history has had its myths about the creation of man. There are actually two in the Book of Genesis, although it is popularly believed that the two different stories are in some way describing the same creation event.

• Genesis 1:26-27 says that God simply spoke the first man and woman into existence on day six, as the last act of creation.
• The second creation account (Genesis 2:4b-25) does not really give us a timeline, but tells us that the first man, Adam, was created out of moist earth. After God made man he realised that man would need company (Genesis 2:18-19): "And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air . . ." It seems to have taken God quite some time to realise that what Adam really needed for company was a woman. Depending on just how many species God is assumed to have created (after all, there are thousands of species that could be potential help meets for Adam), this could have been an extraordinarily long time. God then created Eve out of Adam's rib. The story goes on to speak of a forbidden fruit, and God's curse for eating this fruit.
  

An earlier Mesopotamian creation myth describes a woman being created in order to heal the first man's rib, from which the story of the creation of Eve seems to be a reversal. The story includes a forbidden fruit, and a curse for eating this fruit.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 2

Here is one: the Babylonian myth presents a phantasmagorical concoction of gods who slaughtered one of the gods, mixed his dead flesh with blood and clay, spat on it, trod on it, and recited an incantation, to form Man. And a second myth, from one of the clans in southeast Asia: It is said that Nuwa began creating men from clay, sculpting each one. After creating many men, she still had more to make but had grown tired of it. So instead of crafting each figure she dipped a rope in clay and flicked it so blobs of clay landed everywhere. Each of them became a person.

As you can discern, these (and many other) creation-myths, despite their fantasy, still maintain identifiable elements of the pristine original, which is preserved only in the Torah. The narrative of the Torah is not a myth; it is a tradition attested to by billions of people, handed down unchanged for over 3,000 years.

According to tradition, there is only one Genesis creation-narrative, with ch.2 serving as an expansion of the brevity of ch.1, not a separate set of events. While Judaism has always seen the Torah as an intricate tapestry that nonetheless had one Divine source, some modern authors such as Wellhausen (the father of modern Biblical-criticism, 1844-1918) have suggested artificially chopping up the narrative and attributing it to various authors, despite the Torah's explicit statement as to its provenance (Exodus 24:12, Deuteronomy 31:24). This need not concern believers, since his claims have been debunked one by one, as Archaeology and other disciplines have demonstrated the integrity of the Torah. No fragments have ever been found that would support his Documentary Hypothesis, which remains nothing more than an arbitrary claim:http://religion.answers.com/theory/debunking-the-jepd-documentary-hypothesis

http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=1131(a Christian author)

http://www.WhoReallyWroteTheBible.com/excerpts/chapter4-1.php

Answer 3

Some myths on the origin of man include creation stories where humans are formed from clay or shaped by gods, tales of humans descending from supernatural beings, and legends involving a primordial ancestor from whom all humans are said to have originated. These myths often vary across different cultures and religions.