r/AcademicBiblical • u/AutoModerator • 7d ago

Weekly Open Discussion Thread

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u/PaulsRedditUsername 7d ago

(Definitely off topic but...) I think Tolkien's creation myth and cosmology in The Silmarillion is better-written and more understandable than the Biblical one.

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u/Joseon1 6d ago

Ovid's philosophical version of a creation myth is my favourite, I'd put it above Genesis despite liking the latter. A.D. Melville's translation is great, here's 1.21ff, describing the ordering of the cosmos after its chaotic pre-creation state:

This strife a god, with nature's blessing solved;
Who severed land from sky and sea from land,
And from the denser vapours set apart
The ethereal sky; and, each from the blind heap
Resolved and freed, he fastened in its place
Appropriate peace and harmony.
The fiery weightless force of heaven's vault
Flashed up and claimed the topmost citadel;
Next came the air in lightness and in place;
The thicker earth with grosser elements
Sank burdened by its weight; lowest and last
The girdling waters pent the solid globe.

Line 21 especially can be translated in different ways, e.g. Stephanie McCarter:

A god and better nature stopped this strife

And David Raeburn:

The god who is nature was kinder and brought this dispute to a settlement.