Arachic creation
One archaic theme that is radically different from most other religions is their view of the creation of the world. In Genesis, it is stated that God created heaven, Earth, and everything else we see. But, "For Religious man of archaic culture, the world is renewed annually; in other words, with each New Year it recovers its original sanctity that it possessed when it came from the Creator's hands."(pg 75). The New Year celebration is basically the world being created all over again. What must first be understood is the archaic perspective of time. It isn't the linear concept (Judaism, Islam etc.), where time has one beginning and will have one end. Archaic time is circular, meaning an annual natural cycle or what we know as a solar year. In the book on page 77 it states the ritual used that describes the creation of the world. " During the last days of the year that was ending and the first days of the New Year, the Poem of Creation, the Enuma elish, was solemnly recited. This ritual recitation reactualized the combat between Marduk and the marine
monster Tiamat, a combat that took place ab origine and put an end to chaos from Tiamat's dismembered body and created man from the blood of the demon Kingu, Tiamats chief ally. That this commemoration of the Creation was in fact a re-actualization of the cosmogonic act is shown both by the rituals and in the formulas recited during the ceremony. The combat between Tiamat and Marduk, that is, was mimed by a battle between two groups of actors, a cere-monial that we find again among the Hittites (again in the frame of the dramatic scenario of the New Year), among the Egyptians, and at Ras Shamra. The battle between two groups of actors repeated the passage from chaos to cosmos, actualized the cosmogony. The mythical event became present once again. "May he continue to conquer Tiamat and shorten his days!" the priest cried. The combat, the victory, and the Creation took place at that instant, hic et nunc." So how does this tie into sacred time? This ritual was a return to pure time. It was a time to purify yourself being that all sinful things were elimin
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ras Shamra, , Creation Enuma, Judaism Islam, Kingu Tiamats, Tiamat Marduk, sacred space, battle actors, world created, creation world,
Approximate Word count = 717
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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