Ancient Cosmology.pdf

Ancient Cosmology Ontology (the study of existence and how we determine if things exist) – Creation pertains to the transition from nonexistence to existence at any number of different levels. Ontology – is the philosophical term that pertains to what it means for something to exist. Cosmology (the...

Ancient Cosmology Ontology (the study of existence and how we determine if things exist) – Creation pertains to the transition from nonexistence to existence at any number of different levels. Ontology – is the philosophical term that pertains to what it means for something to exist. Cosmology (the origin and development of the universe) – pertains to the study of the cosmos, particularly with regard to its origins and its nature. Cosmic ontology – therefore asks what characterizes the existence of the cosmos. The cosmology text of any culture expresses how that culture understands existence and the events that brought the cosmos into existence. Substantial information from the ANE indicates that their cosmic ontology focused on order rather than material. In such an ontology, something did not truly exist until it had a role and a purpose in an ordered system. “Creation,” then, involved activities that brought order (such as separating and naming, observable both in Genesis and the ANE), rather than an act or process that merely produced something material. Consequently, and ancient account of cosmic origins would naturally relate the origins of order rather than the origins of the material cosmos. Nonexistence – In both Egyptian and Babylonian texts, something that is nameless does not exist. Egyptian texts label the desert and its exotic animals as nonexistent. In Babylon the most famous cosmology, Enuma Elish, begins when nothing is yet named, including the gods. In Israel's cosmology, the non-ordered state is descried by the Hebrew word tohu wabohu in Genesis 1:2. When the usage of these words in the Hebrew text is examined, we find that they do not pertain to the shapelessness of material objects but to the absence of order, role, or function. Thus the Genesis 1 cosmology begins with no order and then recounts the establishment of order. Causation/Purpose – Throughout the ancient world, the gods were viewed as agents of causation in cosmic origins. The ancients had no category of “natural” laws or causes and drew no distinctions between levels of causation as we are inclined to do. They would not distinguish between the activity of the gods and levels of origins that could be explained “naturally.” In Genesis the purpose of God can be easily inferred, but it is not always so clear in the rest of the ancient world, largely because the gods there were not in the habit of communicating their purposes. One distinction, however, is that the gods of the ANE tended to focus their activities on themselves and their needs rather than on people. Despite that distinction, cosmology in the ancient world is driven by the gods' purposes, even when their purposes were unknown. Order/Roles – The roles of gods, people, groups, social institutions, temples, and cosmic entities (the cosmos was full of entities rather than objects) were decreed. A similar perspective can be seen in Genesis generally as the spoken word is used to make decrees bringing order, and specifically as the roles of the sun, moon, and starts are indicated. Chaoskamph – One of the ideas that is commonly identified as distinguishing Israelite thinking from that of the ANE concerns the role of conflict in creation. Cosmos and Temple – The temple in the ancient world was the seat of divine authority. It was from the temple that the gods ruled and maintained order in the cosmos. The temple was also a connecting link between heaven and earth. Cosmic Geography – Cosmology is comprised not only of perspectives on the origins of the world as it’s known but also of the shape of the world, known as cosmic geography. The main features of the cosmos were the heavens, the earth, and the seas. The netherworld was a component of the earth. The gods established boundaries for the sea to keep the earth and heaven separated as well as to restrain the waters above. An understanding in the ancient world was that there was a single continent surrounded by cosmic waters. Ancient cosmologies also regularly conceived of the sky as solid thought many different ideas existed concerning the nature of the dome.