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The Book of Genesis

Content World creation in religion by Istituto Comprensivo San Giorgio di Mantova ...........................................3

World creation in science by Liceul Teoretic Dante Alighieri ..................................................................10

World creation in myths by 1. Gymnasio Kalampakas ...........................................................................33

World creation in art by Celal Yardimci Ortaokulu .................................................................................45

World creation in literature by Colégio Nuestra Señora de Monte-Sión ................................................55

World creation in music by Gimnazjum im. M. Siemiona .......................................................................71

World creation in film by Rigas 88. vidusskola ........................................................................................81

The Book of Genesis

Istituto Comprensivo San Giorgio di Mantova

The Creation of the World in Religion

The Book of Genesis

HEBREWS AND CHRISTIANS The Bible is the sacred scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. Genesis is the first book of the entire Bible. It explains the actual events of the origin of life: how God created everything. Chapters 1 and 2 explain the creation of all things. It is supposed that the Lord God is infinite, all-powerful, eternal and he must have existed before everything. There are two creation accounts: they differ little one another. Both tell that The Lord God is the Creator. He made a man and a woman in his image and to reflect his power. Lord God gave them the whole earth to rule over, care for, and cultivate. FIRST CREATION ACCOUNT (1,1-2,4) The account is based on a seven days pattern. Day 1: God separated the light from the darkness and he called the light "day," and the darkness "night." He defined the alternation of light and dark “Day and Night“ Day 2: God separated the water below the firmament from the one above the firmament and called the firmament “sky or heavens“.

Day 3: God separated the sea from the land. Plants, vegetation, and trees were created. Lord God designed each one to reproduce it’s one ‘kind’ or type.

Day 4: The sun, the moon, and the stars were created. God placed them in the heavens so as to distinguish day and night.

Day 5: Every living creature of the seas and every bird were created. God blessed them to multiply.

Day 6: All land dwelling animals were created.

Then God created man with the following characteristics: - He is created man and woman. - He is created in God’s image.

The Book of Genesis - He is blessed to multiply. - He is given the vegetation for food: seeds and fruits. Day 7: God finished his work of creation and so he rested , blessing it and making it holy. SECOND ACCOUNT (2,5-2,25) When the Lord God made the earth and the sky, no tree, no bush, no grass grew because there was no man to till the ground. Therefore the LORD God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became “a living being”.

In the East part of Eden, the LORD God planted a garden. Man was placed in there. Eden garden contained many fruit trees as well as the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God gave man the garden to take care of it but he was given instructions: he could eat of every tree in the garden, looking pleasant and good for food, except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil otherwise he would die. The LORD God created land animals and birds of the heavens and asked man to name them while searching for a partner. But, none of them was a suitable companion for man.

So God caused man to fall asleep. Lord God created woman from Adam’s rib. They became one flesh. Man and woman were both naked but they felt no shame.

ISLAM Muslims believe there is only one God who created everything: Allah (the Arabic word for God), therefore Creation is the demonstration of his existence and his power. In the Qur'an several verses deal with Creation CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE Islam shares with Christianity and Judaism the creation account: God created the world in six days: “Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne, to rule and to regulate every thing” [Quran, 10:3] When describing the creation the Qur'an states the existence of an initial gaseous mass in which all the elements are joined together as one unit. It was God who separates everything. “Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke” [Quran, 41:11] “The heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them” [Quran, 21:30] The outcoming of this separation is the shaping of different worlds: “In the name of Allah, the Entirely God” [Quran, 1:1] “[All] praise is [due] to Allah , Lord of the worlds” [Quran, 1:2] Allah is the creator of the sun and the moon:

The Book of Genesis “It is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all in an orbit are swimming” [Quran, 21:33] Every living thing was created of water: “Allah has created every creature from water” [Quran, 24:45] CREATION OF MAN God moulded water and clay into a model of a man. He breathed life into it and the first man was created: “Certainly did We create man from an extract of clay. Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump of flesh, and We made from the lump, soft mass and from the soft mass, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators” (cf. 23,12-14) “When your Lord said to the angels: - Indeed, I am going to create a human being from clay! So when I have proportioned him and breathed into him of My created soul, then fall down to him in prostration-" (Quran, 38,71-72)

HINDUISM The term Hinduism was introduced by the British at the end of the 19th century when they established their supremacy in India. It referred to the religion which must have existed in India even many centuries B.C. Hinduism has no single founder, no single scripture, and no commonly agreed set of teachings. It is not easy to define it. Hinduism cannot be neatly slotted into one particular belief system. It is 'a way of life' or 'a family of different religions and traditions‘ spread throughout India. However these religions are interrelated: they have a vast array of common doctrines and practices. In Hinduism the Trimūrti (‘three forms’) is a concept in which the cosmic functions of creation, preservation, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Maintainer or preserver and Shiva the Destroyer or Transformer. Hinduism includes a range of viewpoints about the creation of the world. It is mainly based on a never-ending cycle of life and on reincarnation of souls until purification leads souls to Nirvana, a state of consciousness free from the cycle of death and rebirth and from any pain or fear. In Hinduism there is no hell, no purgatory or heaven because its aim is to free the soul from rebirth and karma. The soul, after death, begins a new higher or lower life, it depends on the moral quality of the previous life's actions. Hindus believe that gods give people Surhavati (heaven) in exchange for prayers and sacrificies, while a person behaving badly in his life will reincarnate after his death. There are several creation myths in Hinduism. One of the earliest stories of how the universe came into being is found in the Rig Veda. Brahma appears as a creator or a demiurge: a force ordering, transforming and shaping, but not creating. Therefore the Hinduism creation myths greatly differ from those of the Bible or of creationism because they do not hypothesize creation from nothing, but they rather suggest creation as an arrangement of all the elements forming the universe.

The Book of Genesis The most famous myth says that at the beginning the cosmic egg was floating around in the primordial ocean wrapped in the emptiness and darkness of nonexistence. Then the egg broke into two halves: the sky originated from the egg’s upper gold half, the earth from its lower half with the silver ground. From its inner membrane arose the mountains, while the clouds originated from the external one. The veins and the liquid gave birth to oceans and rivers. The Indian caste system was the result of Purusha’s sacrifice. In the Puranas it is said that there were different creations because in the first creation human beings had no motivation to procreate. Maha Vishnu lies in the primordial ocean: when he breathes through the pores of his skin many universes are sent out while when breathing in these universes come back inside his body. Hinduism accepts the theory of a never-ending cycle cosmology in which the time is not linear but it is divided into eras. Succeeding one another repeatedly, they give rise to the universe emanation, duration and resorption processes and to partial or total destruction, absorption or solutions of itself as well.

BUDDHISM Buddhism is a religion and a philosophy which spread in the VI century B.C. from teachings attributed to Siddharta Gautama, known as the BUDDHA, (“the awakened “or “enlightened”). Siddharta lived approximately between the VI and V century B.C. THE BUDDHIST COSMOLOGY “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. We become what we think”. The Buddhist cosmology can be divided into two branches: space cosmology, describing the spatial arrangement of the various worlds within the Universe and temporal cosmology stating how these worlds come into existence and how they cease to exist. SPACE COSMOLOGY The universe is made up of many worlds that could be called “planes” placed one above the other in levels. Each world corresponds to a state of mind and is supported by the Karma of its inhabitants. If all the people were to die or disappear the world would disappear too. A world is formed when the first being is born TEMPORAL COSMOLOGY The temporal cosmology describes how the Universe was created and how it dissolves. The EVOLUTION begins with the rise of the primordial wind, which starts the process of the construction of the structures of the Universe. During this stage the first human beings appear; they are

The Book of Genesis beings shining on their own light, they are able to move through the air; they can live for a very long time and require no maintenance. Gradually, their bodies lose the ability to shine, become different in their appearance; they differ in the two sexes and their lives are shorter.

TAOISM “There was something shapeless and perfect before the Universe was born. It’s the Mother of Universe. Because it hasn’t got a best name I name it Tao. It’s in all things and goes back to the origins of all things”.

Taoism is a religion and a Chinese faith dating back to the II century B.C. The Taoist theology is about the “Tao”(the “Way”); its movement gives origin to all things. THE MYTH OF FOUNDATION At the beginning, the Universe was dark and chaotic, it was a black mass of nothing. The sky and the earth weren’t separated, the day and the night neither. In this dark mass the first living entity, Pangu was born. Pangu grew in the dark. When he wore up, he was a giant and, he realized to be a chaos, and so he decided to order. He took an axe, he hit the shell and he broke it. The lighter parts went up and they made the sky, the heavier parts fell down and they made the earth. Pangu found himself between the heaven and the earth, as he grew, his enormous size separated definitely the heaven and the earth and he supported the creation. At this point, Pangu decided to have a rest but he was very old and he died. His body was transformed into the world we know today: his breath became wind and clouds, his voice became thunder, his left eye became the sun and his right eye became the moon, his organs became the mountains and his blood became rivers and oceans. The Universe took shape, but it lacked men. At that time, gods, giants and other monsters lived on the earth. The most important god was mother god Nuwa; the superior part of her body had a human appearance whereas the lower seemed a dragon. One day Nuwa went to the Yellow River, and from its bed she got handfuls of mud who moulded into small dolls; she made head and arms in her image, but instead of her dragon tail, she gave them two legs so that they could leave around erected. She blew life on them they immediately stood and danced. She plunged a reed in the mud of the river, she shook and small drops of mud fell on the ground they became immediately men and women. In the end there were enough men and women, the goddess established a wedding so that they could procreate and continue the human race.

The Book of Genesis

SHINTOISM Shinto or Shintoism is Japan’s tradition religion. The word Shinto combines two elements: “SHIN” which means “god”, ”spirit”, and “TO”, from the Chin “TAO”, meaning “way” or “path”. Shinto literary means “practice of god”. The Shinto religion is based on the veneration of Kami “deities or spiritual essences”, the spirits or entities that populate the Universe.

THE CREATION MYTH The first gods gave birth to two deities, the male essence Izanagi and the female essence Izanami, they had to create the earth. To help them in this task, they were given a jeweled spear. These deities came into the bridge that connected heaven ven and sea, they put their spear into the ocean and pulled it out, and a few drops of salty water fell from the spear, and turned into an island. Then the two deities wanted to have children, so they erected a pillar to the heaven and a palace was built around it. Izanagi and Izanami walked around the pillar in the opposite direction and when they met, Izanami, the female deity, said good bye to Izanagi ,the male deity. They had two children who were two monsters and which were then abandoned into the sea. sea They asked other gods for an explanation and they understood that the male deity should have spoken first during the ceremony. So they walked again around the pillar and this time Izanagi spoke first. This time Izanami gave birth to the eight large islands islands of Japan, and short time later other islands and other gods and goddesses were born.

The Book of Genesis

Liceul Teoretic Dante Alighieri

The Creation of the World in Science

The Book of Genesis

I. The Genesis of Universe Introduction The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of existence, including planets, stars, galaxies, the contents of intergalactic space, the smallest subatomic particles, and all matter and energy. Similar terms include the cosmos, the world, reality, and nature. The observable universe is about 46 billion light years in radius. Scientific observation of the Universe has led to inferences of its earlier stages. These observations suggest that the Universe has been governed by the same physical laws and constants throughout most of its extent and history. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that describes the early development of the Universe, which is calculated to have begun 13.798 Âą 0.037 billion years ago. Observations of a supernovae have shown that the Universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. There are many competing theories about the ultimate fate of the universe. Physicists remain unsure about what, if anything, preceded the Big Bang. Many refuse to speculate, doubting that any information from any such prior state could ever be accessible. There are various multiverse hypotheses, in which some physicists have suggested that the Universe might be one among many universes that likewise exist. Astronomical models Astronomical models of the Universe were proposed soon after astronomy began with the Babylonian astronomers, who viewed the Universe as a flat disk floating in the ocean, and this forms the premise for early Greek maps like those of Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus. Later Greek philosophers, observing the motions of the heavenly bodies, were concerned with developing models of the Universe based more profoundly on empirical evidence. The first coherent model was proposed by Eudoxus of Cnidos. According to Aristotle's physical interpretation of the model, celestial spheres eternally rotate with uniform motion around a stationary Earth. Normal matter, is entirely contained within the terrestrial sphere. This model was also refined by Callippus and after concentric spheres were abandoned, it was brought into nearly perfect agreement with astronomical observations by Ptolemy. The success of such a model is largely due to the mathematical fact that any function (such as the position of a planet) can be decomposed into a set of circular functions (the Fourier modes). Other Greek scientists, such as the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus postulated that at the center of the Universe was a "central fire" around which the Earth, Sun, Moon and Planets revolved in uniform circular motion. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos was the first known individual to propose a heliocentric model of the Universe. Though the original text has been lost, a reference in Archimedes' book The Sand Reckoner describes Aristarchus' heliocentric theory. Archimedes wrote: â&#x20AC;&#x153;You King Gelon are aware the 'Universe' is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere the center of which is the center of the Earth, while its radius is equal to the straight line between the center of the Sun and the center of the Earth. This is the common account as you have heard from astronomers. But Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the Universe is many times greater than the 'Universe' just mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the Sun remain unmoved, that the Earth revolves about the Sun on the circumference of a circle, the Sun lying in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of fixed stars, situated about the same center as the Sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the Earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the center of the sphere bears to its surface.â&#x20AC;? Aristarchus thus believed the stars to be very far away, and saw this as the reason why there was no parallax apparent, that is, no observed movement of the stars relative to each other as the Earth moved around the Sun. The stars are in fact much farther away than the distance that was generally assumed in ancient times, which is why stellar parallax is only detectable with precision instruments. The geocentric model, consistent with planetary

The Book of Genesis parallax, was assumed to be an explanation for the unobservability of the parallel phenomenon, stellar parallax. The rejection of the heliocentric view was apparently quite strong, as the following passage from Plutarch suggests (On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon): “Cleanthes (a contemporary of Aristarchus and head of the Stoics) thought it was the duty of the Greeks to indict Aristarchus of Samos on the charge of impiety for putting in motion the Hearthof the Universe (e.g. the earth), supposing the heaven to remain at rest and the earth to revolve in an oblique circle, while it rotates, at the same time, about its own axis.” FIG. 1 Aristarchus's 3rd century BCE calculations on the relative sizes of from left the Sun, Earth and Moon, from a 10th-century AD Greek copy – Fig. 1. Theoretical models a) General theory of relativity Given gravitation's predominance in shaping cosmological structures, accurate predictions of the Universe's past and future require an accurate theory of gravitation. The best theory available is Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, which has passed all experimental tests to date. However, because rigorous experiments have not been carried out on cosmological length scales, general relativity could conceivably be inaccurate. Nevertheless, its cosmological predictions appear to be consistent with observations, so there is no compelling reason to adopt another theory. General relativity provides a set of ten nonlinear partial differential equations for the space-time metric (Einstein's field equations) that must be solved from the distribution of mass-energy and momentum throughout the Universe. Because these are unknown in exact detail, cosmological models have been based on the cosmological principle, which states that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic. In effect, this principle asserts that the gravitational effects of the various galaxies making up the Universe are equivalent to those of a fine dust distributed uniformly throughout the Universe with the same average density. The assumption of a uniform dust makes it easy to solve Einstein's FIG. 2 field equations and predict the past and future of the Universe on cosmological time scales. Einstein's field equations include a cosmological constant (Λ) that corresponds to an energy density of empty space. Depending on its sign, the cosmological constant can either slow (negative Λ) or accelerate (positive Λ) the expansion of the Universe. Although many scientists, including Einstein, had speculated that Λ was zero, recent astronomical observations of type IA supernovae have detected a large amount of "dark energy" that is accelerating the Universe's expansion. Preliminary studies suggest that this dark energy corresponds to a positive Λ, although alternative theories cannot be ruled out as yet. Russian physicist Zel'dovich suggested that Λ is a measure of the zeropoint energy associated with virtual particles of quantum field theory, a pervasive vacuum energy that exists everywhere, even in empty space. Evidence for such zero-point energy is observed in the Casimir effect. High-precision test of general relativity by the Cassini space probe: radio signals sent between the Earth and the probe (green wave) are delayed by the warping of space and time (blue lines) due to the Sun's mass- Fig. 2. b) Special relativity and space-time The Universe has at least three spatial and one temporal (time) dimension. It was long thought that the spatial and temporal dimensions were different in nature and independent of

The Book of Genesis one e another. However, according to the special theory of relativity, spatial and temporal separations are interconvertible (within limits) by changing one's motion. To understand this interconversion, it is helpful to consider the analogous interconversion of spatial separations along the three spatial dimensions. Consider the two endpoints of a rod of length L.. The length can be determined from the differences in the three coordinates ∆x, ∆y and ∆zz of the two endpoints in a given reference frame using the Pythagorean theorem. In a rotated reference frame, the coordinate differences differ, but they give the same length Thus, the coordinates differences (∆x, ( ∆y, ∆z) and (∆ξ, ∆η, ∆ζ)) are not intrinsic to the rod, but merely reflect the reference frame used to describe it; by contrast, the length L is an intrinsic property of the rod. The coordinate differences can be changed without affecting the rod, by rotating one's reference frame. The analogy in spacetime is called the interval between two events; an event is defined as a point in spacetime, a specific position in space and a specific moment in time. The spacetime interval between two events is given by where c is the speed of light. According to special relativity, one can FIG. 3 change a spatial and time separation (L ( 1, ∆t1) into another (L2, ∆t2) by changing one's reference frame, as long as the change maintains the spacetime interval s.. Such a change in reference refe frame corresponds to changing one's motion; in a moving frame, lengths and times are different from their counterparts in a stationary reference frame. The precise manner in which the coordinate and time differences change with motion is described by the Lorentz transformation. Only its length L is intrinsic to the rod (shown in black); coordinate differences between its endpoints (such as ∆x, ∆y or ∆ξ, ∆η)) depend on their frame of reference (depicted in blue and red, respectively) – Fig. 3. c) Solving Einstein's field equations The distances between the spinning galaxies increase with time, but the distances between the stars within each galaxy stay roughly the same, due to their gravitational interactions. This animation illustrates a closed Friedmann.Universe Friedmann.Universe with zero cosmological constant Λ;; such a Universe oscillates between a Big Bang and a Big Crunch. Crunch In nonCartesian (non-square) square) or curved coordinate systems, the Pythagorean theorem holds only on infinitesimal length scales and must be augmented with a more general metric tensorgµν, which can vary from place to place and which describes the local geometry in the particular coordinate system. However, assuming the cosmological principle that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic everywhere, every point in space is like every other point; hence, the metric tensor must be the same everywhere. That leads leads to a single form for the metric tensor, called the Friedmann–Lemaître Lemaître–Robertson–Walker metric:

where (r, θ, φ)) correspond to a spherical coordinate system. This metric has only two undetermined parameters: an overall length scale R that can vary with time, and a curvature index k that can be only 0, 1 or 1, corresponding to flat fla Euclidean geometry, geometry or spaces of positive or negative curvature.. In cosmology, solving for the history history of the Universe is done by calculating R as a function of time, given k and the value of the cosmological constantΛ, constant which is a (small) parameter in Einstein's field field equations. The equation describing how R varies with time is known as the Friedmann equation,, after its inventor, Alexander Friedmann. The solutions for R(t) depend on k and Λ,, but some qualitative features of such

The Book of Genesis solutions are general. First and most importantly, the length scale R of the Universe can remain constant only if the Universe is perfectly isotropic with positive curvature (k=1) and has one precise value of density everywhere, as first noted by Albert Einstein. However, this equilibrium is unstable and because the Universe is known to be inhomogeneous on smaller scales, R must change, according to general relativity. When R changes, all the spatial distances in the Universe change in tandem; there is an overall expansion or contraction of space itself. This accounts for the observation that galaxies appear to be flying apart; the space between them is stretching. The stretching of space also accounts for the apparent paradox that two galaxies can be 40 billion light years apart, although they started from the same point 13.8 billion years age and never moved faster than the speed of light. Second, all solutions suggest that there was a gravitational singularity in the past, when R goes to zero and matter and energy became infinitely dense. It may seem that this conclusion is uncertain because it is based on the questionable assumptions of perfect homogeneity and isotropy (the cosmological principle) and that only the gravitational interaction is significant. However, the Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems show that a singularity should exist for very general conditions. Hence, according to Einstein's field equations, R grew rapidly from an unimaginably hot, dense state that existed immediately following this singularity (when R had a small, finite value); this is the essence of the Big Bang model of the Universe. A common misconception is that the Big Bang model predicts that matter and energy exploded from a single point in space and time; that is false. Rather, space itself was created in the Big Bang and imbued with a fixed amount of energy and matter distributed uniformly throughout; as space expands (i.e., as R(t) increases), the density of that matter and energy decreases. Third, the curvature index k determines the sign of the mean spatial curvature of spacetime averaged over length scales greater than a billion light years. If k=1, the curvature is positive and the Universe has a finite volume. Such universes are often visualized as a threedimensional sphere S3 embedded in a fourdimensional space. Conversely, if k is zero or FIG. 4 negative, the Universe may have infinite volume, depending on its overall topology. It may seem counter-intuitive that an infinite and yet infinitely dense Universe could be created in a single instant at the Big Bang when R=0, but exactly that is predicted mathematically when k does not equal 1. For comparison, an infinite plane has zero curvature but infinite area, whereas an infinite cylinder is finite in one direction and a torus is finite in both. A toroidal Universe could behave like a normal Universe with periodic boundary conditions, as seen in "wrap-around" video games such as Asteroids; a traveler crossing an outer "boundary" of space going outwards would reappear instantly at another point on the boundary moving inwards. Illustration of the Big Bang theory, the prevailing model of the origin and expansion of space-time and all that it contains. In this diagram time increases from left to right, and one dimension of space is suppressed, so at any given time the Universe is represented by a disk-shaped "slice" of the diagram– Fig. 4. The ultimate fate of the Universe is still unknown, because it depends critically on the curvature index k and the cosmological constant Λ. If the Universe is sufficiently dense, k equals +1, meaning that its average curvature throughout is positive and the Universe will eventually recollapse in a Big Crunch, possibly starting a new Universe in a Big Bounce. Conversely, if the Universe is insufficiently dense, k equals 0 or −1 and the Universe will expand forever, cooling off and eventually becoming inhospitable for all life, as the stars die and all matter coalesces into black holes (the Big Freeze and the heat death of the Universe). As noted above, recent data suggests that the expansion speed of the Universe is not decreasing as originally expected, but increasing; if this continues indefinitely, the Universe will eventually rip itself to shreds (the Big Rip). Experimentally, the Universe has an overall

The Book of Genesis density that is very close to the critical value between recollapse and eternal expansion; more careful astronomicall observations are needed to resolve the question. d) Big Bang model The prevailing Big Bang model accounts for many of the experimental observations described above, such as the correlation of distance and redshift of galaxies, the universal ratio of hydrogen:helium atoms, and the ubiquitous, isotropic microwave radiation background. As noted above, the redshift arises from the metric expansion of space; as the space itself expands, the wavelength of a photon traveling through space likewise increases, decreasing its energy. The longer a photon has been traveling, the more expansion it has undergone; hence, older photons from more distant galaxies are the most red-shifted. red Determining the correlation between distance and redshift is an important problem in experimental physical cosmology. Other experimental observations can be explained by combining the overall expansion of space with nuclear and atomic physics. As the Universe expands, the energy density of the electromagnetic radiation decreases more quickly quickly than does that of matter, because the energy of a photon decreases with its wavelength. Thus, although the energy density of the Universe is now dominated by matter, it was once dominated by radiation; poetically speaking, all was light. As the Universe Universe expanded, its energy density decreased and it became cooler; as it did so, the elementary particles of matter could associate stably into ever larger combinations. Thus, in the early part of the matter-dominated matter dominated era, stable protons and neutrons formed,, which then associated into atomic nuclei. At this stage, the matter in the Universe was mainly a hot, dense plasma of negative electrons, neutral neutrinos and positive nuclei. Nuclear reactions among the nuclei led to the present abundances of the lighter light nuclei, particularly hydrogen, deuterium, and helium. Eventually, the electrons and nuclei combined to form stable atoms, which are transparent to most wavelengths of radiation; at this point, the radiation decoupled from the matter, forming the ubiquitous, ubiquit isotropic background of microwave radiation observed today. Other observations are not answered definitively by known physics. According to the prevailing theory, a slight imbalance of matter over antimatter was present in the Universe's creation, or developed very shortly thereafter, possibly due to the CP violation that has been observed by particle physicists. Although the matter and antimatter mostly annihilated one another, producing photons, a small residue of matter survived, survi giving the present matter-dominated dominated Universe. Several lines of evidence also suggest that a rapid cosmic inflation of the Universe occurred very early in its history (roughly 10−35 10−35 seconds after its creation). Recent observations also suggest that the cosmological constant (Λ) ( ) is not zero and that the net mass-energy mass content of the Universe is dominated by a dark energy and dark matter that have not been characterized scientifically. They differ in their gravitational effects. Dark matter gravitates as ordinary matter does, and thus slows the expansion of the Universe; by contrast, dark energy serves to accelerate the Universe's expansion. e) Multiverse theory Some speculative theories have proposed that this Universe is but one of a set of disconnected disconnect universes, collectively denoted as the multiverse, challenging or enhancing more limited definitions of the Universe. Scientific multiverse theories are distinct from concepts such as alternate planes of consciousness and simulated reality, although the idea of a larger Universe is not new; for example, Bishop Étienne Tempier of Paris ruled in 1277 that God could create as many universes as he saw fit, a question that was

The Book of Genesis being hotly debated by the French theologians. Max Tegmark developed a four-part classification scheme for the different types of multiverses that scientists have suggested in various problem domains. An example of such a theory is the chaotic inflation model of the early Universe. Another is the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Parallel worlds are generated in a manner similar to quantum superposition and decoherence, with all states of the wave function being realized in separate worlds. Effectively, the multiverse evolves as a universal wavefunction. If the big bang that created our multiverse created an ensemble of multiverses, the wave function of the ensemble would be entangled in this sense. The least controversial category of multiverse in Tegmark's scheme is Level I, which describes distant space-time events "in our own Universe". If space is infinite, or sufficiently large and uniform, identical instances of the history of Earth's entire Hubble volume occur every so often, simply by chance. Tegmark calculated our nearest so-called doppelgänger, is 1010115 meters away from us (a double exponential function larger than a googolplex). In principle, it would be impossible to scientifically verify an identical Hubble volume. However, it does follow as a fairly straightforward consequence from otherwise unrelated scientific observations and theories. Tegmark suggests that statistical analysis exploiting the anthropic principle provides an opportunity to test multiverse theories in some cases. Generally, science would consider a multiverse theory that posits neither a common point of causation, nor the possibility of interaction between universes, to be an idle speculation. Depiction of a multiverse of seven "bubble" universes, which are separate spacetime continua, each having different physical laws, physical constants, and perhaps even different numbers of dimensions or topologies. f) Shape of the Universe The shape or geometry of the Universe includes both local geometry in the observable Universe and global geometry, which we may or may not be able to measure. Shape can refer to curvature and topology. More formally, the subject in practice investigates which 3manifold corresponds to the spatial section in comoving coordinates of the four-dimensional space-time of the Universe. Cosmologists normally work with a given space-like slice of spacetime called the comoving coordinates. In terms of observation, the section of spacetime that can be observed is the backward light cone (points within the cosmic light horizon, given time to reach a given observer). If the observable Universe is smaller than the entire Universe (in some models it is many orders of magnitude smaller), one cannot determine the global structure by observation: one is limited to a small patch. Among the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker (FLRW) models, the presently most popular shape of the Universe found to fit observational data according to cosmologists is the infinite flat model, while other FLRW models include the Poincaré dodecahedral space and the Picard horn. The data fit by these FLRW models of space especially include the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and Planck maps of cosmic background radiation. NASA released the first WMAP cosmic background radiation data in February 2003, while a higher resolution map regarding Planck data was released by ESA in March 2013. Both probes have found almost perfect agreement with inflationary models and the standard model of cosmology, describing a flat, homogeneous universe dominated by dark matter and dark energy. g) Higgs boson The Higgs boson or Higgs particle is an elementary particle initially theorised in 1964, whose discovery was announced at CERN on 4 July 2012, and confirmed likely to be a Higgs boson in March 2013. The discovery has been called "monumental" because it appears to confirm the particle physics. It would explain why some fundamental particles have mass when the symmetries controlling their interactions should require them to be massless, and why the weak force has a much shorter range than the electromagnetic force. The discovery of a Higgs boson should allow physicists to finally validate the last untested area of the

The Book of Genesis Standard Model's approach to fundamental particles and forces, guide other theories and discoveries in particle physics, and potentially lead to developments in "new" physics. This unanswered question in fundamental physics is of such importance that it led to a search of more than 40 years for the Higgs boson and finally the construction of one of the world's most expensive and complex experimental facilities to date, the Large Hadron Collider, able to create Higgs bosons and other particles for observation and study. On 4 July 2012, it was announced that a previously unknown particle with a mass between 125 and 127 GeV/c2 (134.2 and 136.3 amu) had been detected; physicists suspected at the time that it was the Higgs boson. By March 2013, the particle had been proven to behave, interact and decay in many of the ways predicted by the Standard Model, and was also tentatively confirmed to have positive parity and zero spin, two fundamental attributes of a Higgs boson. This appears to be the first elementary scalar particle discovered in nature. More data is needed to know if the discovered particle exactly matches the predictions of the Standard Model, or whether, as predicted by some theories, multiple Higgs bosons exist. The Higgs boson is named after Peter Higgs, one of six physicists who, in 1964, proposed the mechanism that suggested the existence of such a particle. Although Higgs's name has come to be associated with this theory, several researchers between about 1960 and 1972 each independently developed different parts of it. In mainstream media the Higgs boson has often been called the "God particle", from a 1993 book on the topic; the nickname is strongly disliked by many physicists, including Higgs, who regard it as inappropriate sensationalism. In 2013 two of the original researchers, Peter Higgs and FranĂ§ois Englert, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work and prediction (Englert's co-researcher Robert Brout had died in 2011). In the Standard Model, the Higgs particle is a boson with no spin, electric charge, or color charge. It is also very unstable, decaying into other particles almost immediately. It is a quantum excitation of one of the four components of the Higgs field. The latter constitutes a scalar field, with two neutral and two electrically charged components, and forms a complex doublet of the weak isospin SU(2) symmetry. The field has a "Mexican hat" shaped potential with nonzero strength everywhere (including otherwise empty space) which in its vacuum state breaks the weak isospin symmetry of the electroweak interaction. When this happens, three components of the Higgs field are "absorbed" by the SU(2) and U(1) gauge bosons (the "Higgs mechanism") to become the longitudinal components of the now-massive W and Z bosons of the weak force. The remaining electrically neutral component separately couples to other particles known as fermions (via Yukawa couplings), causing these to acquire mass as well. Some versions of the theory predict more than one kind of Higgs fields and bosons. Alternative "Higgsless" models would have been considered if the Higgs boson were not discovered. II. The Genesis of the Earth Pedogenesis Pedogenesis (from the Greek pedo-, or pedon, meaning 'soil, earth,' and genesis, meaning 'origin, birth') is the science and study of the processes that lead to the formation of soil (soil evolution) and first explored by the Russian geologist Vasily Dokuchaev (1846 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1903), the so-called grandfather of soil science, who determined that soil formed over time as a consequence of climatic, mineral and biological processes, which he demonstrated using the soil forming equation: Soil = f(C, PM, O) Ă&#x2014; time (where C = climate, PM = parent material, O = biological processes)

The Book of Genesis In 1941, the Swiss scientist Hans Jenny expanded Vasily Dokuchaev equation by adding relief/topology as a factor and separating the biological processes into the fauna and flora coming up with the equation: Soil = f(C, PM, R, O, V) × time (where C = climate, PM = parent material, R = relief/topology, O = fauna, V = flora) Pedogenesis is though more a parent than a branch of pedology, whose other aspects include the soil morphology, classification (taxonomy) of soils, and their distribution in nature, present and past (soil geography and paleopedology). a) climate Climate regulates soil formation. Soils are more developed in areas with higher rainfall and more warmth. The rate of chemical weathering increases by 2-3 times when the temperature increases by 10 degrees Celsius. Climate also affects which organisms are present, affecting the soil chemically and physically (movement of roots). b) organisms The organisms living in and on the soil form distinct soil types. Coniferous forests have acidic leaf litter and form what are known as inceptisols. Mixed or deciduous forests leave a larger layer of humus, changing the elements leeched and accumulated in the soil, forming alfisols. Prairies have very high humus accumulation, creating a dark, thick A horizon characteristic of mollisols. For example three species of land snails in the genus Euchondrus in the Negev desert are noted for eating lichens growing under the surface limestone rocks and slabs (endolithic lichens). They disrupt and eat the limeston. Their grazing resulting in the weathering of the stones, and the subsequent formation of soil. They have a significant effect on the region: the total population of snails is estimated to process between 0.7 and 1.1 metric ton per hectare per year of limestone in the Negev desert. c) parent material The rock from which soil is formed is called parent material. The main types are: aeolian, glacial till, glacial outwash, alluvium, lacustrine parent material and residual parent material, or bedrock. Pedologists use the following generic functional relationship for understanding soil formation: S = f(CL, O, R, P, T, …) (where S = soil properties, CL = regional climate, O = potential biota, R = topography, P = parent material, T = time, … = additional variables) The History of Earth The history of the Earth concerns the development of the planet Earth from its formation to the present day. Nearly all branches of natural science have contributed to the understanding of the main events of the Earth's past. The age of Earth is approximately onethird of the age of the universe. An immense amount of biological and geological change has occurred in that time span. Earth formed around 4.54 billion (4.54×109) years ago by accretion from the solar nebula. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere, but it contained almost no oxygen and would have been toxic to humans and most modern life. Much of the Earth was molten because of extreme volcanism and frequent collisions with other bodies. One very large collision is thought to have been responsible for tilting the Earth at an angle and forming the Moon. Over time, the planet cooled and formed a solid crust, allowing liquid water to exist on the surface. The first life forms appeared between 3.8 and 3.5 billion years ago. The earliest evidences for life on Earth are graphite found to be biogenic in 3.7 billionyear-old metsedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48 billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia. Photosynthetic life appeared around 2 billion years ago, enriching the atmosphere with oxygen. Life remained

The Book of Genesis mostly small and microscopic until about 580 million years ago, when complex multicellular life arose. During the Cambrian period it experienced a rapid diversification into most major phyla. Geological change has been constantly occurring on our planet since the time of its formation and biological change since the first appearance of life. Species continuously evolve, taking on new forms, splitting into daughter species, or going extinct in response to an ever-changing planet. The process of plate tectonics has played a major role in the shaping of Earth's oceans and continents, as well as the life they harbor. The biosphere, in turn, has had a significant effect on the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, such as the formation of the ozone layer, the proliferation of oxygen, and the creation of soil. a) Geologictime scale: The history of the Earth is organized chronologically in a table known as the geologic time scale, which is split into intervals based on stratigraphic analysis. A full-time scale can be found at the main article. The following four timelines show the geologic time scale. The first shows the entire time from the formation of the Earth to the present, but this compresses the most recent eon. Therefore the second scale shows the most recent eon with an expanded scale. The second scale compresses the most recent era, so the most recent era is expanded in the third scale. Since the Quaternary is a very short period with short epochs, it is further expanded in the fourth scale. The second, third, and fourth timelines are therefore each subsections of their preceding timeline as indicated by asterisks. The Holocene (the latest epoch) is too small to be shown clearly on the third timeline on the right, another reason for expanding the fourth scale. The Pleistocene (P) epoch. Q stands for the Quaternary period.

b) Solar System formation The standard model for the formation of the Solar System (including the Earth) is the solar nebula hypothesis. In this model, the Solar system formed from a large, rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas called the solar nebula. It was composed of hydrogen and helium created shortly after the Big Bang 13.8 Ga (billion years ago) and heavier elements ejected by

The Book of Genesis supernovae. About 4.5 Ga, the nebula began a contraction that may have been triggered by the shock wave of a nearby supernova. A shock wave would have also made the nebula rotate. As the cloud began to accelerate, its angular momentum, gravity and inertia flattened it into a protoplanetary disk perpendicular to its axis of rotation. Small perturbations due to collisions and the angular momentum of other large debris created the means by which kilometer-sized sized protoplanets began to form, orbiting the nebular center. The center of the nebula, not having much angular momentum, collapsed rapidly, the compression heating it until nuclear fusion of hydrogen hydrogen into helium began. After more contraction, a T Tauri star ignited and evolved into the Sun. Meanwhile, in the outer part of the nebula gravity caused matter to condense around density perturbations and dust particles, and the rest of the protoplanetary disk disk began separating into rings. In a process known as runaway accretion, successively larger fragments of dust and debris clumped together to form planets. Earth formed in this manner about 4.54 billion years ago (with an uncertainty of 1%) and was largely largel completed within 10â&#x20AC;&#x201C;20 20 million years. The solar wind of the newly formed T Tauri star cleared out most of the material in the disk that had not already condensed into larger bodies. The same process is expected to produce accretion disks around virtually all newly forming stars in the universe, some of which yield planets. The proto-Earth Earth grew by accretion until its interior was hot enough to melt the heavy, siderophile metals. Having higher densities than the silicates, these metals sank. This soso called iron catastrophe resulted in the separation of a primitive mantle and a (metallic) core only 10 million years after the Earth began to form, producing the layered structure of Earth and setting up the formation of Earth's magnetic field. J. A. Jacobs was the first to suggest that the inner coreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a a solid center distinct from the th liquid outer coreâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;is is freezing and growing out of the liquid outer core due to the gradual cooling of Earth's interior (about 100 degrees Celsius per billion years). Extrapolations on these observations estimate that the inner core formed approximately 2-4 4 billion years ago, from what was previously an entirely molten core. If true, this would mean that the Earth's inner core is not a primordial feature inherited during the planet's formation, since it would be younger than the age of Earth (about 4.5 billion bill years). c) Hadean and Archean eons The first eon in Earth's history, the Hadean, begins with the Earth's formation and is followed by the Archean eon at 3.8 Ga. The oldest rocks found on Earth date to about 4.0 Ga, and the oldest detrital zircon crystals in rocks to about 4.4 Ga, soon after the formation of the Earth's crust and the Earth itself. The giant impact hypothesis for the Moon's formation states that shortly after formation of an initial crust, the proto-Earth proto Earth was impacted by a smaller protoplanet, et, which ejected part of the mantle and crust into space and created the Moon. From crater counts on other celestial bodies it is inferred that a period of intense meteorite impacts, called the Late Heavy Bombardment, began about 4.1 Ga, and concluded around und 3.8 Ga, at the end of the Hadean. In addition, volcanism was severe due to the large heat flow and geothermal gradient. Nevertheless, detrital zircon crystals dated to 4.4 Ga show evidence of having undergone contact with liquid water, suggesting that the planet already had oceans or seas at that time. By the beginning of the Archean, the Earth had cooled significantly. Most present life forms could not have survived in the Archean atmosphere, which lacked oxygen and an ozone layer. Nevertheless it is believed elieved that primordial life began to evolve by the early Archean, with candidate fossils dated to around 3.5. Some scientists even speculate that life could have begun during the early Hadean, as far back as 4.4 Ga, surviving the possible Late Heavy Bombardment rdment period in hydrothermal vents below the Earth's surface.

The Book of Genesis c.1) formation of the Moon Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon, is larger relative to its planet than any other satellite in the solar system. During the Apollo program, rocks from the Moon's surface were brought to Earth. Radiometric dating of these rocks has shown the Moon to be 4.53 Âą .01 billion years old at least 30 million years after the solar system was formed. New evidence suggests the Moon formed even later, 4.48 Âą 0.02 Ga, or 70â&#x20AC;&#x201C;110 110 million years after the start of the Solar System. Theories for the formation of the Moon must explain its late formation as well as the following facts. First, the Moon has a low density (3.3 times that of water, compared to 5.5 for the earth) and a small metallic core. Second, there is virtually no water or other volatiles on the moon. Third, the Earth and Moon have the same oxygen isotopic signature (relative abundance of the oxygen isotopes). Of the theories that have been proposed to account for these phenomena, only one is widely accepted: The giant impact hypothesis proposes that the Moon originated after a body the size of Mars struck the protoproto Earth a glancing blow. The collision between the impactor, sometimes named Theia, and the Earth released rel about 100 million times more energy than the impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. This was enough to vaporize some of the Earth's outer layers and melt both bodies. A portion of the mantle material was ejected into orbit around the Earth. Ear The giant impact hypothesis predicts that the Moon was depleted of metallic material,explaining its abnormal composition. The ejecta in orbit around the Earth could have condensed into a single body within a couple of weeks. Under the influence of its own gravity, the ejected material became a more spherical body: the Moon. c.2) first continents Mantle convection, the process that drives plate tectonics today, is a result of heat flow from the Earth's interior to the Earth's surface. It involves the creation creation of rigid tectonic plates at mid-oceanic oceanic ridges. These plates are destroyed by subduction into the mantle at subduction zones. During the early Archean (about 3.0 Ga) the mantle was much hotter than today, probably around 1600 C, so convection in the mantle was faster. While a process similar to present day plate tectonics did occur, this would have gone faster too. It is likely that during the Hadean and Archean, subduction zones were more common, and therefore tectonic plates were smaller. The initial initial crust, formed when the Earth's surface first solidified, totally disappeared from a combination of this fast Hadean plate tectonics and the intense impacts of the Late Heavy Bombardment. However, it is thought that it was basaltic in composition, like today's oday's oceanic crust, because little crustal differentiation had yet taken place. The first larger pieces of continental crust, which is a product of differentiation of lighter elements during partial melting in the lower crust, appeared at the end of the Hadean, about 4.0 Ga. What is left of these first small continents are called cratons. These pieces of late Hadean and early Archean crust form the cores around which today's continents grew. The oldest rocks on Earth are found in the North American craton of Canada. They are tonalites from about 4.0 Ga. They show traces of metamorphism by high temperature, but also sedimentary grains that have been rounded by erosion during transport by water, showing rivers and seas existed then. Cratons consist primarily of two alternating types of terranes. The first are so-called called greenstone belts, consisting of low grade metamorphosed sedimentary rocks. These "greenstones" are similar to the sediments today found in oceanic trenches, above subduction zones. For this reason, reason, greenstones are sometimes seen as evidence for subduction during the Archean. The second type is a complex of felsic magmatic rocks. These rocks are mostly tonalite, trondhjemite or granodiorite, types of rock similar in composition to granite (hence such terranes are called TTG-terranes). terranes). TTG-complexes TTG are seen as the relicts of the first continental crust, formed by partial melting in basalt.

The Book of Genesis c.3) oceans and atmosphere Earth is often described as having had three atmospheres. The first atmosphere, captured from the solar nebula, was composed of light (atmophile) elements from the solar nebula, mostly hydrogen and helium. A combination of the solar wind and Earth's heat would have driven off this atmosphere, as a result of which the atmosphere is now depleted in these elements compared to cosmic abundances. After the impact, the molten Earth released volatile gases; and later more gases were released by volcanoes, completing a second atmosphere rich in greenhouse gases but poor in oxygen. Finally, the third atmosphere, rich in oxygen, emerged when bacteria began to produce oxygen about 2.8 Ga. In early models for the formation of the atmosphere and ocean, the second atmosphere was formed by outgassing of volatiles from the Earth's interior. Now it is considered likely that many of the volatiles were delivered during accretion by a process known as impact degassing in which incoming bodies vaporize on impact. The ocean and atmosphere would therefore have started to form even as the Earth formed. The new atmosphere probably contained water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and smaller amounts of other gases. Planetesimals at a distance of 1 astronomical unit (AU), the distance of the Earth from the Sun, probably did not contribute any water to the Earth because the solar nebula was too hot for ice to form and the hydration of rocks by water vapor would have taken too long. The water must have been supplied by meteorites from the outer asteroid belt and some large planetary embryos from beyond 2.5 AU. Comets may also have contributed. Though most comets are today in orbits farther away from the Sun than Neptune, computer simulations show they were originally far more common in the inner parts of the solar system. As the planet cooled, clouds formed. Rain created the oceans. Recent evidence suggests the oceans may have begun forming as early as 4.4 Ga. By the start of the Archean eon they already covered the Earth. This early formation has been difficult to explain because of a problem known as the faint young Sun paradox. Stars are known to get brighter as they age, and at the time of its formation the Sun would have been emitting only 70% of its current power. Many models predict that the Earth would have been covered in ice. A likely solution is that there was enough carbon dioxide and methane to produce a greenhouse effect. The carbon dioxide would have been produced by volcanoes and the methane by early microbes. Another greenhouse gas, ammonia, would have been ejected by volcanos but quickly destroyed by ultraviolet radiation. III.The Origin of Life The conditions for life, on Earth With technologies available soon that may enable scientists to identify the conditions conducive to life on other planets, the question of which planets to study becomes critical. Despite their best speculations, scientists have only one model to work from: Earth. But Earth’s surface is constantly turning over and weathering down, so any signs of sedimentary deposits from the planet to the appearance of life have been subsumed through plate tectonics or eroded. Earth’s biological and physical history are intimately linked. The planetary conditions on Earth shaped the life that evolved, and life in turn dramatically altered the planet. The early Earth provided elements like carbon and nitrogen needed to create organic molecules, but as life evolved, photosynthetic bacteria filled the atmosphere with oxygen. Long before the fossil record of plants and animals begins, scientists see evidence of microbial activity throughout the planet: single-celled creatures that left behind physical structures like giant reefs as well as chemical byproducts of their metabolic activities. In recent years, scientists have enhanced their ability to “read” this history, finding chemical signatures of life buried deep within ancient rocks. They can use this information to understand better how the chemical environment of the planet drove evolution, and vice versa.

The Book of Genesis The origin of cellular life When life arose on Earth about 4 billion years ago, the first types of cells to evolve were procaryotic cells. For approximately 2 billion years, procaryotic-type procaryotic type cells were w the only form of life on Earth. The oldest known sedimentary rocks found in Greenland are about 3.8 billion years old. The oldest known fossils are procaryotic cells, 3.5 billion years in age, found in Western Australia and South Africa. The nature of these fossils, and the chemical composition of the rocks in which they are found, indicates that these first cells made use of simple chemical reactions to produce energy for their metabolism and growth. To function, the machinery of life must be separated from its surroundings — some form of extracellular fluid (ECF). This function is provided by the plasma membrane. Today's plasma membranes are made of a double layer of phospholipids.. They are only permeable to small, uncharged molecules like H2O, 2O, CO2, and O2. Specialized transmembrane transporters are needed for ions, hydrophilic,, and charged organic molecules (e.g., amino acids and nucleotides) nucleotide to pass into and out of the cell. However, the same Szostak lab that produced the finding described above reported in the 3 July 2008 issue ue of Nature that fatty acids, fatty alcohols, and monoglycerides — all molecules that can be synthesized under prebiotic conditions — can also form lipid bilayers and these can spontaneously assemble into enclosed vesicles. Unlike phospholipid vesicles, these admit mit from the external medium charged molecules like nucleotides admit from the external medium hydrophilic molecules like ribose grow by self-assembly are impermeable to, and thus retain, polymers like oligonucleotides. These workers loaded their synthetic vesicles with a short single strand of deoxycytidine (dC) structured to provide a template for its replication. When the vesicles were placed in a medium containing (chemically modified) dG, these nucleotides entered the he vesicles and assembled into a strand of Gs complementary to the template strand of Cs. Here, then, is a simple system that is a plausible model for the creation of the first cells from the primeval "soup" of organic molecules. This transition is probably the easiest to understand. Several colonial flagellated green algae provide a clue. These species are called colonial because they are made up simply of clusters of independent cells. If a single cell of Gonium, Pandorina, or Eudorina is isolated from the rest of the colony, it will swim away looking quite like a Chlamydomonas Chlamydomonas cell. Then, as it undergoes mitosis, it will form a new colony with the characteristic number of cells in that colony. (The figures are not drawn to scale. Their sizes range from Chlamydomonas which is about 10 µm in diameter — little larger than a human red blood cell — to Volvox whose sphere is some 350 µm in diameter — visible to the naked eye.) The situation in Pleodorina and Volvox is different. In these these organisms, some of the cells of the colony (most in Volvox) are not able to live independently. If a nonreproductive cell is isolated from a Volvox colony, it will fail to reproduce itself by mitosis and eventually will die. What has happened? In some way, as yet unclear, Volvox has crossed the line separating simple colonial organisms from truly multicellular ones. Unlike Gonium, Volvox cannot be considered simply a colony of individual cells. It is a single organism whose cells have lost their ability to live independently. If a sufficient number of them become damaged, the entire sphere of cells will die.

The Book of Genesis What has Volvox gained? In giving up their independence, the cells of Volvox have become specialists. No longer does every cell carry out all of life's functions (as in colonial forms); instead certain cells specialize to carry out certain functions while leaving other functions to other specialists. In Volvox this process goes no further than having certain cells specialize for reproduction while others, unable to reproduce themselves, fulfill the needs for photosynthesis and locomotion. In more complex multicellular organisms, the degree of specialization is carried much further. Each cell has one or two precise functions to carry out. It depends on other cells to carry out all the other functions needed to maintain the life of the organism and thus its own. The specialization and division of labor among cells is the outcome of their history of differentiation. One of the great problems in biology is how differentiation arises among cells, all of which having arisen by mitosis, share the same genes. Link to a discussion of the solution.The genomes of both Chlamydomonas and Volvox have been sequenced. Although one is unicellular, the other multicellular, they have not only about the same number of protein-encoding genes (14,516 in Chlamydomonas, 14,520 in Volvox) but most of these are homologous. Volvox has only 58 genes that have no relatives in Chlamydomonas and even fewer unique mRNAs. At one time, many of us would have expected that a multicellular organism like Volvox with its differentiated cells and complex life cycle would have had many more genes than a single-celled organism like Chlamydomonas. But that turns out not to be the case. How to explain this apparent paradox? My guess is that just as we have seen in the evolution of animals, we are seeing here that the evolution of organismic complexity is not so much a matter of the evolution of new genes but rather the evolution of changes in the control elements that dictate how and where the basic tool kit of eukaryotic genes will be expressed . The evidence is compelling that all these organisms are close relatives; that is, belong to the same clade. They illustrate how colonial forms could arise from unicellular ones and multicellular forms from colonial ones. RNA beginning All metabolism depends on enzymes and, until recently, every enzyme has turned out to be a protein. But proteins are synthesized from information encoded in DNA and translated into RNA. So here is a chicken-andegg dilemma. The synthesis of DNA and RNA requires proteins. So proteins cannot be made without nucleic acids and nucleic acids cannot be made without proteins. The discovery that certain RNA molecules have enzymatic activity provides a possible solution. These RNA molecules â&#x20AC;&#x201D; called ribozymes â&#x20AC;&#x201D; incorporate both the features required of life: storage of information, the ability to act as catalysts. While no ribozyme in nature has yet been found that can replicate itself, ribozymes have been synthesized in the laboratory that can catalyze the assembly of short oligonucleotides into exact complements of themselves. The ribozyme serves as both the template on which short lengths of RNA ("oligonucleotides" are assembled following the rules of base pairing and the catalyst for covalently linking these oligonucleotides. In principal, the minimal functions of life might have begun with RNA and only later did proteins take over the catalytic machinery of metabolism and DNA take over as the repository of the genetic code.In the cell, all deoxyribonucleotides are synthesized from ribonucleotide precursors. Many bacteria control the transcription and/or translation of certain genes with RNA molecules, not protein molecules.

The Book of Genesis

Pyrimidine ribonucleotide assembly options. Previously assumed synthesis of b-ribocytidine-2â&#x20AC;&#x2122;,3â&#x20AC;&#x2122;cyclic phosphate 1 (blue; note the failure of the step in which cytosine 3 and ribose 4 are proposed to condense together) and the successful new synthesis described here (green). p, pyranose; f, furanose. From (Powner et al. 2009). Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

Simple beginnings Instead of developing from complex molecules such as RNA, life might have begun with smaller molecules interacting with each other in cycles of reactions. These might have been contained in simple capsules akin to cell membranes, and over time more complex molecules that performed these reactions better than the smaller ones could have evolved, scenarios dubbed "metabolism-first" models, as opposed to the "gene-first" model of the "RNA world" hypothesis. Chemical evolution Liquid water provides a universal solvent and warm environment for chemical evolution. It is a vehicle for dissolved substances (it circulates). And it provides the raw material for protein construction. When the primordial soup is exposed to energy, organic compounds are produced as shown by theMiller-Urey Experiment. Amino acids are small, highly reactive molecules composed of 20 to 30 HCNO atoms. When amino acids link together in strings they form proteins. Proteins govern chemical reaction rates and form the structural material for cell parts. Most importantly, they can form into microspheres when heated, which serves to separate chemical reactions and processes. The problem is that with the vastness of the Earth's oceans it is statistically very improbable that these early proteins would ever link up. The solution is that the huge tides from the Moon produced inland tidal pools, which would fill and evaporate on a regular basis to produce high concentrations of amino acids, who then linked themselves into macromolecules. With the construction of large macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, the Earth is poised for the next stage of biochemical evolution. Living organisms are the supreme example of active matter. They represent the most developed form of organized matter and energy that we know. They exemplify growth, adaptation, complexity, unfolding

The Book of Genesis form variety and unpredictability. Almost appearing to be a class apart from matter and energy, defying the laws that enslave normal matter and energy. Every organism is unique, both in form and development. Unlike physics where one studies classes of identical objects (e.g. electrons, photons), organisms are all individuals. Moreover, collections of organisms are unique, species s are unique, the evolutionary history of the Earth is unique, the entire biosphere is unique. On the other hand, a cat is a cat, a cell is a cell, there are definite regularities and distinguishing features that permit organisms to be classified. Each level of biology has new and unexpected qualities, qualities which cannot be reduced to the properties of the component parts, this is known as holism. A living organism consists of a large range of components differing greatly in structure and function (heart, eart, liver, hair). Yet, the components are arranged and behave in a coherent and cooperative fashion as though to a common agreed plan. This endows the organism with a discrete identity, makes a worm a worm, a dog a dog. The best way to study chaotic behavior, behavior, also called nonlinear behavior, is with the use of a pendulum.No .No living thing exits in isolation. All organisms are strongly coupled to their inanimate environment and require a continual continual throughput of matter and energy as well as the ability to export entropy. From a physical and chemical point of view, every organism is strongly out of equilibrium with its environment. In addition, life on Earth is an intricate network of mutually interdependent organisms held in a state of dynamic balance. Then concept of life is fully meaningful only in the context of the entire biosphere. A large number of complex chemical reactions is the underlying process that we call life. The ingredients for life are: 1. energy source 2. supply of nutrients (building blocks) 3. self-regulating regulating mechanisms The first two criteria were supplied by the conditions of the early Earth environment. The third criteria was presented by the endpoint of chemical evolution where the long chains of nucleic acids were formed which developed into RNA and DNA. RNA and DNA are a molecular codes for the production of proteins. They have the unique property of being selfself replicating (when an RNA molecule splits, amino acids connect to the endpoints producing an exact copy of the original chain). The beginning of biochemical evolution tion was when RNA and DNA evolved to coat themselves in protein shells. These coated RNA and DNA packages are called a virus. A virus is halfway between life and non-life, life, being non-living non when in isolation, but adapting living characteristics in interaction with other cells. The next stage in biochemical evolution was for various virus' to take on specialized tasks (energy production, protein production, etc). These individual elements would combine to form the first cell. Our earliest evidence of cellular life comes from fossil bacteria. With the development of cells, life took on an explosive evolution into more diverse forms, invading new environments (sea, lakes, land). Millerâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;Urey experiment Miller Scientists have argued for decades that Earth life originated in organic substances existing in the so-called so called "primordial soup" precursor chemical compounds present. Nobody could,

The Book of Genesis however, explain how simple amino acids have been assembled s o as to lead to the genesis of life. Once you have reviewed the results , so far unpublished , of an experiment conducted by U.S. scientist Stanley Miller in 1953 , chemists have found that laboratory work has generated a considerable amount of amino acids - protein of human life , the newspaper "Wired " . Miller became famous for his research on the birth of these proteins , but estimates of the Earth's atmospheric composition in the moment of life were considered imprecise.However , recent results extracted from samples found in a dusty box in Miller's office by one of his former students , Jeffrey Bada , are linked to a device that simulate conditions existing volcanic three billion years.Miller was only 22 years old and taught doctorate when he conducted his first experiments in a jar filled with water, methane, hydrogen and ammonia - the vision of the " primordial soup ," says the BBC. Wanted to test ideas so far on the origin of life by applying electrical sparks that mixtures that simulate the vision of that , young Earth's atmosphere . When his research revealed traces of amino acids , including glycine and alanine, Miller became overnight celebrity . Immediately afterwards he has completed work by injecting hot steam into the gas mixture so as to simulate the conditions of a volcanic eruption problem was, however, that Miller published only vague details of these latter tests deemed irrelevant and device simulation disappeared. One-step reactions among the mixture components can produce hydrogen cyanide (HCN), formaldehyde (CH2O) and other active intermediate compounds (acetylene, cyanoacetylene, etc.): CO2 → CO + [O] (atomic oxygen) CH4 + 2[O] → CH2O + H2O CO + NH3 → HCN + H2O CH4 + NH3 → HCN + 3H2 (BMA process) The formaldehyde, ammonia, and HCN then react by Strecker synthesis to form amino acids and other biomolecules: CH2O + HCN + NH3 → NH2-CH2-CN + H2O NH2-CH2-CN + 2H2O → NH3 + NH2-CH2-COOH (glycine) Evolution Biology as a science made its move from an Arisotitlean stage to a Newtonian one with the development of the theory of evolution. Evolution is a change in the gene pool of a population over time. A gene is a hereditary unit (the microscopic `atom') that can be passed on unaltered for many generations. The gene pool is the set of all genes in a species or population (the macroscopic `object'). Populations evolve, not individuals. In order to understand evolution, it is necessary to view populations as a collection of individuals, each harboring a different set of traits. A single organism is never typical of an entire population unless there is no variation within that population. Individual organisms do not evolve, they retain the same genes throughout their life. When a population is evolving, the ratio of different genetic types is changing -- each individual organism within a population does not change. The process of evolution can be summarized in three sentences: Genes mutate. Individuals are selected. Populations evolve. Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was an English clergyman, whose writings on population growth had a strong influence on the theory of evolution by natural selection developed by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. In An Essay on the Principle of Population (1797), Malthus observed that most organisms produce far more offspring than can possibly survive. Even when resources are plentiful, the size of a population tends to

The Book of Genesis increase geometrically until the population outstrips its food supply. This led Malthus to believe that poverty, disease, and famine was a natural and inevitable phenomenon, leading to a "struggle for existence". Evolution came of age as a science when Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's contributions include hypothesizing the pattern of common descent and proposing a mechanism for evolution -- natural selection. Darwin read Lyell's Principles of Geology and came to accept Lyell's view that long-term geological processes were responsible for shaping the earth's surface in a gradual manner. Indeed, Darwin successfully applied uniformatarianism to explain the development of coral reefs. In Darwin's theory of natural selection, new variants arise continually within populations. A small percentage of these variants cause their bearers to produce more offspring than others. These variants thrive and supplant their less productive competitors. The effect of numerous instances of selection would lead to a species being modified over time. Human evolution Human evolution is the lengthy process of change by which people originated from apelike ancestors. Scientific evidence shows that the physical and behavioral traits shared by all people originated from apelike ancestors and evolved over a period of approximately six million years. One of the earliest defining human traits, bipedalism -- the ability to walk on two legs -- evolved over 4 million years ago. Other important human characteristics -- such as a large and complex brain, the ability to make and use tools, and the capacity for language -developed more recently. Many advanced traits -- including complex symbolic expression, art, and elaborate cultural diversity -- emerged mainly during the past 100,000 years. Humans are primates. Physical and genetic similarities show that the modern human species,Homo sapiens, has a very close relationship to another group of primate species, the apes. Humans and the great apes (large apes) of Africa -- chimpanzees (including bonobos, or so-called â&#x20AC;&#x153;pygmy chimpanzeesâ&#x20AC;?) and gorillas -- share a common ancestor that lived between 8 and 6 million years ago. Humans first evolved in Africa, and much of human evolution occurred on that continent. The fossils of early humans who lived between 6 and 2 million years ago come entirely from Africa. Most scientists currently recognize some 15 to 20 different species of early humans. Scientists do not all agree, however, about how these species are related or which ones simply died out. Many early human species -- certainly the majority of them â&#x20AC;&#x201C; left no living descendants. Scientists also debate over how to identify and classify particular species of early humans, and about what factors influenced the evolution and extinction of each species. Early humans first migrated out of Africa into Asia probably between 2 million and 1.8 million years ago. They entered Europe somewhat later, between 1.5 million and 1 million years. Species of modern humans populated many parts of the world much later. For instance, people first came to Australia probably within the past 60,000 years and to the Americas within the past 30,000 years or so. The beginnings of agriculture and the rise of the first civilizations occurred within the past 12,000 years. Paleoanthropology Paleoanthropology is the scientific study of human evolution. Paleoanthropology is a subfield of anthropology, the study of human culture, society, and biology. The field involves an understanding of the similarities and differences between humans and other species in their genes, body form, physiology, and behavior. Paleoanthropologists search for the roots of human physical traits and behavior. They seek to discover how evolution has shaped the potentials, tendencies, and limitations of all people. For many people, paleoanthropology is an exciting scientific field because it investigates the origin, over millions of years, of the universal and defining traits of our species. However, some people find the concept of human evolution troubling because it can seem not to fit with religious and other traditional beliefs about how people, other living things, and the world came to be. Nevertheless, many people have come to reconcile their beliefs with the scientific evidence.

The Book of Genesis Early human fossils and archeological remains offer the most important clues about this ancient past. These remains include bones, tools and any other evidence (such as footprints, evidence of hearths, or butchery marks on animal bones) left by earlier people. Usually, the remains were buried and preserved preserved naturally. They are then found either on the surface (exposed by rain, rivers, and wind erosion) or by digging in the ground. By studying fossilized bones, scientists learn about the physical appearance of earlier humans and how it changed. Bone size,, shape, and markings left by muscles tell us how those predecessors moved around, held tools, and how the size of their brains changed over a long time. Archeological evidence refers to the things earlier people made and the places where scientists find them. hem. By studying this type of evidence, archeologists can understand how early humans made and used tools and lived in their environments. Evolution and range The genus Homo diverged from other hominins in Africa, after the human clade split from the chimpanzee lineage of the hominids (great ape) branch of the primates.. Modern humans, defined as the species Homo sapiens or specifically to the single extant subspecies Homo sapiens, proceeded to colonize all the continents and larger islands, arriving in Eurasia 125,000â&#x20AC;&#x201C;60,000 125,000 years ago, Australia around 40,000 years ago, the Americas around 15,000 years ago, and remote islands such as Hawaii, Easter Island,Madagascar, Island and New Zealand between the years 300 and 1280. Evidence from molecular biology Family tree showing the extant hominoids: humans (genus Homo), ), chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan), ), gorillas (genus Gorilla), orangutans (genus Pongo), ), and gibbons (four genera of the family Hylobatidae: Hylobat Hylobates,Hoolock, Nomascus, and Symphalangus). Symphalangus All except gibbons are hominids. The closest living relatives of humans are chimpanzees (genus Pan) and gorillas (genus Gorilla). With the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA sequencesrange range between 95% and 99%. By using the technique called a molecular clock which estimates the time required for the number of divergent mutations to accumulate between two lineages, the approximate date for the split between lineages can be b calculated. The gibbons (Hylobatidae)) and orangutans (genus Pongo)) were the first groups to split from the line leading to the humans, then gorillas (genus Gorilla) Gorilla followed by the chimpanzees and bonobos (genus Pan). ). The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4â&#x20AC;&#x201C;8 4 8 million years ago during the late Mioceneepoch. Evidence from the fossil record

Skulls of 1. Gorilla 2. Australopithecus 3. Homo erectus 4. Neanderthal (La Chapelle aux Saints) 5. Steinheim Skull(Archaic Skull Homo sapiens) 6. Caucasoid (H. Sapiens)

The Book of Genesis

There is little fossil evidence for the divergence of the gorilla, chimpanzee and hominin lineages. The earliest fossils that have been proposed as members of the hominin lineage are Sahelanthropus tchadensis dating from7 million years ago, and Orrorin tugenensis dating from 5.7 million years ago and Ardipithecus kadabba dating to5.6 million years ago. ago Each of these has been argued to be a bipedal ancestor of later hominins, but in each case the claims have been contested. It is also possible that either of these species is an ancestor of another branch of African apes, or that they represent a shared ancestor between hominins and other Hominoidea. The question of the relation between these early ea fossil species and the hominin lineage is still to be resolved. From these early species theaustralopithecines australopithecines arose around 4 million years ago diverged into robust (also called Paranthropus) and gracile branches, one of which (possibly A. garhi) went on to become ancestors of the genus Homo. The earliest members of the genus Homo are Homo habilis which evolved around 2.3 million years ago. Homo habilis is the first species for which we have positive evidence of use of stone tools. tools The brains of these early hominins were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living. During the next million years a process of encephalization began, and with the arrival of Homo erectus erectu in the fossil record, cranial capacity had doubled. Homo erectus were the first of the hominina to leave Africa, and these species spread through Africa, Asia, and Europe between 1.3 to 1.8 million years ago. ago One population of H. erectus, also sometimes classified as a separate species Homo ergaster, ergaster stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens. It is believed that these species were the first to use fire and complex tools. The earliest transitional fossils between H. ergaster/erectus and archaic humans are from Africa such as Homo rhodesiensis,, but seemingly transitional forms are also found at Dmanisi, Georgia. These descendants of African H. erectus spread through Eurasia from ca. 500,000 years ago evolving into H. antecessor, H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis.. The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic,, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes sometimes classified asHomo as sapiens idaltu. Later fossils of archaic Homo sapiens from Skhul in Israel and Southern Southe Europe begin around 90,000 years ago. Anatomical adaptations Human evolution is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, developmental physiological, and behavioral changes that have taken place since the split between the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees. chimpanzees The most significant of these adaptations are 1. bipedalism, 2. increased brain size, 3. lengthened ontogeny (gestation and infancy), 4. decreased sexual dimorphism. dimorphism The relationship between all these changes is the subject of ongoing debate Other significant morphological changes included the evolution of a power and precision grip, grip a change first occurring in Homo erectus. Bipedalism is the basic adaption of the hominin line, and it is considered the main cause behind a suite of skeletal changes shared by all bipedal hominins. The earliest bipedal hominin is considered to be either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, with Ardipithecus, a full bipedal, coming somewhat later. The knuckle walkers, the gorilla and chimpanzee, chimpanzee diverged around the same time, and either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin may be humans' last shared ancestor with those animals. The early bipedals eventually evolved into the australopithecines and later the genus Homo. There are several veral theories of the adaptational value of bipedalism. It is possible that bipedalism was favored because it freed up the hands for reaching and carrying food, because it saved energy during locomotion, because it enabled long distance running and hunting, hunting, or as a strategy for avoiding hyperthermia by reducing the surface exposed to direct sun.

The Book of Genesis The human species developed a much larger brain than that of other primates â&#x20AC;&#x201C; typically 1,330 cc in modern humans, over twice the size of that of a chimpanzee or gorilla. The pattern of encephalization started with Homo habilis which at approximately 600 cc had a brain slightly larger than chimpanzees, and continued with Homo erectus (800â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1100 cc), and reached a maximum in Neanderthals with an average size of 1200-1900cc, larger even than Homo sapiens. The pattern of human postnatal brain growth differs from that of other apes (heterochrony), and allows for extended periods of social learning and language acquisition in juvenile humans. However, the differences between the structure of human brains and those of other apes may be even more significant than differences in size. The increase in volume over time has affected different areas within the brain unequally â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the temporal lobes, which contain centers for language processing have increased disproportionately, as has the prefrontal cortex which has been related to complex decision making and moderating social behavior. Encephalization has been tied to an increasing emphasis on meat in the diet, or with the development of cooking, and it has been proposed that intelligence increased as a response to an increased necessity for solving social problems as human society became more complex. The reduced degree of sexual dimorphism is primarily visible in the reduction of the male canine tooth relative to other ape species (except gibbons). Another important physiological change related to sexuality in humans was the evolution of hidden estrus. Humans are the only ape in which the female is fertile year round, and in which no special signals of fertility are produced by the body (such as genital swelling during estrus). Nonetheless humans retain a degree of sexual dimorphism in the distribution of body hair and subcutaneous fat, and in the overall size, males being around 25% larger than females. These changes taken together have been interpreted as a result of an increased emphasis on pair bonding as a possible solution to the requirement for increased parental investment due to the prolonged infancy of offspring. Rise of Homo sapiens By the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period (50,000 BP), full behavioral modernity, including language, music and other cultural universals had developed. As modern humans spread out from Africa they encountered other hominids such as Homo neanderthalensis and the so-called Denisovans. The nature of interaction between early humans and these sister species has been a long standing source of controversy, the question being whether humans replaced these earlier species or whether they were in fact similar enough to interbreed, in which case these earlier populations may have contributed genetic material to modern humans. Recent studies of the human and Neanderthal genomes suggest gene flow between archaic Homo sapiens and Neanderthals and Denisovans. This dispersal out of Africa is estimated to have begun about 70,000 years BP from northeast Africa. Current evidence suggests that there was only one such dispersal and that it only involved a few hundred individuals. The vast majority of humans stayed in Africa and adapted to diverse array of environments. Modern humans subsequently spread globally, replacing earlier hominins (either through competition or hybridization). They inhabited Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years BP, and the Americas at least 14,500 years BP. Transition to civilization The rise of agriculture, and domestication of animals, led to stablehuman settlements. Until c. 10,000 years ago, humans lived as hunter-gatherers. They generally lived in small nomadic groups known as band societies. The advent of agriculture prompted the Neolithic

The Book of Genesis Revolution, when access to food surplus led to the formation of permanent human settlements, the domestication of animals and the use of metal tools for the first time in history. Agriculture encouraged trade and cooperation, and led to complex society. Because of the significance of this date for human society, it is the epoch of the Holocene calendar or Human Era. About 6,000 years ago, the first proto-states developed in Mesopotamia, Egypt's Nile Valley and the Indus Valley. Military forces were formed for protection, and government bureaucracies for administration. States cooperated and competed for resources, in some cases waging wars. Around 2,000â&#x20AC;&#x201C;3,000 years ago, some states, such as Persia, India, China, Rome, and Greece, developed through conquest into the first expansive empires. Ancient Greece was the seminal civilization that laid the foundations of Western culture, being the birthplace of Western philosophy, democracy, major scientific and mathematical advances, the Olympic Games, Western literatureand historiography, as well as Western drama, including both tragedy and comedy. Influential religions, such as Judaism, originating in West Asia, and Hinduism, originating in South Asia, also rose to prominence at this time. The late Middle Ages saw the rise of revolutionary ideas and technologies. In China, an advanced and urbanized society promoted innovations and sciences, such as printing and seed drilling. In India, major advancements were made in mathematics, philosophy, religion and metallurgy. The Islamic Golden Age saw major advancements in mathematics, astronomy, optics, biology, medicine, art and architecture in Muslim empires. In Europe, the rediscovery of classical learning and inventions such as the printing press led to the Renaissance in the 14th and 15th centuries. Over the next 500 years, exploration and colonialism brought great parts of the world under European control, leading to later struggles for independence. The Scientific Revolution in the 17th century and the Industrial Revolution in the 18thâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;19th centuries promoted major innovations in transport, such as the railway and automobile; energy development, such as coal and electricity; and government, such as representative democracy and Communism. With the advent of the Information Age at the end of the 20th century, modern humans live in a world that has become increasingly globalized and interconnected. As of 2010, almost 2 billion humans are able to communicate with each other via the Internet, and 3.3 billion by mobile phone subscriptions. Although interconnection between humans has encouraged the growth of science, art, discussion, and technology, it has also led to culture clashes and the development and use ofweapons of mass destruction. Human civilization has led to environmental destruction and pollution significantly contributing to the ongoing mass extinction of other forms of life called the holocene extinction event, which may be further accelerated by global warming in the future.

The Book of Genesis

1. Gymnasio Kalampakas

The Creation of the World in Myths

The Book of Genesis

People have always been inquisitive as to their origin in order to give meaning to natural phenomena, human nature, death and birth. Depending on their civilization and culture they formed various beliefs about the creation of the world. After being transformed transformed into tales, these beliefs were the basis for the creation of mythologies.

Baltic Mythology There are no myths about the creation of the world and its structure in the tradition of the Baltic peoples. Perhaps the historical and social conditions were an obstacle for the formation of such myths or made it impossible for people to preserve them. The creation Myth There is disagreement as to whether the world consisted of two or three parts. However, there is the myth about “this sun” (šī ( saule)) and “the other sun” (viņa saule).. On the one hand, šī saule symbolizes everyday human life whereas viņa ņa saule represents the invisible world where the sun goes at night, which is also the home of the dead. The sky was a mountain made of stone and the home of the sky gods. There was a World Ocean on which the earth, as a round plate, swam. In the middle of the world ocean or somewhere to the west, there was a sun tree or world tree, tree, which was either an oak or a linden. This tree grew at the edge of the path of Saule (a deity) and the setting sun. The Latvian word for "the world" (pasaule) ( ) can be translated as "[a place] under the Sun" The gods Dievs was the supreme creator sky god who, together with Laima, Laima the goddess of human fate, determined the world order and the human destiny. He was the source of all the good things such as peace, friendship, flowers and birds. He accidentally created humans from the flecks of dirt that fell as he was washing this face. fa Dievs lived on a farmstead in the sky. He was dressed in a silver gown, pendants and had a sword. He rarely rode down to earth, on horseback or in a horse-drawn drawn chariot, in order to watch over farmers and their crops. Saulė (on the right) was the goddess god of life and fertility, health and warmth. She was the Mother of all the planets and the protector of the unfortunate, especially the orphans. Dressed in gold, she had golden hair and a golden crown. She rode over the sky in a chariot drawn by twin white horses with golden manes. Unseen during the night, she made her way from west to east under the earth so that she could start her course again over the sky mountain. When she finished her ride, she hung her belt on the world tree and rested. Saulė married Mėnuo (the Moon) who fell in love with Aušrinė (Venus or the morning star). Perkūnas, Perk the thunder god) punished Mėnuo M for his infidelity.

Celtic mythology Celtic mythology is the mythology of the Iron Age Celts. Unfortunately, there is no particular myth of the creation of the world for several reasons. First of all, their mythology did not survive the Roman Empire, Empire, thus the Celtic culture was almost eliminated. eliminated Also, they converted to Christianity and their myths s may have been distorted or changed. Finally, the Celtic languages were lost and most myths were preserved orally as there were no written texts. Therefore, it is no surprise that most of the Celtic mythology is fragmented. There are various myths about the the creation of the world. Below you can read two of them.

The Book of Genesis

A Celtic creation Myth: Donn and Danu A very long time ago, there was nothing but the void: nothingness and emptiness everywhere. So the void started feeling lonely and longed for companionship. Because of its intense desire, the great void divided and created a god and a goddess, named Donn and Danu. When they looked at each other, they fell in love and they locked into an embrace from which they could not be separated. After a while, they bore children three of whom were Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba, the giants among their children. All of them were caught between their interlocked parents and couldn’t escape. Briain realized that if his parents didn’t separate, he and his brothers would die. Since Danu loved her son more than her husband, she let Briain slay his father. Briain was so furious that he cut his father into nine parts. Danu got horrified when she saw that and started crying. Her tears swelled into a great flood that swept away all her children to earth. Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba were now the “Three Landless Princes” and Danu was named the "Waters of Heaven." Also, the flood of her tears washed away the nine parts of Donn. His head became the skies, his brain the clouds, his face the sun, his mind the moon, his bones the stones, his flesh the soil and his breath the wind. Donn’s blood mixed with Danu’s tears and became the seas. Of his seeds two remained: a red one and a white one. Both fell onto the soil that was the Don’s flesh. When Danu realized one of the seeds was Donn, she began crying again. This time her tears soaked into the dry soil of the earth and made the seeds grow. So life began to spring from the seeds, and then all over the earth. The red acorn, which took root and grew into the sacred Oak Tree, was Donn’s reincarnation. The Oak Tree became the king among the humans and amongst them Donn became known as Eochaidh. The other seed became his brother, Finn, and was turned into a priest. When Donn saw his beloved Danu up in heavens, he stretched his branches out to the skies, trying to dry her tears with his leaves. Nourished by the waters of heaven, the oak grew many berries, which fell on the ground and grew into the first humans. All the people that grew out of these berries slipped into lethargy and stagnation because there was no death at the time. Gradually, they became all the more lazy until they started to rot inside. Then, Donn asked his brother Finn for advice. “What people need is death,” he said. “There must be renewal in the world.” He added that Donn should die so that his body would renew the world. His spirit should go to the sea where it could build a new land for those who would die. Yet, Donn didn’t like his idea so the two brothers started fighting. In the end, Donn killed Finn with his blades. On seeing his brother dead, Donn felt so much pain and anger that his heart and body burst apart. Parts of his body fell everywhere and this renewed the world. His spirit fell into the sea and built his new house. So death did come to mankind. When Donn died three mighty roots of the oak grew deep into the ground creating the Otherworld, a place where people go after death. Donn became the god of the Otherworld while Danu remained the goddess of heaven. Although they were separated by the earth, their love continued to live. Eiocha and Cernunnos Once upon a time, there was no time and no gods or humans walked on the land. Yet, there was the sea, and where the sea met the land, a mare was born called Eiocha. She was white and she was made of sea-foam.

The Book of Genesis Not far from where the land met the sea, a strong tree grew: a sturdy oak. A plant whose seeds were formed of the foam tears of the sea sprouted from the oak. Eiocha ate these seeds, these white berries so that she could live and they were transformed into a child within her. So she gave birth to the god, Cernunnos. She was in such great pain in childbirth that she ripped the bark from the tree and hurled it into the sea. The sea turned the bark into the giants of the deep. Cernunnos felt lonely as he saw the giants of the deep who were numerous. So he coupled with Eiocha and she gave birth to more gods, Maponos, the god of youth, Tauranis, the god of thunder, Teutates, the protector and Epona, the goddess of fertility. Being a creature of the sea foam, Eiocha soon got tired of the land and she returned to the sea. There, she was turned into Tethra or Tethys, the goddess of the deep water. Still, the gods and goddesses felt lonely because there was nobody to command or worship them. Thus, they took some wood from the oak tree and created the first man, the first woman and various animals. Cernunnos made some other animals from the oak tree: the deer, the hound, the boar, the raven, the hare and the snake. He was the god of the animals and he ordered the oak tree to spread and grow into vast forests which would be the home of his children. Epona only made the horse in remembrance of Eiocha, who was not with them anymore. Teutates made a bow, arrows and a club from the oak tree. Tauranis created thunderbolts made of fire and noise from the branches of the oak tree. Maponos also took branches from the tree and he made not a weapon but a harp and played his music in Cernunnos' forest. The giants of the deep saw that the gods and goddesses were happy on the land and they envied them. So they decided to conspire against the gods. They would overwhelm them with the sea and take the land under the water. Fortunately, Tethra in the deep sea heard them and warned her sons and daughter. When the giants attacked the gods, they were prepared and had taken refuge in the oak tree. A fierce battle took place, the gods overwhelmed the giants who were pushed back into the sea and Tethra bound them in the deep waters. The paradise they had created had been destroyed; yet, they managed to repair everything. Epona had saved a man and a woman and the three of them waited deep in Cernunnos' forest. This man and this woman went on to create all human life.

Greek Mythology Greek mythology consists of the various myths that were made up by the ancient Greeks regarding the nature of the world, the beginning of life, their gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, mythological creatures, the significance and origins of their culture and rituals. In fact, it was a part of the ancient Greek religion. The Creation Myth is their attempt to explain the mysteries of life, impose order in the universe and define peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place in it. There are many versions of the creation of the world, the most popular and detailed of which is Theogony or Theogonia, a poem written by the Greek poet, Hesiod, in the 8th century B.C. In later times, the observation that nature presented obvious regularities gave birth to the idea that these regularities werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the result of godsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; whims but of laws of nature. This concept led to the birth of modern science.

The Book of Genesis

Hesiodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Theogony First, there was Chaos, the nothingness out of which the first objects of existence appeared spontaneously. Then, came Gaia (the Earth), which was either born out of Chaos or simply rose on its own. The Earth, which came into existence to serve as a foundation for the home of gods, surrounded and engulfed Chaos. Afterwards, Eros (the desire or sexual love) came out of chaos. Then, the universe began to take shape. Soon, Chaos gave birth to Tartarus (the Underworld), Erebus (the darkness of the Underworld) and Nyx (Night) through parthenogenesis. Erebus and Nyx mated and produced a son, Aether (Light), and a daughter, Hemera (Day). Night and Day shared a house covered in the darkness of Tartarus. Yet, they never stayed in the house at the same time but took turns, each waiting for the other to depart before getting into the house. As she was sleeping Gaia gave birth to Uranos (Sky), who was as big as his mother Gaia so that he could cover her, and Pontus (the sea). Feeling love for his Mother Earth, the Sky showered her with fertile rain and Gaia produced the mountains and the flora and fauna. Gaia and Uranus mated and they produced twelve Titans (the powerful deities that ruled during the Golden Age), the three Cyclops (one-eyed giants), the three Hecatoncheires (hundredhanded giants of even greater power and ferocity than the Titans). However, Uranus was not at all a good father. Intimidated by an oracle stating that he would be overthrown by one of his children, he tried to get rid of them. First, he imprisoned the Hecatoncheires by pushing them into Gaia's womb causing great emotional and physical pain to her. As for the Titans, when Gaia gave birth to one of these children, Uranus thrust the baby back into their mother's womb. As a result, all of his children hated Uranus; the youngest Titan, Cronus, in particular, could not wait for the opportunity to seize the power from his cruel father. Uranusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s attitude infuriated Gaea and she plotted against him. She created a metal, made a sickle and gave it to Cronus. So when Uranus lay with Gaea at night, Cronus attacked his father, castrated him with the sickle and threw the severed genitals into the ocean. From his spilt blood came the Giants, the Ash Tree Nymphs, and the Erinyes (Furies). Aphrodite came from the sea foam where his genitals fell. Cronus became the next ruler for many ages. He imprisoned the Cyclops and the Hecatoncheires in Tartarus. He married his sister, Rhea, and he and the other Titans had many children. Cronus became more of a tyrant than his father. Yet, Gaea and Uranus had prophesied that he would be overthrown by one of his sons. To remain in power, Cronus swallowed his offsprings when they were born. Rhea got very angry and now it was her turn to plot against Cronus. When she was about to give birth to her sixth child, she hid and after the birth she secretly gave the child, Zeus, to the nymphs to raise him. So as not to reveal what she had done, she wrapped a stone in swaddling clothes and passed it off as the baby to Cronus, who swallowed it. Zeus grew into a handsome youth and asked for

The Book of Genesis Metis’s advice on how to defeat Cronus. She prepared a drink which would make Cronus vomit the other children. When the other five children were vomited, they were unharmed. Since they were thankful to Zeus, they made him their ruler. Cronus and the other Titans fought to remain in power. At first, it seemed that the Titans would win and the young god. However, cunning as he was, Zeus asked the Cyclops and the Hecatoncheires to help him. Eventually, in Titanomachy they managed to defeat the Titans, who were soon exiled into Tartarus. Atlas, though, was exempted from this punishment and was made to hold the world on his shoulders. The fates One of the most important features of the Greek mythology was the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos; they were three goddesses who spent their time weaving a rug where men’s and gods’ affairs appear. Each of them had a specific function, yet, they all had the responsibility to determine the course of events in human lives even the span of each life. Clotho (the Spinner) would spin the thread of life of each mortal, Lachesis (the Measurer) would measure the length with a rod and Atropos (the Inflexible) would cut it with shears, thus ending it. There was nothing that could be done to alter this rug; even the gods were powerless to do so. For the first time, the concept that there is a force which rules everything, even the gods, appears.

The Olympian Gods and Goddesses Twelve gods and goddesses ruled the universe from the top of Mount Olympus. The Olympian Gods came to power after their leader, Zeus, defeated Cronus, leader of the Titans. They were all somehow related to one another. The Romans adopted most of these Greek gods, but with new names. Zeus (Roman name: Jupiter) was the most powerful god of the sky and king of Olympus. He threw thunderbolts when he was sad. He married Hera but had many other lovers. Hera (Roman name: Juno) was the goddess of marriage and the queen of Olympus. She was Zeus's wife and sister. She kept seeking revenge when Zeus had other lovers Poseidon (Roman name: Neptune) was the god of the sea and the second most powerful. He lived in the sea and caused earthquakes he was angry.

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Aphrodite (Roman name: Venus) was the goddess of beauty and love. She may have risen from the sea on a shell. Apollo was the god of music. He was also an archer and hunted with a silver bow. He was Artemis’s twin brother. Ares (Roman name: Mars) - being both cruel and a coward, he was the god of war. Ares was Zeus and Hera’s son, but neither of his parents liked him. Artemis (Roman name: Diana) was the goddess of hunt and women’s protector in childbirth. She hunted using silver arrows and loved wild animals. Athena (Roman name: Minerva) was the goddess of wisdom. Being skilled in war art, she helped heroes such as Odysseus and Hercules.

A THENA

The Book of Genesis Athena was born full-grown from Zeus’s forehead so she was his favorite child. Hephaestus (Roman name: Vulcan) was the god of fire. Although he made weapons for the gods, he loved peace. He was Zeus and Hera’s son. He was ugly and walked with a limp; still, he married Aphrodite. Hermes (Roman name: Mercury) was the messenger god, a friend to thieves and a trickster. He invented gymnastics. Being the fastest of all, he wore winged sandals and a winged hat and carried a magic wand.

DEMETER

Demeter (Roman name: Ceres) was the goddess of the harvest. She was Zeus‘s sister. Persephone, her daughter, was made to live with Hades every winter; at this time, Demeter did not let crops grow. The word “cereal” comes from her Roman name.

Hestia (Roman name: Vesta) was the goddess of the hearth and the family. She belongs to the first Olympian generation but she gave her throne to Dionysus to keep the peace, which made her the most generous of the gods.

Norse or Scandinavian Mythology Norse or Scandinavian Mythology is the mythology which was created by the people living in the Scandinavian countries and the north of Germany. Actually, it had been a kind of religious or tradition practice before the Norse and other people of Germanic origin were converted to Christianity. The creation of the world Before the creation of the world there was a very dark cold place, Niflheim, which was the land of frost, ice and fog. There was also another place called Muspelheim, which was the land of fire and the homeland of fire giants and fire demons. Between them, there was chasm, a vast empty space called Ginunngagap. Hvergelmir was a region in Nilfheim and it was where all the cold rivers had their origin. These rivers used to float down to Ginunngagap and they were turned to ice which, as time went by, formed a very thick layer. That is the reason why it is very cold in the north. At the other side of this huge vastness, lava and flames came into Ginunngagap. These two elements - fire and ice - met in the middle of Ginunngagap. Ice THE COW AND YMIR was melted by the fire and it started to drip. A gigantic creature called Ymir and Audhumia, a giant cow, were formed by the melting ice. Audhumia, which was able to survive by licking the salty ice, nourished Ymir and helped him grow up. One day, as Ymir was sleeping, two more giants grew out of the sweat under his arm; Buri, a male god, and his wife. They came into life because the cow licked them. Buri, who was handsome, was the first giant god. The giant couple had a son, Borr. That was the first family of frost giants or Jotuns. Borr got married to Bestla, a Jotun woman, and they had three sons, Odin, Vili and Ve. When Odin and his brothers grew up, they were annoyed by the fact that the Jotuns outnumbered the Aesir (the male gods) since Ymir was constantly creating new Jotuns. So they decided to kill him. One night, as Ymir was sleeping, they attacked him and managed to kill him after a

The Book of Genesis horrible battle. Then, they dragged the dead body into the center of Ginunngagap. As the dead giant’s blood sprouted out furiously, it flooded the whole place and the majority of the Jotuns drowned. However, two Jotuns, Bergelmir and his wife, managed to survive and found shelter in the land of the mist. All the future Jotuns were their descendants. Odin used Ymir’s body to create the world. • His flesh became the land. • The mountains were made out of his bones. • The rocks were shaped from his teeth • His hair was converted into grass and trees. • His blood was turned into oceans and water. • The eyelashes formed Midgard (the earth). • His skull became the sky. • The clouds were made out of his brain, which the three brothers had thrown up in the air.

Also, Odin and his brothers took some sparks coming from Muspelheim and they put them in Ymir’s skull. These sparks were the stars that gleamed at night. Afterwards, they built Asgard, the home of the gods and goddesses, on the plains of Idavoll, which was very far away from the place the Jotuns lived. Odin became the ruler of Asgard and the king of the Aesir. In the meantime, worms crawled out of Ymir’s dead body and they were turned to dwarfs. Since Odin feared the sky might fall, he asked four of the dwarfs to hold it. The dwarfs’ names were North "Nordi", West "Vestri", South "Sundri", and East "Austri", and soon were sent to the four directions of the world. Midgard: the home of the Humans

MIDGARD: THE HOME OF THE HUMANS

Midgard (middle earth) was situated in the middle of the world, below Asgard. These two lands (Midgard and Asgard) were connected by the Rainbow Bridge called Bifrost. There was a vast ocean around Midgard. No one could pass through the ocean as a huge sea serpent, the Midgard Serpent, lived there. Actually, it was so long that it encircled the whole world biting its tail.

Ask and Embla One day, as Odin and his brothers were walking along the beach, they found two logs; one of the logs was from an ash tree and the other one was from an elm tree. The three gods turned the logs into the first two humans: Odin gave them life and spirit, Ve gave them mind, movement and intelligence and Vili gave them shape, feelings, speech and the five senses. The man was named Ask and the woman was given the name Embla. The gods decided they should live in Midgard. The sun and the moon Mundilfari was a man who lived in Midgard and had two beautiful and shiny children. They were so shiny that he named them Mani and Sol. The gods were annoyed by Mundilfari’s arrogance so they decided to take the children up in the sky. Sol (the sun) was put in a chariot drawn by two horses and Mani (the moon) was in another chariot pulled by one horse.

The Book of Genesis

Day and Night A Jotun woman by the name Nat (night) had a son called Dag (day). Nat and Dag were given a horse-drawn chariot each and were made to ride them around the world day and night. Night rode her chariot in front of Day and they were chased by two other Jotun children - wolves, Sköll (treachery) and Hati Hróðvitnisson (meaning ‘he who hates enemy’). Every month, Hati took a small bite out of the Moon but the Moon managed to grow whole again. The two wolves would be able to get hold of the sun and the moon at Ragnarök, which was doom’s day for gods and humans. Yggdrasil: the tree of life Yggdrasil, the tree of life, grew from Ymir’s dead body. It was in the center of Asgard, the place where the gods lived. It was an eternal green ash tree whose branches stretched out over the nine worlds, reached the heavens and supported the universe. Yggdrasil had three enormous roots going to each of the three levels of the world and three springs supplied it with water. The first root reached Asgard, where the gods held their daily meetings. Its second root went down to the land of the giants. The third root went into Niflheim, the land of the darkness and the dead where the dragon Nidhug lived. It was an evil dragon which tried to gnaw the roots of the tree on top of which there was an eagle. The eagle and the dragon really hated each other and they were bitter enemies. There was also a squirrel which did whatever possible to preserve the enmity between the eagle and the dragon. There were nine worlds in Norse Mythology and they were divided into three levels. In the first level, there was: • Asgard, the home of the Aesir • Vanaheim, the home of the Vanir • Alfheim, the home of the Light Elves. The middle level comprised: • Midgard "Middle Earth", the home of the humans • Jotunheim, the home of the Giants • Svartalfheim, the home of the Dark Elves • Nidavellir, the home of the Dwarfs. The lower level included: • Niflheim, the home of the dead • Muspelheim, the home of the fire Giants and Demons.

The three Norns The three Norns, who were the goddesses of fate, were Urd (past), Verdani (present) and Skuld (future). They span the threads of life and decided every human’s, animal’s and god’s fate. When a child was born, they span his/her fate in their threads.

Thor Thor was the god of war, thunder and strength, son of Odin and one of the Aesir Norse gods. He smashed the giants' heads with his mighty hammer, Mjolnir. He was the most barbarian of the gods and it was believed that during a thunderstorm, he rode through the heavens on his chariot pulled by the goats gap-tooth and tooth grinder. Lightning flashed whenever he threw his hammer. Thor's wife was Sif. He is often compared with the Greek thunder god Zeus. The English fifth day of the week is named Thursday after him (Thor's Day).

The Book of Genesis

Slavic Mythology Slavic mythology consists of the various mythological aspects of a religion which was practised by the Slavs before they converted to Christianity. It has to be noted here, though, that there are different myths concerning the creation of the world as the Slavs have been living in a vast geographical area from the shores of the Baltic to the shores of the White Sea. Therefore, one can read different myths about different deities depending on the Slavic origin of the myth. Below, we have attempted to describe a few of them.

The World Tree The Earth used to be an island floating in water and the sun immersed in it every evening. There was the world tree, which was either a pine tree or an oak tree, in the center of this Island. The roots of this sacred tree reached deep down to the underworld, the world of the dead, whereas its branches went high up to the realm of the sky gods. Three levels of the world were to be found on the tree: • its crown represented the sky and it was the realm of celestial bodies and heavenly deities • its trunk was the realm of mortals • its roots represented the underworld and it was the realm of the dead. The crown and the trunk were sometimes combined but they were never linked to the roots of the tree. The three realms, which were vertically placed on the axis mundi of the World Tree, parallel the geographical horizontal organization of the world. The world where gods and mortals lived was in the center of the earth. It was surrounded by a sea across which the land of the dead could be found. Birds would fly to the land of the dead every winter and return from it in spring (dying - returning to life). On the horizontal axis, the world was also separated by four points which, in fact, are the four wind directions (north, east, south, west). Perun and Veles Perun, the supreme God, was the ruler of the living world, the sky and the earth. Being the heavenly god of thunder and lightning, he ruled the world sitting on the highest branch of the sacred tree watching over the whole world often in the form of an eagle. Perun was the giver of rains to farmers. Besides, as the god of war and weapons, he was armed with various weapons such as stones and stone arrows as well as his golden apples which were as destructive as his firestone arrows. All the humans ‘acknowledge that one god, creator of lightning, is the only lord of all: to him do they sacrifice an ox and all sacrificial animals’. Veles was the chthonic god of the underworld. He ruled the realm of the dead living down at the roots of the World Tree in the form of a huge serpent which coiled around it. The underworld was a beautiful place with green and wet grassy plains, everlasting spring, fantastic creatures and the spirits of the deceased, which watch over Veles' cattle or herds. This land was located across the sea. Every year, the migrating birds would fly there to spend the winter and would return to the world of the

The Book of Genesis humans from across the sea in spring. Veles was also the god of waters, wealth, cattle and trickery and the protector of the shepherds. He was Perun’s opponent in almost every way and there was a constant battle between them. He stole Perun’s wife, son or cattle and Perun chased him attacking him with his lightning bolts. Veles managed to escape the God’s fury hiding behind trees, people and houses or transforming himself into different animals. Eventually, Perun killed Veles or chased him back to the underworld and was able to reestablish the order disrupted by Veles in the world of the humans. Then, he went up on the top of the sacred tree and, looking down at the roots, he said to Veles, "Well, there is your place, remain there!". The golden egg Once, there was a golden egg that was wrapped in darkness and nothingness. Inside it was Rod, the father of all human beings and the creator of the universe. Rod created Lada, the goddess of love. Using the strength of love and after cutting his umbilical cord with a rainbow, he managed to get out of the egg, broke through the darkness and created the universe which consisted of our world as well as an innumerable number of worlds. Then, he separated the seas from the skies, the light from the darkness and the truth from deceit. Following that, he divided the world into three parts: • Prav (Правь), the home of the gods and, as the name indicates, it is the place for right and truth (Pravda = truth) • Yav (Явь), the visible world of the humans (Yavlyat’sya = to be, to appear) • Nav (навь), the home of the deceased, the lower world. Next, he gave birth to Mother Earth, which immediately vanished into the sea where she stayed for a while. Soon afterwards… the sun came out of Rod’s head the moon was made from His breast the dense stars were created from His eyes the dark nights came out of His thoughts the bright sunrise was made from His eyebrows the powerful winds were created from His breath rain, snow and hail from His tears thunder and lightning from His voice…. ....and then, Rod created His son and breathed life into him. His son, Svarog, would be the one to create the rest of the world. Indeed, he gave him four heads so that he could watch the four ends of the world. Svarog was the powerful god of the forge, the blacksmith of the world’s existence. First, he shaped a path around the earth for the sun to walk ROD along, thus crating night and day. The alteration between the sun and the moon made the seas have foam and waves. Satisfied with his creation as he was, he realized Mother Earth was missing. He was stressed about that and took a walk. As he was walking he saw a duck above a dark hole and asked it if it had seen Mother Earth. The duck replied that She was down at the bottom of the ocean. So Svarog SVAROG asked the duck to go and get Mother Earth. The duck agreed and came back a year later saying it was difficult to keep earth and asked for help. Svarog called Rod who then blew a strong wind and stirred up the ocean. The duck dived down again and came up two years later. It had run out of breath and didn’t manage to retrieve Mother Earth. Svarog asked for Rod’s help for a second time. Rod brought a storm upon the ocean and lightning into the duck. The duck dived down and three years later, it returned with a branch in her mouth. Svarog took the branch, rubbed it in His palms and commanded the forces of the world: “Make warmth, Sun! Light up, Moon! Blow, Wind! We must save Mother Earth, our nurturer.” Afterwards, all the elements

The Book of Genesis gathered and started work. The wind blew the branch away from Svarog’s hands into the ocean. All of a sudden, the sun shone heating the ocean. As the water evaporated, Mother Earth emerged from the bottom of the ocean and the moon immediately cooled her down. Then, Svarog created 3 underworld kingdoms and a mighty snake, Yusha, so that the earth wouldn’t fall back into the deep ocean. The snake’s fate would be to hold Mother Earth above water and if the snake moved, the earth would quake.

The Book of Genesis

Celal Yardimci Ortaokulu

The Creation of the World in Art

The Book of Genesis

Adam and Eve in art – from past to present The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the central theme: God creates the world and appoints man as his regent, but man proves disobedient and God destroys his world through the Flood. The new post-Flood world is equally corrupt but God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At God’s command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, where he dwells as a sojourner, as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob. Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, and through the agency of his Joseph, the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all mankind (the covenant with Noah) to a special relationship with one person alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). Early Christian and Byzantine art is the artistic product of the Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Empire, as well as the nations and states that inherited culturally from the empire. Though the empire itself emerged from Rome’s decline and lasted until the fall of Constantinopole in 1453. Gothic Art is the style of art produced in Northern Europe from the middle ages up until the beginning of the Renaissance. Typically rooted in religious devotion, it is especially known for the distinctive arched design of its churches, its stained glass, and its illuminated manuscripts.In the late 14th century, anticipating the Renaissance, Gothic Art developed into a more secular style known as International Gothic. One of the great artists of this period is Simone Martini. (on the left: stained glass from Chartres Cathedral)

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the period roughly from the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. (below, from left to right: Masaccio “Expulsion”, Hans Memling “Adam and Eve”, Lucas Cranach the Elder)

The Book of Genesis

Michelangeleo Buonarroti Creation of Adam. Michelangelo's depiction of moment of creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo ,Adam and Eve with four 覺gnudi at Sistine Chapel, fresco

Raphael Adam and Eve, fresco

Raphael Sanzio Adam and Eve -1509/1511

The Book of Genesis

Vecellio Tiziano Adam and Eve -1550 oil on canvas

Albert D端rer Adam and Eve

The Baroque is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe

Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel Adam an Eve in Paradise

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Peter Paul Rubens Adam and Eve oil on canvas

Rembrandt Adam and Eve 1638

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome. The main Neoclassical movement coincided with the 18th century Age of Enlightenment, and continued into the early 19th century, latterly competing with Romanticism. In architecture, the style continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and into the 21st century. (Below – from left to right: Benjamin West “Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden”, 1791 and Jacques-Louis David “Adam and Eve”, ink drawing)

Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.

The Book of Genesis

William Blake: Satan watching the careses of Adam and Eve -1808 and Adam and Eve sleeping ink drawing on the paper Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France.

Paul Gaugu覺n Adam and Eve

Auguste Rodin Adam and Eve expelled from paradise

The Book of Genesis

Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century artistic movement rejecting Realism

Alfons Mucha Adam and Eve

Gustave Klimt Adam and Eve, 1917 oil on canvas

Fauvism is the style, a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain

Henri Matisse Adam and Eve, 1948

Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger

The Book of Genesis

Pablo Picasso Man and Woman, 1927

Fernand Leger Adam and Eve, 1935

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.

Edward Munch Adam and Eve, 1918

Henri Rousseau Eve, 1906 oil on canvas

Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century

The Book of Genesis

Man Ray Adam And Eve (Marcel Duchamp and Bronia perlmutter-Claire ), 1924 photography

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality." Artists painted unnerving, illogical scenes with photographic precision, created strange creatures from everyday objects and developed painting techniques that allowed the unconscious to express itself. Salvador Dali, Adam and Eve, 1984

Marc Chagall Adam and Eve expelled from paradise 1961

Marc Chagall Adam and Eve,1960

The Book of Genesis

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States Pop art presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc. In pop art, material is sometimes visually removed from its known context, isolated, and/or combined with unrelated material

Richard Hamilton, 1956, collage

Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people who lived within the territory that was inhabited by or ruled by culturally Islamic population

"Adam and Eve are the figures we mostly encountered while searching Genesis in art history. We have observed that while some artists from different art movements in the course of history described Adam and Eve in different manners, some others described in similar way. The reason of this interest may be that it was the first love story and it gives the opportunity to painters to present their knowledge on anatomy. You are going to witness how Adam and Eve figures were interpreted and see different and similar paintings in our paper named “Adam and Eve in art from past to present”. The paper is formed in a way that it represents the paintings in a chronological order from today to past. The reason that we implemented this method is as follows: Each art movement is constructed on another one and each has some characteristics inherited from its predecessor. That’s why the transparency of the material we used enables you to see the traces of images owned by the previous art movement and supports our idea.”

The Book of Genesis

Colegio Nuestra Se帽ora de Monte-Si贸n

The Creation of the World in Literature

The Book of Genesis

Romanian Literature · Authors Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889) Romania’s greatest romantic poet, Mihai Eminescu, was born at Ipotesti, Botosani on January 15, 1850. He attended elementary and secondary school in Cernãuti. He travelled all over Romania, in 1867, when he was employed as an actor and prompter in Iorgu Caragiale’s theatrical company. He attended lectures on philosophy, history, law, political economy and philology at Vienna University. There be was among the founders of “Romania Juna”, a society of the Romanian students. He made his literary debut in “Familia”. In 1872, the poet enrolled as a student at the University of Berlin; he wrote such famous poems: “Emperor and Proletarian”, “Angel and Demon”. Once back in Iasi, the poet became director of the Central Library. Towards the end of 1877, Eminescu went to Bucharest upon accepting Titu Maiorescu’s invitation to work for “The Time” and publishes “Luceafarul”, his masterpiece. The only volume of poems printed during his lifetime appeared in the same year, 1883. The poet died on June 15, 1889 and was buried in the Bellu Cemetery in Bucharest. After his death he was made an honorary member of the Romanian Academy in October 1948.

Liviu Rebreanu (1885-1944) Liviu Rebreanu was born in Austria-Hungary in the village of Tîrlişua (Transylvania), nowadays in the Romanian county of Bistriţa-Năsăud, being the first child of the local teacher, Vasile Rebreanu. He followed military studies at Budapest, in Hungary, becoming in 1906 second lieutenant in the army of Austria-Hungary. After two years he resigned from the army, and in 1909 he moved to Bucharest, in Romania. In 1920 the novel "Ion" was published , and Rebreanu was rewarded with the so called "Năsturel Herescu", Academy prize for literary merits. The novel had numerous editions in the following years. In 1922 he published "Pădurea spînzuraţilor" (Forest of the Hanged), in 1925 "Adam and Eve", in 1933 "Răscola" (Uprising). In 1939 Rebreanu was elected member of the Romanian Academy. The writer died on the 1st of September 1944 at Valea Mare near Piteşti (Argeş county), where he had a vineyard and a house.

Mircea Cărtărescu (1956-...) Mircea Cărtărescu was born in Bucharest in 1956. His father was an engineer. He attended the University of Bucharest, where he met other writers who were looking to change Romanian literature. After graduation he became a teacher of Romanian literature. His initial work was in poetry and he gradually earned a reputation as one of the leading Romanian poets. Though he claimed to have been writing prose for some time, it was only in 1989 that his first prose work was published, a collection of connected stories. After the fall of communism, he became a lecturer in literature at the University of Bucharest. His reputation was further enhanced with the publication of Levantul, an epic

The Book of Genesis poem in twelve books. In 1994, his first proper novel was published, since translated into French and Dutch but not English. He is now recognised as the leading contemporary Romanian writer. Vasile Voiculescu (1884 – 1963) Voiculescu was born in Pârscov, Buzău County, Romania, to a family of wealthy peasants. Upon graduating high school in 1902, he read Philosophy for a year at the University of Bucharest before starting his medical studies at the Faculty of Medicine. He became a doctor of medicine in 1910. March 1912 marked Voiculescu's debut as a poet with Dor ("Longing"), a poem first published in Convorbiri Literare. He managed to publish a volume of poems in 1916, but the German Empire forces occupying Bucharest and destroyed all copies. In 1918, he published the volume Din ţara zimbrului .Between the two world wars, he lived in Bucharest and held a series of public conferences on medicine, broadcast on radio and aimed primarily at peasant audiences. He wrote poetry of religious persuasion, themed around the birth of Christ, Magi, and Crucifixion. His literary style gradually became Expressionistic. Voiculescu published several short stories, novels and plays. After World War II, Romanian communist authorities attacked and persecuted Voiculescu for his religious and democratic ideals, and did not allow him to publish. He was imprisoned in 1958, at the age of 74, and he spent the following four years in prison; he became ill during detention, dying of cancer a few months after his release. His final work, The Last Imagined Sonnets of Shakespeare. An intricate portrayal of love in all its glory, it was published after his death. In 1990, he was posthumously elected member of the Romanian Academy. Fragment of ancient fresco:

Verses in the box of a primitive:

Paradise was dead: Cordless clock . Languid lions slept beside lambs, tigers and gazelles were tossing their heads among the flowers, the unicorn seemed made out of spinned stalks , horses out of rubber, bulls out of laziness dogs had stopped barking under the thick shade an ugly monkey slept like a stone - Adam? - Sick of this stationary world The Father himself languished dreaming another being. In his boredom he made a glazed creature Of flowers, strawberries , apples , bizarre , burning , disturbing , with petals claws in its hands and feet , with tender and fresh smell of sin. Lions have stopped yawning, beasts have surrounded all at once, centaurs galloping have come to look and a flock of angels has dropped hastily to praise in its songs of silver. Soft , naked, without shame, Eva smiled everyone sweetly , and the heart of paradise finally began to pound.

Adam wakes : he feels in his ribs a sweet pain. Beside him, the woman smiles serenely . And he, like in a dream , wonders amazed, what is this, what is this white naked apparition and what is it for. Suddenly his eyes choose her white and he is breathless for a moment. From h is chaste being he feels sprout the innocent flame of temptation. Eva , feeling the sweet Cupid's arrow , drops over her back the waves of her hair and slowly walks her smile gracefully on her breasts , on her hips , all over her body , to find out what mysteries are being opened ... And then , defending her modesty , with fragile hands she shows it more than hides it

Conclusions: Great praise to the creation of woman by God. Paradise changes with her creation, because God sees in her the beauty of Paradise. On the other hand, Adam is seen as an ugly one. One of the novelties in this text is the introduction of angels in the creative process.

The Book of Genesis

Polish Literature – Authors Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584) Jan Kochanowski was a Polish Renaissance poet who established poetic patterns that would become integral to Polish literary language. He is commonly regarded as the greatest Polish poet as well as the the greatest Slavic poet prior to the 19th century. Kochanowski was born at Sycyna, near Radom, Poland. Little is known of his early education. At fourteen, however, fluent in Latin, he was sent to Kraków to study at the Jagiellonian University. After graduation in 1547 at age 17, he attended university at Koenigsberg, in Ducal Prussia, and at Padua, Italy. At Padua, Kochanowski came in contact with the great humanist scholar Francis Robortello. Kochanowski closed his fifteen-year period of studies and travels with a final visit to France, where he met the poet Pierre Ronsard. In 1559 Kochanowski returned to Poland for good, a humanist and Renaissance poet. He spent the next fifteen years close to the court of King Sigismund II of Poland, serving for a time as royal secretary. In 1574, following the decampment of Poland's recently elected King Henryk Walezy (whose candidacy to the Polish throne Kochanowski had supported), Kochanowski settled on a family estate at Czarnolas ("Blackwood") to lead the life of a country squire. In 1575 he married Dorota Podlodowska, with whom he had seven children.Kochanowski is sometimes referred to in Polish as "Jan of Czarnolas" ("John of Blackwood"). It was there that he wrote his most memorable works, including The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys and the Laments. Kochanowski died, probably of a heart attack, in Lublin on August 22, 1584. What do you want from us, Lord What do You want from us, Lord, for Your lavish gifts? What for the benefactions, which have no limits? The Church will not contain You, You are everywhere: On the earth, in the depths, the sea, the open air. You do not want gold, I know, as it is all Yours, Whatever in this world man names as his resource. With our grateful hearts we sing your glory, O Lord, For no offering more proper can we afford. You are the Lord of the whole world, You built the sky, And embroidered it splendidly with gold stars high. Of the earth untraversed, You lay the foundation, And covered its bareness with rich vegetation. By Your own command the sea stands within its shores And is fearful to leap over its assigned course. Inexhaustible waters enrich the rivers, Bright day and shadowy night keep their hours diverse. By Your will Spring brings flowers, in abundance born, By Your will Summer wears wreaths made from ears of corn. Autumn gives out wine and apples of various kinds, Idle Winter rises, when ready meal she finds. By Your grace the dew descends on frail plants at night, And the rain brings new life to withered grains aright. From Your hands all animals look for sustenance, And You nourish them all in Your munificence. Be praised forever, everlasting Creator! Your grace and Your goodness will not cease evermore. Shield us, as long as You deign, on this earth so low, But in the shade of Your wings let us always go!

Conclusions: “The Lord, with his great witness, is the creator of the whole world and its owner. Because of that, we are pleased. God is in every nature’s detail. His eternal grace and divinity is the origin of this wonderful world.”

The Book of Genesis

Italian Literature – Authors Saint Francis of Assisi Born in Italy in 1181, St. Francis of Assisi was renown for drinking and partying in his youth. After fighting in a battle between Assisi and Perugia, Francis was captured and imprisoned. He spent nearly a year in prison and, during this time, reportedly began receiving visions from God. After his release from prison, Francis reportedly heard the voice of Christ, who told him to repair the Christian Church and live a life of poverty. Thusly, he abandoned his life of luxury and devoted his life to Christianity, and became known all over the Christian world. Later in life, Francis reportedly received a vision that left him with the stigmata of Christ—marks resembling the wounds Jesus Christ suffered when he was crucified—making Francis the first person to receive the holy wounds of the stigmata. He was canonized as a saint on July 16, 1228. Today, St. Francis of Assisi has had a lasting resonance, with millions of followers across the globe.

Conclusions: It is a song of praise to God for all creation. In addition, it explains the virtues that people should have.

Dante Alighieri [1265-1321] Dante was an Italian poet and moral philosopher best known for the epic poem The Divine Comedy, which comprises sections representing the three tiers of the Christian afterlife: purgatory, heaven, and hell. This poem, a great work of medieval literature and considered the greatest work of literature composed in Italian, is a philosophical Christian vision of mankind’s eternal fate. Dante is seen as the father of modern Italian, and his works have flourished since before his 1321 death. Paradiso Canto VII: 1-54 The Fall of Man and the Crucifixion ‘Osanna Sanctus Deus Sabaoth, superillustrans claritate tua felices ignes horum malachoth! Hosanna, Holy God of Sabaoth, illuminating the blessed fires of these kingdoms, with your brightness from above! So I saw him, singing, to whom the double lustre, of Law and Empire, adds itself, revolving to his own note, and he and the others moved in dance, and like the swiftest of sparks, suddenly veiled themselves from me, in the distance.

The Book of Genesis I said, hesitating: ‘Speak to her, Speak,’ in myself, ‘Speak to my Lady who quenches my thirst, with the sweetest drops.’ But that reverence that completely overcomes me, even at the sound of Be or ice, bowed me again, like a man who slumbers. Beatrice only let me be like that for a moment, and began to direct the rays of her smile towards me, that would make a man happy in the flames: ‘According to my unerring perception, those words about how just vengeance was revenged, with justice, have set you thinking: but I will quickly relieve your thoughts: and listen closely since my words will grant you the gift of a noble statement. Adam, that man who was not born, condemned his whole race because he would not suffer a rein on his will, for his own good. Therefore Humanity lay in sickness down there, and in great error, for many ages, until it pleased God’s Word to descend, when he joined that nature that had wandered from its Creator, to his own person, solely by an act of his eternal Love. Now turn you vision to what I now say: this nature, joined to its maker, was pure and good, as it was when first created, but it had been exiled from Paradise, by its own action, by turning from the way of truth, and its own life. Measured by the nature assumed, no penalty was ever exacted so justly, as that one, inflicted on the Cross, and if we gaze at the Person who endured it, in whom that nature was incarnate, by the same measure no punishment was ever so unjust. So contrary effects came from one cause: God and the Jews were satisfied by the same death: and Earth shook, and Heaven opened at it. Now, it should not seem a difficulty to you, to hear it said that just revenge was taken by the Court of Justice. But now I see your mind tangled in knots, from thought to thought, which it greatly longs for release from.’ Paradiso Canto VII: 55-120 The Redemption: The Incarnation You are saying to yourself: Yes, I understand what I hear, but why God only willed this method of our redemption, is hidden from me. Brother, this decree is buried from the sight of everyone whose intellect is not ripened in Love’s flame. But I will reveal why this method was the most valuable, since it is knowledge often aimed at, but little understood. The Divine Good, that rejects all envy, fires out such sparks from its inner fire as to show forth the eternal beauty. What distills from it, without mediation, is eternal, because the print cannot be removed, once it has stamped the seal. What rains down from it, without mediation, is total freedom, since it is not subject to the power of transient things. It conforms more closely to the Good, and is therefore more pleasing to it: since the sacred flame that lights everything, is most alive in what most resembles it. The human creature has all these advantages, and if one fails, then that creature falls from nobility. Sin is the only thing that disenfranchises it, and makes it dissimilar to the Highest Good, so that its light irradiates it less, and the creature may never return to dignity, unless it fills the place where guilt has made a void, with just punishment for sinful delight. When your nature sinned in totality in the first seed, it was parted from dignity, as it was from Paradise: and they could not be regained, however subtly you search, except by crossing over one of these two fords: either that God out of his grace remitted the debt, or Man gave satisfaction for his foolishness. Now fix your eyes on the abyss of Eternal Wisdom, following my speech as closely as you can. Man had no power ever to be able to give satisfaction, in his own being, since he could not humble himself, by new obedience, as deeply, as he had aimed, so highly, to exalt himself, through disobedience. This was the reason why man was shut out from the power to give satisfaction by himself. Therefore God had to return Man to his perfect life in his own way: that is, through mercy or through justice, or both. And since what is done by the doer is more gracious the more it shows us the goodness of the heart it comes from, the Divine Goodness, that imprints the world, was content to act in both ways, to raise you up again. Between the first day and the last, there never was, nor ever will be again, so high and magnificent a progress on either of those roads, since God was more generous in giving of himself, to make Man capable of rising again, than if he had only granted remission, from himself: and every other way fell short of justice, except that by which the Son of God humbled himself, to become incarnate.’ Paradiso Canto VII: 121-148 – Creation and Resurrection ‘Now to answer all your longings, I go back to explain a certain passage, so that you can understand it as I do. You are saying to yourself: I see the water, fire, earth, and air: and all their mixtures come to corruption, and do not last for long, and yet these things were creatures, and ought to be secure from corruption, if what I have said to you is true. Brother, the Angels, and the pure region where you are, may be said to be created as they are, in their total being, but the elements you have named and all the compounds of them, have been inwardly formed by a created power. The matter that they hold was created: the formative power in those stars which circle round them was created. The life of every wild creature and every plant is drawn from compounds gaining power by the rays and motion of the sacred

The Book of Genesis lights. But your life is breathed into you without mediation, by the supreme beneficence that makes life love it, so that it always longs for it. And from this you can deduce your resurrection in the flesh, if you again consider how human bodies were first made, when your first parents were both made.

Conclusions: “The Lord created the human being on his own. The whole world makes sense because of him. God offered us the freedom to choose, the intelligence and the sense. We lost the paradise, for Adam and Eve’s fault. But God is so generous, that he forgave us

Spanish Literature – Authors St. John of the Cross John of the Cross (San Juan de la Cruz) (24 June 1542 – 14 December 1591), born Juan de Yepes Álvarez, was a major figure of the CounterReformation, a Spanish mystic, Catholic saint, Carmelite friar and priest, born at Fontiveros, Old Castile. Saint John of the Cross was a reformer of the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. He is also known for his writings. In Principio Erat Verbum In the beginning the Word was; he lived in God and possessed in him his infinite happiness. That same Word was God, who is the Beginning; he was in the beginning and had no beginning. He was himself the Beginning and therefore had no beginning. The Word is called Son; he was born of the Beginning who had always conceived him, giving of his substance always, yet always possessing it. And thus the glory of the Son was the Father's glory, and the Father possessed all his glory in the Son. As the lover in the beloved each lived in the other, and the Love that unites them is one with them, their equal, excellent as the One and the Other: Three Persons, and one Beloved among all three. One love in them all makes of them one Lover, and the Lover is the Beloved in whom each one lives. For the being that the three possess each of them possesses,

and each of them loves him who bears this being. Each one is this being, which alone unites them, binding them deeply, one beyond words. Thus it is a boundless Love that unites them, for the three have one love which is their essence; and the more love is one the more it is love. 2. On the communication among the Three Persons. In that immense love proceeding from the two the Father spoke words of great affection to the Son, words of such profound delight that no one understood them; they were meant for the Son, and he alone rejoiced in them. What he heard was this: "My Son, only your company contents me, and when something pleases me I love that thing in you; whoever resembles you most satisfies me most, and whoever is like you in nothing will find nothing in me. I am pleased with you alone,

O life of my life! You are the light of my light, you are my wisdom, the image of my substance in whom I am well pleased. My Son, I will give myself to him who loves you and I will love him with the same love I have for you, because he has loved you whom I love so." 3. On creation. "My Son, I wish to give you a bride who will love you. Because of you she will deserve to share our company, and eat at our table, the same bread I eat, that she may know the good I have in such a Son; and rejoice with me in your grace and fullness." "I am very grateful," the Son answered; "I will show my brightness to the bride you give me, so that by it she may see how great my Father is, and how I have received my being from your being. I will hold her in my arms and she will burn with your love, and with eternal delight

The Book of Genesis

she will exalt your goodness." "Let it be done, then," said the Father, for your love has deserved it. And by these words the world was created, a palace for the bride made with great wisdom and divided into rooms, one above, the other below. The lower was furnished with infinite variety, while the higher was made beautiful with marvelous jewels, that the bride might know the Bridegroom she had. The orders of angels were placed in the higher, but humanity was given the lower place, for it was, in its being, a lesser thing. And though beings and places were divided in this way, yet all form one, who is called the bride; for love of the same Bridegroom made one bride of them. Those higher ones possessed the Bridegroom in gladness; the lower in hope, founded on the faith that he infused in them, telling them that one day he would exalt them, and that he would lift them up from their lowness so that no one could mock it anymore; for he would make himself wholly like them, and he would come to them and dwell with them; and God would be man and man would be God, and he would walk with them and eat and drink with them; and he himself would be with them continually until the consummation of this world, when, joined, they would rejoice in eternal song; for he was the Head of this bride of his to whom all the members

of the just would be joined, who form the body of the bride. He would take her tenderly in his arms and there give her his love; and when they were thus one, he would lift her to the Father where God's very joy would be her joy. For as the Father and the Son and he who proceeds from them live in one another, so it would be with the bride; for, taken wholly into God, she will live the life of God. By this bright hope which came to them from above, their wearying labors were lightened; but the drawn-out waiting and their growing desire to rejoice with their Bridegroom wore on them continually. So, with prayers and sighs and suffering, with tears and moanings they asked night and day that now he would determine to grant them his company. Some said: "If only this joy would come in my time!" Others: "Come, Lord, send him whom you will send!" And others: "Oh, if only these heavens would break, and with my own eyes I could see him descending; then I would stop my crying out." "Oh, clouds, rain down from your height, earth needs you, and let the earth open, which has borne us thorns; let it bring forth that flower that would be its flowering." Others said: "What gladness for him who is living then, who will be able to see God with his own eyes, and touch him with his hand and walk with him and enjoy the mysteries which he will then ordain." In these and other prayers a long time had passed; but in the later years

their fervor swelled and grew when the aged Simeon burned with longing, and begged God that he might see this day. And so the Holy Spirit answering the good old man gave him his word that he would not see death until he saw Life descending from the heights, until he took God himself into his own hands and holding him in his arms, pressed him to himself. The Incarnation Now that the time had come when it would be good to ransom the bride serving under the hard yoke of that law which Moses had given her, the Father, with tender love, spoke in this way: "Now you see, Son, that your bride was made in your image, and so far as she is like you she will suit you well; yet she is different, in her flesh, which your simple being does not have. In perfect love this law holds: that the lover become like the one he loves; for the greater their likeness the greater their delight. Surely your bride's delight would greatly increase were she to see you like her, in her own flesh." "My will is yours," the Son replied, "and my glory is that your will be mine. This is fitting, Father, what you, the Most High, say; for in this way your goodness will be more evident, your great power will be seen and your justice and wisdom. I will go and tell the world, spreading the word of your beauty and sweetness and of your sovereignty.

The Book of Genesis

I will go seek my bride and take upon myself her weariness and labors in which she suffers so; and that she may have life, I will die for her, and lifting her out of that deep, I will restore her to you." Then he called the archangel Gabriel and sent him to the virgin Mary, at whose consent the mystery was wrought, in whom the Trinity clothed the Word with flesh. and though Three work this, it is wrought in the One; and the Word lived incarnate

in the womb of Mary. And he who had only a Father now had a Mother too, but she was not like others who conceive by man. From her own flesh he received his flesh, so he is called Son of God and of man. The Birth When the time had come for him to be born, he went forth like the bridegroom from his bridal chamber, embracing his bride, holding her in his arms, whom the gracious Mother laid in a manger

among some animals that were there at that time. Men sang songs and angels melodies celebrating the marriage of Two such as these. But God there in the manger cried and moaned; and these tears were jewels the bride brought to the wedding. The Mother gazed in sheer wonder on such an exchange: in God, man's weeping, and in man, gladness, to the one and the other things usually so strange.

Conclusions: This poem speaks about the Word, God, that has never been created. It describes the Father and the Son as two people who love themselves because they enjoy of all it has to do with them, when it says: "Nothing pleased me, Son, outside your company, and if something please me I would want it in you." Besides them, it refers to a third person, the Holy Spirit, who is the love that unites both loved. Later another character, the Wife He looks for his son. This wife He is looking for is a metaphor for all of us. The text also speaks about a two-storey palace: the first symbolizes the Earth and the second Heaven. Pedro Espinosa (1578 - 1650) Spanish poet and editor of the anthology Flores de poetas ilustres de España (1605; “Flowers from the Illustrious Poets of Spain”), in which most of the important poets of Spain’s Siglo de Oro (Golden Age; c. 1500– 1650) were published. The anthology choices of authors and poems reflect the continuing judgment of later times. Espinosa’s own poetry clearly showed the Baroque influences of highly ornamental language and subtlety bordering on the esoteric. His long poem Fábula del Genil is considered one of the best poems in the Baroque mode. Psalm to perfection of nature of God Trumpets the firmament those the works by your hands made And a book on your science upon me you wrote Land, sea, fire, wind let your power be seen And every thing I see Tells me I do love you And in your love I’ll be in flames Beyond my love my desire comes Better than I, my Lord you do know it To the voices on your sacred wonders deaf I stand Being called, oh Lord, upon your love Who taught you to make flowers

Or who the rose crowned in gold Queen of scents And the such a beautiful shame Which is on the carnations kept The kings of scents On that bottom its beauty lies Whose pencils are those of yours Which so subtly do they paint The lilies veins Moon and sun, not for the second one a light Eyes in sky and for the world a lamp Where did you find them And what sky as trembling diamonds at dawn

The Book of Genesis And on a leaf full of Four and six- work you embroid Who the outline of a lily did teach you And water walking as a man Looking for men, murmuring in vain That soul level in lightness and coldness And what is this that the sea becomes pale Not by its age, but by complaints and Wind which storms breeds And, what did you placed mother earth as it embraces mountains, dresses provinces,

they do shine And what does it have, searching for the central part, fire disquietude finds And sees encloses, and with sandy arms resist? Oh, our highness, oh Lord, by you that I was created I won’t never step ahead Your very power your blessing sing As when it be staring at them Should it wisely be a foul, stunned and amazed by this a bit

Conclusions: It describes the Cosmogony and Theogony in detail because its objective is to convince everyone who reads the text about the veracity of the story told.

Greek Literature – Authors Hesiod (750 BC - 650 BC) As with Homer, legendary traditions have accumulated around Hesiod, although we do have at least some biographical details from references in his own works. His father came from Cyme in Aeolis, (modern day western Turkey), but crossed the sea to settle in a small village in Boeotia at the foot of Mount Helicon in Greece. As a youth, he worked as a shepherd in the mountains, and then, when his father died, as a small farmer working hard land. Hesiod claimed to have been granted the gift of poetic inspiration by the Muses themselves (who traditionally lived on Mount Helicon) while he was out tending sheep one day. After losing a lawsuit to his brother Perses over the distribution of his father's land, he left his homeland and moved to the region of Naupactus in the Gulf of Corinth. Hesiod’s dates are uncertain, but leading scholars generally agree that he lived in the latter half of the 8th Century BCE, probably shortly after Homer. His major works are thought to have been written around 700 BCE. Different traditions regarding Hesiod’s death have him dying either in the temple of Nemean Zeus at Locris, murdered by the sons of his host in Oeneon, or at Orchomenus in Boeotia. Writings Of the many works attributed in ancient times to Hesiod, three survive in complete form “Works and Days”, “Theogony” and and many more in fragmentary state. Pandora: Hesiod, Works and Days 53-105 Then Zeus who gathers clouds addressed him angrily, "You, Iapetos' Son, knowing cunning more than all, with glee you stole the fire and deceived my mind; for you will be great sorrow, and for future men. As fire's price I'll give an evil thing, which all shall cherish in their hearts, embracing their own scourge." Thus spoke the sire of gods and men, and laughed aloud. He bade Hephaistos, well-renowned, to wet the earth with water speedily, to add both human voice and strength, to make a face like deathless goddesses', a maiden's lovely, charming shape; Athena was to teach the crafts and weaving on the well-wrought loom; and Aphrodite was to bathe her head with grace and

difficult desire and limb-fatiguing care; to add a dog-like, shameless mind and thieving ways he charged to Hermes Argeiphontes, to the guide. He spoke, and they obeyed Lord Zeus, the Son of Kronos. Forthwith from earth the famous Doublylame One formed a modest maiden's shape, as Kronos' Son had planned; Bright-eyed Athene then arrayed and girded her; The goddess Graces and august Persuasion put the golden necklaces upon her skin; and then the fair-tressed Hours crowned her head with spring-time flowers; Athene draped her frame with every ornament. The Argos-slaying guide implanted in her breast deceits and wheedling words, the habits of a thief, according to

The Book of Genesis

loud-thundering Zeus's plans. And speech the herald of the gods put in, and named the maid Pandora, since all those who hold Olympian homes had given gifts to her, sorrows for hard-working men. But when the sire had made the hopeless, towering trap,he sent the Argus-slaying, famed swift messengerof gods to bring the gift to Epimetheus, who forgot Prometheus told him to accept no gift from Zeus Olympian, but to send it back in case it be, perhaps, some evil thing for mortal men. But when he took and kept the scourge, he understood. At first the tribes of men had lived upon the earth apart and free of evils and of tiresome toil and hard diseases, which have

brought to men their dooms, because by hardship mortal men are quickly aged. But with her hands the woman raised the jar's great lid, released all these, devising grievous cares for men. Alone there, Elpis, in her indestructible home, remained within, beneath the lip, nor by the door escaped, because the vessel's lid had stopped her first, by will of aegis-bearing, cloud-compelling Zeus. Among the people wander countless miseries; the earth is full of evils, and the sea is full; diseases come by day to people, and by night, spontaneous, rushing, bringing mortals evil things in silence, since contriving Zeus removed their voice. And thus from Zeus's mind there can be no escape.

Conclusions â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is a song of praise to God, the Creator, by the beauty of all Creation. A Creation with an immeasurable beauty in which the man, designed (created) in a perfect form, is also present.â&#x20AC;? Theogony (ll. 116-138) Verily at the first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundations of all (4) the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them. From Chaos came forth Erebus and black Night; but of Night were born Aether (5) and Day, whom she conceived and bare from union in love with Erebus. And Earth first bare starry Heaven, equal to herself, to cover her on every side, and to be an ever-sure abiding-place for the blessed gods. And she brought forth long Hills, graceful haunts of the goddess-Nymphs who dwell amongst the glens of the hills. She bare also the fruitless deep with his raging swell, Pontus, without sweet union of love. But afterwards she lay with Heaven and bare deep-swirling Oceanus, Coeus and Crius and Hyperion and Iapetus, Theia and Rhea, Themis and Mnemosyne and gold-crowned Phoebe and lovely Tethys. After them was born Cronos the wily, youngest and most terrible of her children, and he hated his lusty sire. (ll. 139-146) And again, she bare the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit, Brontes, and Steropes and stubborn-hearted Arges (6), who gave Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else they were like the gods, but one eye only was set in the midst of their fore-heads. And they were surnamed Cyclopes (Orb-eyed) because one orbed eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and might and craft were in their works. (ll. 147-163) And again, three other sons were born of Earth and Heaven, great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus and Briareos and Gyes, presumptuous children. From their shoulders sprang an hundred arms, not to be approached, and each had fifty heads upon his shoulders on their strong limbs, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms. For of all the children that were born of Earth and Heaven, these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first.

Conclussions About the creation of woman we notice that she is created as a punishment of gods for the cheating done by Prometheus. This contrasts with the biblical Genesis, in which the woman (Eve) is created by God as equal to man and as a good thing.

Latvian Literature Latvia is more dechristianized than the rest of the countries and its language is a minority one. For these reasons, it has been very difficult to find pieces of literature that speak of creation. But we found a creation myth of the Daugava River, which belongs to the popular literature, and it is shown below:

The Book of Genesis

The Daugava river making – excavating When God had created trees, forests, animals, birds and fishes, the river Daugava did not exist yet. All animals and birds started to quarrel among themselves. They started to work immediately. Hare and fox - they have agile legs - measured the way for the river. The hare jumps first, and then fox dragged with the tail the river path border. Bear carried the land and patter in piles along the banks of the river making the mountains. Like other animals, birds and fishes worked very hard. All quarrels were over. Work quickly parted and the river valleys were excavated soon. Then God came to see the work. At first he saw the mole and bear, which had not been able to get clean after work. God praised them as diligent workers and wished them the honour of wearing the black work clothes. Wolf also worked hard, so God also left him black for life. Geese and ducks were praised for big work and God granted them to swim in the river and wash. Other birds, which also worked, but not so hard-working, were granted only to drink river water. Then God saw rain bird on tree branches. He asked why it did not work as other birds. Rain bird responded quite quickly that his yellow jackets would become dirty in the mud. God replied, "Obviously, your beautiful skirt is more important to you. Keep it! But you will never drink clear water not from the river, not from the pond. You can drink only water which is on the leaves of trees and the water, which is on the rocks“. So when the storm approaches other birds are silent, but rain bird sadly, sadly weeps for his pride. Then God saw the fish – plaice, how it goals in the sand. He said, "Oh, you poor plaice!" But place did not like such compassion, so she aped, "O Ku, poor plaice!" Then God said, "May your mouth remain crooked, which you do pulled!" This is also why even now plaice’s mouth is crooked. God then asked, "Where is the cancer? I can’t see him?" But the cancer roughly said, "Do you have eyes behind you that you can’t see me?" The cancer was severely punished because of such a response by God. The cancer was determined to go backwards. After that God poured water from the golden cup into the excavation ravine and showed where to run and reach the sea. The broad stream ran to the sea. God named the river - Daugava

Turkish Literature – Authors Yunus Emre (1238 – 1320) He was a 13th century Turkish pet and mystic, who had an immense influence on Turkish literature. He was the leading representative of mysticism in Anatolia. Under the influence of Mongol onslaught in the 13th century, the Islamic mystic (sufi) literature reached to its zenith and Yunus Emre became one of the most distinguished poets by his simple and pure style and his ability to easily describe even the most difficult mystic concepts in a few simple sentences. He is still a popular figure in a group of countries located on a broad geography from Azerbaijan to Balkans. His poems, written by using traditional methods of Anatolian folk poetry, are mainly about the divine love and human destiny. Yunus Emre’s poem I am He with power over “Be and it was,” the Beneficent, the Merciful. I am Sultan over all, who gives their nourishment without stint. I am He who created Adam from semen, who produces birds from eggs, Who gives speech to the tongue of Power, the reciter of praise and the One who is praised. I am He who makes some ascetics and others fornicators. And who conceals their faults; I am the Evidence and the Proof. I am the Eternal, the Powerful, absolute Truth. Tomorrow Khaqir will provide you with water: I am He who forgives him. I am He who keeps body and soul together, flesh and skin and bones.

The Book of Genesis I have many deeds of Power. I am the Apparent, the Evident. I am the Hidden and the Apparent, the First and the Last. I am He and He is I. I am that Generous one who is praised. There is no interpreter between us. Whatever He does is evident to me. It is He who gave me a tongue. I am the ocean and the sea. I am He who created heaven and earth, who turns the heavenly throne. He has a thousand and one names, Yenus. I am the possessor of the Koran. What is to be done, O Moslems? for I do not recognize myself. I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem. I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea; I am not of Nature’s mint, nor of the circling heavens. I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire; I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity. I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqscn; I am not of the kingdom of ‘Iraqain, nor of the country of Khorasan. I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell; I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rivwan. My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless; ’Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward; I know none other except ‘YA HE’ and ‘YA man HE.’ I am intoxicated with Love’s cup, the two worlds have passed out of my ken; I have no business save carouse and revelry. If once in my life I spent a moment without thee, From that time and from that hour I repent of my life. If once in this world I win a moment with thee, I will trample on both worlds, I will dance in triumph for ever. O Shamsc Tabrcz, I am so drunken in this world, That except of drunkenness and revelry I have no tale to tell

Conclusions “The affirmation of God the Creator of all existing things. Sometimes God is given human attributions.” Yacijo-Oglu (1400-1500) The Book of Mohammed: The Creation of Paradise Hither come, O seeker after Truth! if joy thou wouldest share, Enter on the Mystic Pathway, follow it, then joy thou'lt share. Harken now what God (exalted high his name!) from naught hath formed. Eden's bower he hath created; Light, its lamp, he did prepare; Loftiest its sites, and best and fairest are its blest abodes; Midst of each a hall of pearls---not ivory nor teak-wood rare. Each pavilion he from seventy ruddy rubies raised aloft--Dwellings these in which the dwellers sit secure from fear or care. Round within each courtyard seventy splendid houses he hath ranged, Formed of emeralds green---houses these no fault of form that bear. There, within each house, are seventy pearl and gem-incrusted thrones; He upon each throne hath stretched out seventy couches broidered fair; Sits on every couch a maiden of the bourne of loveliness: Moons their foreheads, days their faces, each a jeweled crown doth wear; Wine their rubies, soft their eyes, their eyebrows troublous, causing woe: All-enchanting, Paradise pays tribute to their witching air. Sudden did they see the faces of those damsels dark of eye, Blinded sun and moon were, and Life's Stream grew bitter then and there. Thou wouldst deem that each was formed of rubies, corals, and of pearls;

The Book of Genesis Question there is none, for God thus in the Qur'an doth declare. Tables seventy, fraught with bounties, he in every house hath placed, And on every tray hath spread out seventy sorts of varied fare. All these glories, all these honors, all these blessings of delight, All these wondrous mercies surely for his sake he did prepare: Through his love unto Mohammed, he the universe hath framed; Happy, for his sake, the naked and the hungry enter there. O Thou Perfectness of Potence! O Thou God of Awful Might! O Thou Majesty of Glory! O Thou King of Perfect Right! Since he Eden's heaven created, all is there complete and whole, So that naught is lacking; nothing he created needs repair. Yonder, for his righteous servants, things so fair hath he devised, That no eye hath e'er beheld them; ope thy soul's eye, on them stare. Never have his servants heard them, neither can their hearts conceive; Reach unto their comprehension shall this understanding ne'er. There that God a station lofty, of the loftiest, hath reared, That unclouded station he the name Vesila caused to bear, That to his Beloved yonder station a dear home may be, Thence ordained is Heaven's order free from every grief and care. In its courtyard's riven center, planted he the Tuba-Tree; That a tree which hangeth downward, high aloft its roots are there: Thus its radiance all the Heavens lighteth up from end to end, Flooding every tent and palace, every lane and every square. Such a tree the Tuba, that the Gracious One hath in its sap Hidden whatsoe'er there be of gifts and presents good and fair; Forth therefrom crowns, thrones, and jewels, yea, and steeds and coursers come, Golden leaves and clearest crystals, wines most pure beyond compare. For his sake there into being hath he called the Tuba-Tree, That from Ebu-Qasim's hand might every one receive his share.

Conclusions: “The author explains how the celestial paradise will be. A place with great splendor and in which everyone will be happy.”

Final conclusions Searching writers who talk about Creation from our seven countries we discovered that just in five of them there are authors who actually wrote about it. Mainly in the Romanian literature there are four important writers such as Mihai Eminescu (the second half of the 19th century )who has influences deriving from Rig Veda and Brahman mythology or from German sources, he built his own universe from Romanian folklore and ancient myths, fragments of which can be found in all his works. His First Satire (Scrisoarea I), dating from 1881, is a masterpiece in this sense. In A Dacian’s Prayer he expresses a religious feeling and wonders about religious topics. On second place we find Vasile Voiculescu (1884-1963) poet, novelist, short stories writer and playwright .He talks about. Religion in his poems describing nature in Creation. We worked Fragment of ancient fresco and Verses in the box of a primitive, where he praises Eve’s creation and Eden nature. Then Liviu Revreanu (1885-1944) This author searches in the Genesis the human feelings and emotions through Adam and Eve. Finally a contemporary writer Mircea Cartarescu (1956 - ...). Although he is a postmodernist (and one easily placeable among the best in our culture), his themes and symbols haven’t lost their bound with the Romantic paradigm. he is the writer of trilogy – Blinding (Orbitor) , in this he uses elements from quantum physics and numerous other examples extracted from science.

The Book of Genesis The Polish literature shows us Jan Kochanowski (16th century), one of the greatest Polish poets. In his poem What do you want from us, Lord? He teaches us that the Lord, with his great witness, is the creator of the whole world and its owner. Because of that, we are pleased. God is in every nature’s detail. His eternal grace and divinity is the origin of this wonderful world. He also criticizes the Church of his time. The Italian literature has got two important works: The Canticle of the Creatures by Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) a sort of psalm where he thanks God for the beauty of the Creation personifying the stars, the climatic phenomena and so on behaving with them in a brotherly way. And The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321).Where we worked Canto VII from Paradise. Here he explains that the Lord created the human being on his own. The whole world makes sense because of him. God offered us the freedom to choose, the intelligence and the sense. We lost the paradise, for Adam and Eve’s fault. But God is so generous, that he forgave us by means of Jesus Christ. The Divine Comedy is an epic poem considered the preeminent work of Italian literature and is seen as one of the greatest works of the world literature. The poem's imaginative and allegorical vision of the after life is a culmination of the medieval world-view It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. On the surface, the poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven; but at a deeper level, it represents allegorically the soul's journey towards God. At this deeper level, Dante draws on medieval Christian theology and philosophy, especially Thomistic philosophy and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Consequently, the Divine Comedy has been called "the Summa in verse".

The Spanish literature also has two important authors who talk about the Creation The first one is Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591). He was a reformer from the Carmelite Order and is considered, along with Saint Teresa of Ávila, as a founder of the Discalced Carmelites. He was a mystic writer who felt and transmitted religious experiences. He uses stylistic symbols. We worked the Romance “In principium erat verbum” which was influenced by Song of Solomon. The second one is Pedro de Espinosa (1578-1650) Psalm to the perfection of God’s work. A poem which sings to the beauty of nature including the human being as a God’s creation. It is influenced by the Psalms of the Old Testament Talking about the Greek literature we don’t have many fragments translated into English due to its history. There are few works which talk about Creation but we studied one of the most important ancient writer, Hesiod (8th – 7th century BC) and his Theogony. His description of Creation is very rich although it is very different from the Christian point of view mainly when he talks about the origin of the first woman who is considered as a punishment for man from Zeus. In the same sense, we found that Work and Days also talks about the origin of the first woman. In the Latvian literature there are just a few works about Creation and they are related to their popular mythology as for example The Daugava river making-excavating This is due to the low level of Christianity in this country and the shortage of translations to English from this minority language. The Turkish literature has a relevant author, Yunus Emre (13th century). He was a Sufi dervish, poet and mystic and he has exercised an immense influence on Turkish literature. His poems were written using traditional methods of Anatolian folk poetry. His most important poem about Creation shows God as an all-powerful creator with human features in some occasions. Another well-known author in Turkey is Yaziji-Oglu (1400-1500), who wrote The book of Mohammed: The Creation of Paradise. In this poem he explains us with a wealth of detail the celestial paradise.

The Book of Genesis To sum up we can say that the most of the Christian countries have got authors who wrote about Creation according to their time believes as well as the Turkish writers despite their Muslim roots.

The Book of Genesis

Gimnazjum im. Mikolaja Siemiona w Krzczonowie

The Creation of the World in Music

The Book of Genesis

The Creation of the World by Hector Perez

„The Creation of the World” is an instrumental piece of music composed by Hector Perez. The composer makes an attempt to create a musical interpretation of the world creation and, within four minutes, provides us with a vivid summary of the act of creation. Even the digit “four” itself is meaningful in our analysis. It clearly relates to the earth. There are four seasons (winter, spring, summer and autumn) and four primary directions (north, south, east and west). The correspondence between the number “four” and the earth is reflected in the title “The Creation of the World”. It is clearly based on the Bible, and the Book of Genesis to be precise. The work by Hector Perez can be also divided into several parts as it is in the Book of Genesis. In the very first seconds of the composition, the twinkling sound is barely audible. The calm, almost silent mood represents the depths and vastness of motionless void. There is nothing – emptiness. All is surrounded by darkness and suspense. Suddenly the peaceful music transforms itself in a mysterious, enigmatic vibration which is getting louder by the second. It makes an impression as if something is going to emerge out of all-embracing abyss. This part of the work is closely connected with the first lines of the Book of Genesis. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Now we can hear a sequence of two dominating musical instruments – the violin and cello. The murky, low-pitched sound of cello clashes with high, clear tones of the violin. Those two instruments obviously stand for two opposing powers – darkness and light which shall destroy the other. The pace of music is getting faster. The suspense is palpable. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." Then there is an impression as if everything is exploding and “whirling” and after that it starts to get a specific form. The darkness is being separated from the light. Suddenly, the first rays of sun penetrate through the emptiness and darkness. The soft tones disappear, stepping aside to more explicit tones – bearing resemblance to a big explosion. This explosion marks the moment of something new that has appeared in the world. Those mutually exclusive forces struggling for supremacy suddenly are united in a harmonious synthesis. Then, melody is rhythmic and steady. All the above really helps us to imagine the world creation – first the darkness, then the sun coming through it and the rest of divine plan of creation.

The Book of Genesis Approximately after forty seconds of the tune, we can distinguish stronger sounds. It is a reference to the other part of the description of the world creation in the Holy Bible. God decides to create and shape his “home” – Heaven. The pace of sounds is rising. It indicates the following steps of the act of creation. Music emphasizes the prominence of this moment. The listener is aware of the fact that he/she is the witness of something important going on. The sounds are mixing, almost fighting among themselves to prove which is louder and more vital. The “sound fight” bears resemblance to a fight between dark and light or water and fire. Then God said, "Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other." And so it happened: God made the dome, and it separated the water above the dome from the water below it. God called the dome "the sky." The following part is relatively extended in time. We can hear lots of similar sounds. The most obvious conclusion is that God is engaged in doing something ideal and unique in its nature. However almighty, even God needs some amount of time to divide water from the land – to make the division “fair” and perfect. Then God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear." And so it happened: the water under the sky was gathered into its basin, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land "the earth," and the basin of the water he called "the sea." God saw how good it was. After a few seconds of seemingly disordered tones, the sounds begin to interwine and merge. They altogether create one ideal whole. The composer “paints” with sounds the first moments of world with land and the sky above it. Then the music becomes peaceful and soft. There is some evidence of peace and harmony which start to “prevail” over the Earth. God is ready for the next “step” – for the creation of life. After two minutes and twenty seconds, there is a visible change in the pace. There is a choir singing and repeating sharp and high tones. This is the proper introduction for the phase of life creation or awakening living creatures and showing them their place on our planet. This is a part of the work where we can hear how God decorates the sky with shining stars and other celestial bodies. The Sun, the ruler of the day, starts to shine on the firmament – we can distinguish quite high tones here which reach us like rays of sun. In the background, there is the Moon which spreads soft glow in the night. New, lower tones, can be heard. It sounds cheerful but at the same it seems to hide some mystery behind. The whole universe is whirling and spinning around and becoming slowly one whole structure. The tones of music are faster and faster. Instruments are louder and more distinct. It makes this part of the tune more eminent and exciting. It stimulates our imagination – we can see trees growing out of the soil, other prime plants or bushy grasses winnowed by a mischievous wind. The tones are softer but still keeping us in suspense. There is a choir again that is trying to call: Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it." And so it happened: the earth brought forth every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw how good it was.

The Book of Genesis Suddenly, loud and restless tones respond through the air. There are first birds gliding in the sky over the first tops of mountains. Softer sounds are like white clouds floating slowly in the sky. The listener may easily discern the sounds of violin that are faster and faster. They resemble huge sea waves battering the coast aggressively and taking the sand away. The tones are joyful and fast. The image of world creation is clearly conveyed by the music. We can observe everything from the above â&#x20AC;&#x201C; like a bird which was sent by God to check and appraise his own work. The sounds are more and more shrilling. These are the sounds of animals which are scattering to all possible locations: forests, meadows, fields, mountains or savannas. They are happy and they praise God for being given both lives and new beautiful homes. Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds." And so it happened: God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. God saw how good it was. Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground." Loud and eminent tones indicate that this part of the creation process is finished. There are plants and animals. There is a short, one-second break, which is followed by more majestic tones. This is the time when God decides to create the man. God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth." God also said: "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." And so it happened. After about three minutes, the music becomes more quiet and peaceful. It is followed by the sounds of the piano and other soft and joyful tones. All these indicate that the whole work has been successfully finished. God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good. The Creator decides to rest after the whole creation week. It was a great effort. Is the Earth ready to exist on its own? New plants appeared out of the soil. Animals are freely moving around the trees. Trees are gently moved by wind blows. The tones are more distinct. This means that the man, the final Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s achievement appears in the scene. When everything is ready and the process of world creation is finished, peace, harmony and beauty rule over

The Book of Genesis the Earth. The tones of the tune are the same – they are getting more quiet to announce us that our World is ready… Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed. Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation.

Engines of Creation by Future World Music The beginning of the “Engines of Creation”, lasting more or less for the first eleven seconds, prepares the listener for the story which is soon going to happen. God The Creator like an architect gets his plans or blueprints and begins to give orders to all the forms which are swirling in the chaotic space. The title, “Engines of Creation” may suggest that God is the main architect or engineer in a gigantic space factory called “The Heavens”. The big company has just received an important contract – to create a new world, a new life in the space. All the machines and all the engines are started, the army of divine workers, angels are employed to fulfill all the God’s orders. Omnipresent chaos begins to surrender to God’s will. That is why there are sounds of uncertainty, fear and anxiety in the first tones of the music. It is the fear against the effects of the new enterprise. Maybe God itself has some doubts if his work will be perfect enough not to turn against Him in future. Some elegiac and strong tones mark the moments when: In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. The first “products” from the heavenly plant are ready. The heavens and the earth have left the God’s factory. This is the moment when the main and key stages of the creation process can be started. During the next twenty seconds of the tune there is some breakthrough in the pace of music. It becomes faster and more energetic. We feel some suspense increased by the music. All the mechanisms of all engines are already working with full power and they cannot be stopped now. The final effects are really hard to predict. The workers of the divine factory do not know if they should be afraid of their new products. They are just aware of one fact: they can and they have to trust in their God’s orders and will. They face a new difficult task to fulfill – the head engineer has issued his orders. The light must appear in the earth and stop the darkness from ruling over the newly created world.

Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God then separated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night."

The Book of Genesis God made the two great lights, the greater one to govern the day, and the lesser one to govern the night; and he made the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky, to shed light upon the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. The earth is filled with the light. It means that divine power plants work properly. The earth is longer an unsafe, sad and dark area. The following twenty minutes are characterized by a visible slowdown in the pace. It is probably a short time break in the hard process of world creation. It is possible that even divine workers, the angels, need some rest. Or are there some moments of consideration over the present work effects and some reflection over the next stages of the creation? It also could be the time for a short quality inspection of the products executed by the head engineer. This moment goes by and the pace is faster again. God saw how good it was. It may mean that the quality control has been successful. It may also suggest that the workers are allowed to bring new ideas into action and enthusiastically carry out the divine plan of creation. The steady, but fast at the same time, pace of this part of the tune indicates clearly that the next steps of plan are realized by the infallable groups of specialist workers in the heavenly plants. The divine geologists and geodecists are ordered to divide water from the land… Then God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that the dry land may appear." And so it happened: the water under the sky was gathered into its basin, and the dry land appeared. God called the dry land "the earth," and the basin of the water he called "the sea." The heavenly geneticists, biologists and chemists are working on all types of seeds. And, soon, first plant seeds appear on the production conveyor belts. God orders to spread them all around the world. The first green plants start to grow up in the direction of the life-giving sunlight.

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bear seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it." And so it happened: the earth brought forth every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. The next groups of heavenly scientists are just finishing their research on the earth’s fauna. They create new species of animals which are to appear in the world and give them their place to live, according to God’s orders. Each of them rushes to its habitat: to forests, meadows, mountains and some of them find their shelter in the seas and rivers. God is aware of the fact that there could be some faults or mistakes in their “construction”. However, the natural selection will improve their structure and eliminate these species which are less successful.

The Book of Genesis

Then God said, "Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky." And so it happened. God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds. [..] Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures: cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds." And so it happened: God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. It is high time for the final divine work – the man. God orders to create a man in his image. It may mean that he would like to appoint him as His “deputy” on the Earth. The deputy will rule over the plants and living creatures already present on the planet. God knows that He undertakes a high risk to give his deputy a free will… At the end of the “Engines of Creation”, after about the first minute and fifteen seconds, it can be observed that the process of world creation is almost finished. It gives an impression that our planet is ready and the whole process is irreversible. What has been created, it cannot be changed any more. It could be said that both God and humans are “sentenced” to spend infinite years on the earth. We do not know what will happen in future or what will startle or scare us in future… Or we can just surprise ourselves. After all we have been given a free will and God passed us some of His rights to rule over the world and to shape it… Then God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the cattle, and over all the wild animals and all the creatures that crawl on the ground." God created man in his image; in the divine image he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying: "Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth." God also said: "See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food." At the very end of the tune, about last ten seconds, the pace is again soft, steady and static. It may suggest that this is the end of the world creation. The biggest contract in history has been successfully fulfilled, and all contract terms have been met. Everything is well-made. Every worker deserves to get some rest. The machines in “The Heavens” are stopped, the engines are switched off, the angelic workers are going to enjoy their free time. Both God and angels are proud of their work. There is a holiday in the heavens. Everyone has a chance to praise God’s masterpiece. Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed. Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken.

The Book of Genesis So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation. However, there are some doubts deeply hidden in all divine workers: „What will be the future of our Earth?” “Does the man manage to survive and rule the Earth?” “How much of the future work will be made in fact by us?”…

The Creation of the World by Jacek Kaczmarski „For me, God exists just as a cultural category or issue, as a stylistic figure. We do not have to call him God but also Necessity, Absolute or Destiny. I am not attached to any religious movement and I do not look for any consolation anywhere. Religion is for me just one of mechanisms used for self-consolation. I think I would feel very bad with it in this moment of my life. All references to the biblical traditions in my works are first of all games with biblical motives. “ Jacek Kaczmarski

„The Creation of the World” by Jacek Kaczmarski takes the shape of a monologue. The divine rules over the world begin with the act of the all-creation. This act is being reported by God himself. All stanzas, which reconstruct the order of the world creation known from the Book of Genesis, are begun with similar verses. In these verses, God would like to explain the idea and sense of his actions. It is worth mentioning that the first sentences of the first three stanzas refer to the act of creation: The creation of the earth does not come easy […] Whatever you do, you should be aware of the order of things […] When you create, the impatience of dreams can spoil your work […] whereas the first lines of the fourth, fifth and sixth stanza only refer to exercising power. The power is limited to increasing two factors: worshipping the Creator and feeling respect towards Him. To rule the world is to multiply the secrets […] The glamour specifies the range of the rule […] And there is no power without honour and humility […] From the beginnings, God is convinced that His work is perfect and His acts are infallible. Each stage of the process is summarized with the following words: Then I thought my work was wise Then the first [second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth] of day of my work was finished Kaczmarski accuses God himself and His divinity for being too selfconfident. God is shown as someone who is absolutely convinced of His perfection.

He is proud of His own genius. He lets us think that the creation process is hard and difficult but at the same time the lines below suggest that this process is simple to undertake:

The Book of Genesis The creation of the earth does not come easy On the first day, on the first day I only divided the light from the darkness And I make the Earth’s shape I decided on what should be good or bad And it was the beginning of all that […] There are lines which can be taken from a diary of a totalitarian leader or a despot who creates in order to have more subjects or servants praising Him and his works. The low and strong voice of the singer makes an impression as if someone is giving orders impatiently to his servants. Whatever you do, you should be aware of the order of things […] When you create, the impatience of dreams can spoil your work […] To rule the world is to multiply the secrets […] The glamour limits the range of the rule […] And there is no power without honour and humility, […] These are the first lines of the following stanzas or following parts of God’s confessions who is constructing a new perfect world. The line: And there is no power without honour and humility, […] begins the sixth day of the creation process. This stanza explains the need for the living creatures on the earth. They have been created to pay homage to their master and creator. They are just lower creatures and their role is to serve. It is no wonder that on the seventh day, God the Creator looks carefully at His world. He is convinced that the world is perfect and he saw […] the order not to be replaced. Therefore, His only duty to perform now is to admire His own masterpiece. Kaczmarski’s vision is different from what we know from the Bible. For him, God is more like us with human faults and weaknesses. After all, God created man in his image […] However, the process of creation inspires God’s greed for power. All the creatures have just appeared on the earth just to surrender His will and rule. Then God may think that the world is perfectly organized and he may start to admire his own masterpiece. It is often observed that Jacek Kaczmarski compares the divine order to the totalitarian types of government. All the totalitarian leaders try to “make their citizens happy”. They create the paradise for them: And I make the Earth’s shape I decided on what should be good or bad […] However, the man was given free will by His creator and God must be very careful and control His “servant” who may rebel against Him one day: And a man like me has got a woman, senses and free thoughts which can escape through the mouth […] As the author himself, faced the communist reality of the 1970s and 1980s in Poland. This reference may explain the pace and rhythm of music (also composed by Kaczmarski himself). There are no sudden changes, high tones or any other unexpected motives. It suggests just a simple, and even boring, process of creation. God is perfect – He does not make mistakes and his subjects have to praise Him for everything He does. God is alone in his process of

The Book of Genesis creation. He does everything on His own. The same is true for Jacek Kaczmarski. The only instrument to give the background to description of the divine acts is the piano.

(*The source of the quotations from the Book of Genesis: www.vatican.va) Jacek Kaczmarski (1957 - 2004) a Polish singer, songwriter, poet and author. Kaczmarski was a voice of the Solidarity trade union movement in 1980's Poland, for his commitment to a free Poland, independent of Soviet rule. His songs criticized the ruling communist regime and appealed to the tradition of patriotic resistance within Poles. He remains best known for his protest songs on social and political subjects. However, he was more a poet than a political singer, and his texts have not lost their relevance with the demise of the Soviet union and its communist bloc. Kaczmarski was on tour in France when the martial law was declared in Poland in December 1981. He lived in exile until 1990. During these intervening years he gave concerts in western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Israel. From 1982 he worked as an editor and journalist with Radio Free Europe. Kaczmarski was known not only for his politically motivated lyrics but also for his characteristically dynamic — even aggressive — classical guitar playing, and expressive performance style. His deep knowledge of not only his nation's history but also of classical literature gave his songs a particularly deep and multi-layered resonance.

The Creation of the World – music and lyrics: Jacek Kaczmarski The creation of the earth does not come easy On the first day, on the first day I only divided the light from the darkness And I make the Earth’s shape I decided on what should be good or bad And it was the beginning of all that Then I thought my work was wise Then the first of day of my work was finished Whatever you do, you should be aware of the order of things On the second day, on the second day I divided waters to make the sky I made two worlds out of one So the shape of the matter moved with thoughts When it started to rain into seas Then I thought my work was wise Then the second of day of my work was finished When you create, the impatience of dreams can spoil your work On third day on the third day I slowly created the shape of the earth from the ocean’s abyss I gave plants, rich in fruit and it infinity of life would start on the earth Then I thought my work was wise Then the third of day of my work was finished To rule the world is to multiply the secrets

And the sun into the brightness of the day They all moved eagerly power-hungry, The stubborn day rushed to chase the night Then I thought my work was wise Then the fourth of day of my work was finished The glamour limits the range of the rule On the fifth day on the fifth day I decorate the sky with bird flocks I awake the sea bottoms A bird imbibes with the smell of hot grass All sea creatures are swimming on the waves Then I thought my work was wise Then the fifth of day of my work was finished And there is no power without honour and humility, On the sixth day on the sixth day Wild animals went into terrestrial forests And a man like me has got a woman, senses and free thoughts which can escape through the mouth Then I thought my work was wise Then the sixth of day of my work was finished. Here is the order not to be replaced All creation lives its own life The man rules over the whole creation Which accepts his rule with humility On the seventh day on the seventh day The universe was filled with bright midday heat Having created the heavenly world within a week I rested on the whole seventh day

On the fourth day on the fourth day I spread stars in the darkness of earthly night

The Book of Genesis

Rigas 88. Vidusskola

The Creation of the World in Film

The Book of Genesis

“ Who we are? ” “ Where do we come from? ” ” How was the Earth created? ” In search of answers to these questions people often turn to religion, to nature, to science... Our students were encouraged to look for theories of world creation in popular movies and TV shows, documentaries and scientific research movies. This offered us an opportunity to see the different theories through the eyes of directors and movie characters. This c contains short essays based on movie reviews done by our students.

”Adam and Eve: The First Love Story” Inna Meškauska Almost everyone have asked themselves : ‘Where did we come from?’ Although this question sounds absolutely trivial the answer hasn’t been found yet. There are three main theories: the theory of evolution, theological and the theory of external influence. The director of the ‘Adam and Eve: the first love story’ Enzo Doria keeps to the theologic theory. The story of the Old Testament was taken as the movie basic. The concept of the Creation of The World was as follows: having created mountains, the sea, the sky and the ground, the God creates Adam, who creates Eve using the wet sand of the sea side. They were young and didn’t know about anger, desperation and sorrow. There was everything possible in the Eden: a great variety of flowers, trees and animals, who were not afraid of Adam and Eve, because they were a Unity with Nature. They swam in the sea, played with animals not aware of fear and pain. However, a special tree was there among other trees in the Garden of Eden: the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God allowed Adam to have "of every tree in the garden," and only to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was forbidden.The serpent , who" was more powerful than any beast of the field which the Lord God created," being cunning and tricky convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Her life seemed monotonous and boring, so this made Eve eat the forbidden fruit. Adam ate it too, because he loved Eve. The punishment followed: they were expelled from the Eden into the desert. After that the plot differs from the story in the Bible. Something wrong start between Adam and Eve, they quarrel and so impatience, fury and recalcitrance are born. They know what ’suffer means’. They have to kill to survive. ‘We have to go to the sea and restart our life, because life starts near to the sea’ says Adam. It is true. Because Eve was born near the sea, too. Adam is annoyed with, however, he guards and helps her. They have to go through a lot of obstacles together. For example, fights with wild animals and other tribes around their lands, and also to get the food and the shelter. Only love helps them to go through with all of it. After a lot of troubles they come to a snowy desert. Eve is desperate. ‘We have to believe’ says Adam. He is sure, that the sea is under snow and thet just have to wait a little for their journey to end. The snow starts melting soon and the sea appears. They find a new meaning of life - a baby is born. In my opinion, Adam is shown really well – he is kind, thoughtful and honest. Eve’s character is disliked, because she is shown as a frivolous and whimsical woman, or even selfish. Inspite of this there is a great love between them.

The Book of Genesis I agree with the idea of The Beginning of Life in this movie. I would also agree with the idea of the Life created by the God. And at the same time I don’t agree with the evolution theory, that we supposedly developed from the apes. I really suspect that our different races came here from outer space. In conclusion, I would like to point out say that it is a beautiful film about life and how the first Man and Woman started their journey in search of love and meaning of life.

“What Dreams May Come" Lusine Tumanyan Everyone has his own imagination about the Paradise , as each of us has his or her own heaven. Although the basic meaning of Paradise is more religious, nowdays there are many books, paintings and films that can give another meaning. Recently I have watched a movie that gave me a reason to think about the heaven. The movie is called „What dreams may come”. The director shows the paradise through the colors of the paintings of the main hero’s wife. A heaven is an ideal place with an unusual nature . Huge picturesque rocks, lakes , rare bright flowers and birds that are amazingly described in the movie.The main idea of his Paradise is that if you really want something very strongly you will get it in the paradise. If you want to fly , you can fly , If you want to ride a bird you can ride. Before watching this movie i had a religious viewpoint about the heaven, now I understand that paradise also can be on the Earth , in a real time and it has more bright and fragile colors. I like a phrase in the movie that says that the paradise is a place where kind people can get , and this place cannot be a bad place .For me heaven is a place where kind people can live , and this place cannot be a bad place even on the earth .

”Godlike comedy’’ ”(Isidor Shtok) Maksim Gorelov I saw teleplay called "Godlike comedy". The writer of this play is Isidor Shtock. This play is said shortly and clearly as God created the universe, our planet, called Earth, animals and human. I saw many different films about creation of the Earth, but generally they were documentary films and it was very exciting and funny to see that story in this performance. It's not interesting for kids to see, hear or read about creation of the Earth in sources which are more serious, but this play has changed the situation and now each of us is able to know, how our planet was created by God. The play is almost fully created using the Bible, but this production is so amusing that it is impossible to compare this play with the Bible. After watching this play I learned something new about creation of the Earth. I didn't know that Adam and Eve had some chance to return to the paradise but refused and I didn't know that the serpent had any confederates. Seeing this teleplay gave me only positive impression. This teleplay was created (1973rd year), it is very educational and it does not have any minuses. Itis worth watching and I advise this play to every person, who would like to know more about creation of our world.

The Book of Genesis Spectacle “The divine comedy” Darja Kudrjavceva The history of creation of the world has so many versions, both deeply scientific, and not. I must say, the performance was composed by the theatre of S. Obraztsov, with caricatures of the French artist Etelja, later, the masters of the same theatre created dollsactors and the spectacle has been played over there. The plot was written in the Soviet times and that’s why the fact of creation of the world by God is shown as a joke and fiction. This is my original review to the spectacle «The divine comedy». It made a good impression and here I’ll try to decompose this impression. So, stop delay, I’ll start: The story is taken from the Bible, but presented in the ironically-comic light.. For example: Before Eve another woman was created, not from Adam's rib, therefore turned too independent and harmful. Or, at the beginning God and two archangelsmentioned other galaxies, as hinting its point of view the appearance of the world. Just after spoken strange and vague conclusion about independence of man (or his self-confidence?). Almost all main characters in this comedy: God – a nice and kind old man, rejoicing and caring for his children, but is very stubborn; a blue Archangel – resourceful and cunning, will become Satan at the end because of an unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the first people; a red Archangel – annoying, doesn’t like all new; Adam - a bit silly and does not accept any opinions, but loves his father and wife; Eve - a loving wife, but persistent and stubborn. She wanted to leave the paradise even before she ate the apple. Also in the comedy there is the first (unsuccessful) woman without any name and a gaggle of little angels. If we talk about the scenery –it is quite peculiar. Since the beginning people have big lips and eyes-buttons, Archangels have sharp noses, but God’s nose is thick. All this says about the absurdity and frivolity of the story. As somebody’s proving to us - the world can’t be built like that. In the end, we get a pretty cute comedy about the creation of the world, which should not be taken seriously as believers and atheists. Creator’s opinions is that the story of creation of the world by God is a kind of funny and a good and well-known tale. The performance was staged before I was born, but now I have seen it with pleasure and I liked his version of creation of the world. ”8-Bit Creation of the World” Viesturs Litvinovskijs A composition about how the world was created, based on an animation „8-Bit Creation of the World”. In this animation, we are shown the proccess of the world creation in an 8-Bit game way, where God creates the world not in 7 days, but in 7 levels. Each day feels like a level. During those, God creates light, the world, people and etc. What i really like about this animation – is that it is very simple, and that people in our days can see what happened during these 7 days. The animation itself is highly straight, and really shows it’s main idea in just a minute and a half. What i didn’t like about this animation, was the music, it wasn’t picked very well and at some points – it hurt my ears. The ending makes you think, about the self-destruction of humanity. So basically, those who don’t like to read or somehow can’t read the Bible, can watch this animation instead. "Elysium: Heaven on Earth is not” Adelina Tuškanova In the movie " Elysium " in 2154 mankind is divided into two worlds : the very rich , living on artificial space station called Elysium , and others living in crowded , shattered world. Rhodes, a government official will stop at nothing to enforce the laws against immigration and

The Book of Genesis keep the luxurious lifestyle of citizens of Elysium .However , this does not prevent the people of Earth to try to infiltrate the station in any way they can think of. Max loser , driven into a corner by circumstances , agrees to assume frightening mission that , if successful, will not only save his life, but could bring equality to these polarized worlds. I think that this is a false paradise of Elysium , as heaven can not exist only for rich people , so Elysium fell. Poor exhausted people staged a coup that would protect their rights. The main idea of this film show and talk about the true meaning of paradise , show that it is impossible to create artificially . And if anyone tries it can not be done . I liked the movie , he describes how that person has a rod and fights for their rights until the end , any tyranny will be overthrown . I think that only peace on earth will be the paradise that is all that are looking for peace on earth and will only be when people will be more worried about other people than himself. "Earth: Making of a Planet" Aida Teyybava I watched the movie "Earth: Making of a Planet". Director Yavar Abbas. In it the space theory is considered. The Earth is the only one known habitable space object in the whole Universe. Yavar Abbas shows to viewers unique chance to visit past, to the time when the Earths was on itinfancy , and try to find an answer to the question-" why all we exist?" This movie is about the beginning of the Earth. This process took many thousands years, but there was nothing for living on the new Earth, even water.Time by time oceans, seas, lakes and rivers begun to form. This process took more than 20 million years. There was a lot of celled bacteria's in the water, which in connection with each other were making rocks or plants. From this plants proceeded oxygen. Under the water the crust divided into plates. Core was making a movement of plates and because of that the first continent Rodiniyu formed. But there is a power which breaks the crust-the heat. The Rodiniya divides on two continents. The amount of carbon dioxide on the earth connected with a water, and in the result it formed an acid rain. After that the ice age came, all started to freeze, and there was no hope, that everything will emerge again. But after 15 million years a miracle happened- ice started to melt. This time is called as The Period of Cambrian explosion. At that time in the ocean was founded first complex multicellular organism- Vivksiya.The atmosphere becomes hotter, waters dry up and plants perish. Everything disappeared, there is nothing more live, there were only pink algas. Because of the Siberian eruption. Methane started thawing. 95% of live organisms were lost. Scientific movie "Geogenesis" Aleksander Ribalko The earth only a manned body in the Universe. But to learn as the earth arose, let's go to the past. There was a star - the Sun five million years ago. The earth yet wasn't and it is surprising that Earth arose from a stone and a dust. At the beginning Earth was similar to a hell because on it should air not waters. This was a planet from the lava sea. But the young planet Thea crashed into the earth. Thea was of the size of Mars and moved with a speed 15km./in h. At collision of planets in space threw out one trillion fragments. But for one thousand years by means of gravity the ring from fragments and a dust which rotated round the earth was created. And from this Ring the sphere which the Moon is called was created. And the earth began to cool down. The sun began to shine the earth. but because of strong blow with a star Thea, Earth very quickly began to rotate and therefore day lasted 6 hours. But two thousand on Earth appeared millions years ago mountains and the meteoric rain began. But in meteorites were

The Book of Genesis Kristal in which there was a salt and water droplets. meteorites bombed the earth twenty million years and therefore on the earth reservoirs arose. Bark began being formed, but on the earth it was still dangerous, On the earth the chaos reigned, there were strong hurricanes and a tsunami because of inclination of the moon. But over time the moon began to move away and tsunami began to calm down. On the earth islands which are called as volcanoes were formed, then the lava cooled down after a volcanic eruption and on the earth there were islands. But on the earth still there is no atmosphere and on the earth still very much hot. But also scientists were surprised very much those that meteorites again began to bomb the earth and something changed their orbits. But meteorites contained any chemicals by means of which life was formed. Microscopic organisms began to develop them called Stramotali. They used a sunlight and emitted oxygen. But then the lava began to be thrown up from an earth subsoil, it began to push islands which connected to the big continent. But then the lava was again thrown up from a subsoil of the earth and divided the continent into two parts. Because of something on the earth temperature to - 50с began to fall and on the earth there came ice age. All earth became covered by ice, and there was a miracle again the lava began to be thrown up, mountains volcanoes which began to kindle snow and ice rose. And then at oceans where there was an oxygen there was an evolution. Bacteria survived after ice age turned into metaphytes and into plants. Also worms and sponges began to appear. Then bacteria were replaced by the first monster - Anomakalis. Then there were Trilobiti relatives of a scorpion. Anomakalis began them to eat, the first vertebrate animals who lived in oceans it is Pikoi. Plants in water were on everywhere but land was empty. On land radioactive beams from the sun fell but at compound of oxygen with with radiation there was a new gas nitrogen. Nitrogen absorbed radiation and protected land. On land there were first plants. In water there was a new fish who could come to land and there live. Then on the earth plants and trees began grow, there were first birds and dragonflies. But then the lava again began to escape. It ruined 90% of all live. After that plants again began to grow, new animals to appear, and then and we. ” Naked science: Big Bang” Aleksandra Zaiceva In the film, Naked science: Big Bang" is told that the key to a solution of secret of creation, secrets of all existing, is concluded in the first grandiose moment, when there was a Big Bang. 13.7 billion years ago, there was no space, no time, and no matter. Then there was the Big Bang. Naked Science follows the first second of creation, when a minute speck of energy appeared and created everything we see in the Universe today. I agree with the theory of the Big Bang. In the film arguments are adduced really to believe in this theory. I like this film, because this is interesting film. “Matrix” Aleksandr Rassudovskijs I’m going to discuss the movie ‘’Matrix’’ and its theory about the world. The movie shows us another system, another way of living which is called matrix. The system has got something in common with a dream. The theory says that the whole universe is created by a powerful computer program which is created by an unknown person. When the matrix’s mechanism have been launched our life get thousands of possible because reality is generated by matrix not by our thoughts and emotions. The reality is in our mind we are real when we disable Internal discourse. Maybe we don’t even have a body. We might look like a set of numbers in the computer program. Matrix’s main task is control people by using money and media. If so can we break the system somehow and end our illusions. And according to the theory the earth is just a set of numbers in the program. The whole theory

The Book of Genesis sounds weird and most people think matrix is just a movie. But it has got some scientists who believes the theory. So I suppose many people have ever had a feeling of no reality. I don’t really believe the theory but it got my attention. "The Big Bang Theory" Aleksejs Sedih Even before this project I have watched almost all seasons of "The Big Bang Theory" TV series. When I got this task I've thought about choosing this soap, but I thought that it wouldn't be acceptable. When I got said, that I can write about it, I was very happy, because this is the only sitcom, I watch and this is kind of funny and sensitive. I've also watched some films, but this sitcom is my favourite. Besides having a laugh, as true American comedy, this one got very sensible meaning and main idea. It's the idea of the world's creation. I am an interested young physicist on my own. That means, that everything that includes physic science may be likeable for me. This soap includes the theory of the "Big Bang". This is the most popular physical theory of the world's creation. This is about how the universe started, and then made the galaxies we see today. This is main scientific theory of the universe's beginning. Now, short about sitcom by its own. Everything starts with two shy guys called Leonard and Sheldon who are physicists. At the every beginning they stuck in comic situation and its causes little and funny problems. Then we meet other two characters. They are both physicists too. Their names'reHovard and Raj. They four are friends, who work at the same workplace. They are kind of same, kind of different. Their main problem is that they are very shy and unsociable (Raj even can't talk to girls). They get a lot of life's lessons, they've got problems, happy moments and so on. But why have I chosen this soap? Because it has the theory of world's start, that I like. There's no attitude to faith or belief. All four main characters are from different families. Harvard is a jew, Raj's an Asian, Sheldon's mum believes in God, Leonard's mum is a scientist. They all have chosen the science way, the way of physics, the way of the "Big Bang". That's the idea I like. There's no much about the world's creation, as physics jokes and comic stories, but the main idea for the world's creation theme's is easy getable. Even if we analyze the opening, we can get the main idea we want. Every part begins with these words "Our whole universe was in a hot dense state ", then goes about this "Big Band" and this is about world's creation. In the end I'd like to say, that this theory is the most likeable and suitable for me, because I don't like conflicts between races and nationalities. They all got their own theory, like we believe in God and his creations, someone believes in aliens. But the theory of the "Big Bang" is proved by science. Science is the power. That shows us "The Big Bang Theory". “A space Odyssey” Alina Davidkova This film was written in 2001., produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick by the fantastic tellings from Arthur ClarkWatching this film is not easy, as it is incredibly difficult to watch through. Many people are amazed by this film, and many say that it has a lot of sense in it, and that after watching this film, many people found something new for themselves. However, I, didn't understand much (and I don't think, that the fault to this is my intellegence). I completely agree with Arthur Clarke, that "Odyssey" includes a lot more questions, than answers. Yes indeed, that the amount of questions in the film is enormous, smart and sharply-strict questions, that you can overthink in absolute peace. But you can't find the answers in the film itself, as it only serves as a bump to overthinking of the most important questions out there. Who are we? What is our purpose, our place in the universe and what does it mean? These questions stand before the heroes of this film. The crew of the spaceship Discovery SS captain David Blowman, Frank Poole and their master-computer HEL-9000 must investigate

The Book of Genesis a part of the galaxy, and undertand why are the aliens watching after the earth. On their journey, a terrific amount of unexpected discoveries awaits... "The Universe from the beginning to the end” Andrejs Kučerjavijs Recent watched a movie called "The Universe from the beginning to the end." The film tells about the creation of the universe, its development and future existence. This film presents the theory of the " Big Bang ," which most scientists agree with, the world religion also does not deny the theory . According to this theory , before the Big Bang there was absolutely nothing . Then, because of the big bang the universe was formed from the smallest particles, but not the space, it was not there. The universe began to grow and still continues. The Big Bang occurred 14 billion years ago , for the first millionth of a second time space time and mater increased hundreds of millions of times , to a size not smaller than an atom. Then it went to the process of expansion of the universe , it was so hot that matter formed matter, antimatter and massive particles . Matter won antimatter , resulting in space appeared . Then the temperature of the universe felt down. There was a whole era , during which the first elements and electrons formed. The universe is ordered, and the era of dominance of matter. It was interesting to see a film about how our universe was formed with all its components, and although there are many other theories of creation of the universe, I adhere to this one. "Naked Science" Artjoms Novickis I've seen a film, which is called "Naked Science". It's a TV programme that is made by National Geographic and is very popular because of its thoroughness. The episode I watched was about scientists, who are trying to find out, how the life and world appeared. The theories are different, different scientists' thoughts are also different, but all of them converge in one point - the life appeared spontaneously, when molecules connected. If you go deeper into this theory, you can find out, that it is so interesting. Scientists think that the space exists forever and in space there were only comets with standard substances like hydrogen and metals. Then, these substances mixed and began to react with each other, so the complicate substances appeared, like amino acids, and these substances are most important in life on Earth and other planets. In the process of evolution, first biological life appeared. And the evolution is done everything else. I think that this theory is one of the best of existing at the moment. Life couldn't appear from nothing, but at the same time it appeared from something inanimate. I think, that scientists should go deeper in discovering our life this way. "On the Other Side of the Life and Death. Paradise" Elina Titova I was interested in the name and in the contents of the documental film "On the other Side of the Life and Death. Paradise" that I watched with great interest. It is based on the historical events, attractive interviews and scientific data. A lot of scientists and professors try to answer the only question: “Does paradise exist actually?” The term “paradise” appeared long time ago, when people started to think about the spiritual world. Nevertheless, I would like to notice, that the number of opinions depends on the number of people. This film made me think over different problems. I really liked the phrase of Alexey Petrenko, that was pronounced at the beginning of the film “The man comes to this world to start his movement to Light, which will help him not to lose the way and will lead him to the final point-to the Kingdom of Light, i.e. to the Paradise”. “Do people get to Paradise?”-this is the question number one. The problem demands deep investigation and analysis of the opinions of various scientists. To my mind, the philosophical thoughts about Paradise somehow discipline the real people and stimulate them in performing noble and positive actions. In the film one scientist said that the soul of human is always intended for eternal life. I absolutely agree.

The Book of Genesis Personally I believe that our soul after death doesn’t stop to exist. It is transformed to the condition, to which it has been preparing during the whole life. All the world religions also approve that the soul of human is immortal. Of course, there are great differences between religions as concerns the matter of faith, sacred sites, rituals, but all have the same view descriptions of paradise. They describe the paradise as a feeling of bliss, calm and comfort. Before seeing this documental film, I was sure that people cannot go to Heaven, as long as they live on Earth. Unfortunately, scientists have disproved my guesses. They say that a person has the opportunity to see the Heaven, if his/her consciousness is turned off. In life we can meet people, who assert that saw birds and gardens of paradise. But don’t you consider it to be strange? Indeed, people, who go to the Heaven, can’t return to the Earth. In my opinion, not many people think about the Heaven. I think everyone will agree with me, that this theme is philosophical and requires a lot of time to understand it. Each of us has different opinions and different views. I am sure that not a single person living in this world can define exactly the Heaven, because a person can’t be in two places at once - on the Earth and on the Paradise. “Multiuniverse” Elīza Krinina Life is one of the most difficult phenomena of nature. Since early times it was perceived as mysterious and unidentified that is why there are so many hypotheses about the creation of the world. I want to tell you about a cosmogony myth that I have learned from the film “Secrets of the Universe. Multiuniverse”. The film has made a strong impression on me, and I have found out much new and interesting from it. I have accomplished a real trip, moving apart the scopes of the human experience. There was time, when mentioning about more, than one to be unbelievable. But if we were able to get outside the Solar system and the Milky Way it would be stated that there could be something greater, than our Universe and we could live among the vast majority of broadening Universes!... In this documentary, it is told about our Universe and what secrets it keeps. People thought, that our planet the Earth is the centre and the Sun is revolved around it. But the scientists of Galileo Galileo and Copernic refuted this opinion. We know now, that the Sun is the centre of our Solar system and our Galaxy is one of billions of other Galaxies that make up our Universe. A hypothesis that not only our Universe, but a great number of the same Universes can exist. And maybe, they constantly arise up and broaden. This is the Multiuniverse, because there is unthinkable amount of Universes that can be in the Multiuniverse and our Earth cannot be the only in our Galaxy. The planets in these Galaxies can be the same, as well as our Earth, with similar people, because there are primary constituents of Universe and they can recur. Also there is a hypothesis that our world was caused by a large explosion that happened 14 billion years ago. During that long period the Universe cooled off, and the space thickened, forming planets and galaxies. Moreover, the Universe is broadening. The hypotheses of the explosion reasons are also pulled out in the film, but it is guess-work for scientists. This film has convinced me there is an unusual and unbelievable world conflicting with our ideas about the Universe. I hope that one day we will get to know how our planet actually appeared. “Avatar” Eriks Dolnikovs There are many different theories about our planet formation, one of them you can see in the movie “Avatar”. This film directed in 2009, by James Cameron. Directed a lot of documentaries about earth formation, but I would like to talk about modern, art film, which is "Avatar." Firstly I would like to note the slogan of the film - "a new world." Cameron wants to show us what would be a world without human intervention. The world, what invented Cameron, is a little changed earthly world, and we can say that the planet Pandora - a metaphor of the planet Earth. At the beginning of the film have been showed Earth worldplanet’s horrible future, wars, lack of resources , pollution – all that reigns on our planet. Then show Pandora’s world, and it is beautiful. They can’t be compared, because these two

The Book of Genesis planets are quite different, although earlier Earth was be beautiful and untouched. I think, that population of Pandora is impersonation of nature and his fight against the human. They protect their planet, it’s surprisingly beautiful nature, saint groves, green forests and jungles, where are many unseen, paradise plants and amazing animals. In my opinion, the film shows what can happen with "Garden of Eden" at human’s invasion. After watching this movie I understood what was like our world in the past and what it is now. It’s impossible compare the past of our planet with its present. "God does not throw a lot" Ilja Kazanli In a review of film with the theme of world creation, called "God does not throw a lot," talking about different views of creation, from the various scientists. At the beginning of the film one of the scientists says that nature is God, which need to celebrate. Throughout the film, presented various theories of the origin of the world, such as Darwin's theory, the theory of evolution, and others. Also in the film were presented religious views of creation. Were mentioned line of scripture, because the process of creation is described in the first chapters of the Bible – „Genesis”. At the end of the film were presented quotes of famous scientists like Albert Einstein, Verner Hayzenberg and Max Planck, which boil down to one: that all did not happen by itself, but there is not a visible spirit, mysterious Creator, called God. While watching this movie, I thought he was philosophically difficult because I myself believe that the world was created by God. But when the film was viewed until the end and given opinions of scientists, I noticed my solidarity with the worldview of creation, I was pleasantly surprised! “The Neanderthal in US. Revealing the Last Mystery of Our Origin” Ivan Zhuk Watching the film “The Neanderthal in US. Revealing the Last Mystery of Our Origin” by Jorg Mullner, I learned many interesting facts about our ancestry. The film is talking about man’s evolution from monkey to today man. It’s like a Theory of Darwin but with genetic’s and DNA’s proofs. I think this theory is best for today. In the film group of the German’s scientists is talking about bones, and about other archeology discoveries helps to decrypt “a Neanderthal code”. Neanderthal – is the closest kind of our ancestry. They were like us, but have many strong differences. Example: their faces were moved out from the forehead’s part, but eyebrows had a big extractability against the background of the face. The same way had differences a body. Neanderthal had very strong brawns and inflated body because their way of life was very hard and they every day survived as they could. Today we don’t have any man or woman, who has a body thought alike the Neanderthal’s body. Today we have an easy way of life and we rarely think about our body’s form… I think the film’s creators wanted to say not only about physical evolution, but about the evolution of our life way too.I think the film shows the theory of Darwin from the other side, from the side, which we had never seen!

BBC: The First Eden» Katerina Bolotova Different people imagine Eden in its own. I recently saw the documentary film «BBC: The First Eden» David Attenborough, who is the leading of this film, has his own opinion on this matter. He consolidate that the Eden is located in the Mediterranean, in particular, it was the current islands Malta, Sicily and some others. There was much warmer and rainfall was much higher than now. There lived small animals such as dwarf elephants, hippos, deer and tiny monkeys. At that time such animals don’t have to be bigger than they were, because they didn’t have enemies from which they would be necessary to defend. There were dense forests, mainly consisting of cedars, pines, thickets of hawthorn and yew in paradise. Moreover, forests grew not only on the islands, but also on the shores of the sea. Later something has happened and have appeared predators and dwarf animals have evolved in large animals, then plants spread around the world. So David Attenborough imagine the paradise, but each person has their own thoughts about it.

The Book of Genesis "Life origin on the Earth” Jūlija Pisecka I have watched a film "Life origin on the Earth”. This film is about how life appeared on our planet. In the film a Space Theoryis examined and scientists have a lot of Space Theory versions. In this documentary proposed it is that life was created in the cosmos and ready alive organisms arrived together with a comet. Dust from the comet can throw off small living organisms. Scientists say, that from these small organisms in the evolution process more and more complicated organisms have been appearing. Scientists have been trying to find a fossilized remnants of ancient organisms. So Dr. Rotsheld set off to Bolivia, where the radiation level is the biggest. That raditional level could be at the time when life on Earth appeared. After the experiments with pieces of a comet, suppositions were confirmed. There are live organisms in the comet. Officially this theory isn't proved by scientists, but the new facts opens every day. The film " Life origin on Earth" is very interesting and informative. I think that Space theory is the most true, because resulted a lot of research by scientists and has found a lot of proof of that, that someone or something from Space hoped for life's origin on the Earth. Besides it is supposed that Space creatures helped for people at Ancient. One of such examples is the Egyptian pyramids, scientists consider that people in ancient couldn't built such magnificent constructions. I advise to watch this film for everybody, even who adheres to another theory of life's origin on Earth (The God's theory or another) because it is very informative and opens a lot of new and it is simple for the developers.

“Ellisium” Ilja Moroz Everyone have their own images of heavens. It might appear as a place somewhere here on earth, or a much more religious version of i it, just like in the bible. Our days, most of us are used to different versions of the heavens, as its image can be seen almost everywhere, be those books, films or pictures. I’ve seen one of the many films documenting the heavens. This film „Ellisium” where ignorant humanity happened to screw up the planet to horrible ends. The „Society Peeps” – is a society of wealthy people who managed to create some sort of heavens, a space station Ellisium. Most of the humanity is left on earth, in terrible conditions, with no rights and in horribly poor life. The main hero, whos name is Max, throughout the whole film is just trying to survive in this hell. „Aiming for heaven, though serving in hell.” With risky tries to get on Ellisium, he ends up in prison, he ends up as a simple goofed up prisoner. An accident changes everything, a lethal dose of radiation will murder Max during some days. It can only be cured on Ellisium, and to achieve that, our hero will have to go through the most horryfing troubles, take responsibility for the lifes of his friends and the whole humanity. For me, heavens is a place where everything resides in peace, where everyone is alright and where everyone live together in peace and happiness.

“Wonders of the Universe” Katerina Osinovec The main theme of the film „Wonders of the Universe” by Chris Holt is about appearance of our Universe. Chris Holt assumes that Earth is formed from star-dust after explosion (of star). I think it’s true. About 13 milliards years ago the formation of first stars began. Star named JRB- 040923 was 50 times bigger and 10000 times brighter than our Sun. Star exploded and then Universe started to form. Now we can see the explosion as a red point among other stars (Placement of this star was very far from out planet, so light of this explosion we can see only now. We see NOW what was 13 milliards ago. We see the past, because distances in the Space are very big). But we can see it, so this is true. But, destruction of one star is the beginning of something new, like our Universe. Chris Holt called this „Arrow of time’, which causes evolution of the Universe. There are many proves of evolution and moving of arrow of time. Atoms gathered into molecules, molecules gathered into organisms. So, from small microorganisms sprang up animals, people. Unfortunately, our life isn’t long compared to Universe’s existence. People aren’t the center of the Space, but despite this we are a small proof of evolution. It’s all right. But some questions have arisen yet. People appeared as a result of evolution of Earth. Earth appeared as a result of evolution of Universe. Universe appeared as a result of entropy (commitment order to disorder) of first stars. First stars

The Book of Genesis appeared as a result of evolution of Cosmos. But when did Cosmos appeared? Where did dust and hydrogen appear from? In the result of evolution of what? I think, above all us, above Cosmos, there are some Supreme Creature. The Maker.Because everything couldn’t appear from nothing. Evolution is important, but it can’t explain all. Appearance of human like biological creature from nothing is like construction of sand castle as a result of breath of wind. There are no facts showing that it isn’t impossible, but it is very unlikely, isn’t it? We need another explanation. Evolution is only one of several mechanisms of appearance of people, Universe, Cosmos. “The Origin Of The Universe” Kirills Kopiks I saw sets of movies about an origin of the universe and I want to tell you as there was a world - Astronomers believe that our world resulted from the Big Bang. Having blown up, the huge fiery sphere swept a matter and energy which were condensed subsequently on space, having formed billion stars, and those, in turn, united in numerous galaxies. Anybody precisely doesn't know, the Solar system was how exactly formed. The main theory says that the Sun and planets were created from a swirling cloud of space gas and a dust. More dense parts of this cloud by means of gravitational forces attracted to themselves from the outside an increasing number of substance. As a result from it there were a Sun and all its planets. Approximately the same processes, though in much smaller scales, happened and on Earth. The terrestrial kernel promptly contracted. Because of nuclear reactions and disintegration of radioactive elements in a subsoil of Earth a lot of heat was allocated those rocks forming it melted. Easier substances rich with silicon - a mineral similar to glass, - separated in a terrestrial kernel from more dense iron and nickel and formed the first crust. Later about billion years when Earth was significantly cooled, crust hardened and turned into the strong external cover of our planet consisting of firm rocks. Cooling down, Earth threw out a set of various gases from the kernel. Usually it occurred at eruption of volcanoes. Light gases, such as hydrogen or helium, mostly disappeared in a space. However force of an attraction of Earth was rather great to hold heavier gases at its surface. They also made a basis of the terrestrial atmosphere. The part of water vapor from the atmosphere was condensed, and on Earth there were oceans. “Curiosity - Did God create the Universe” Linda Aksenova One of the main themes/issues of the international project "Comenius", in which our school has participated /participates, is the theme of the world creation. All participants were offered to watch films on the various hypotheses for the origin of the world and to write an essay on one of the hypotheses. I stopped/chose the documentary "Through the wormhole: Is there a Creator" made by "Discovery". The main directing element is a comparison of the scientific theories on the origin of the universe with the point of view which explains the Earth formation by God’s existence. The author’s interesting solution is that neither version of the Earth appearance is refuted in that film. The audience needs to decide which one is the most faithful. The film discusses three different scientific theories of the origin of our Earth: mathematical, psychological- anatomical and cybernetic. The mathematical theory of the origin of the universe appeared very long time ago, at the time of Galileo’s discoveries. Famous scientists Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein also tried to explain the structure and origin of the Earth by means of mathematical formulas. Those attempts continue in the present time, too. For example, for/over several years the unconventional physicist Garret Lisi has been trying to create a single mathematical formula of the Earth structure, which will be able to explain the essence of the humankind. Garret Lisi believes that he is close to the solution. Well, I think he still may do it because it is the 21st century now. The Microbiologist Michael Persinger is the author of the psychological- anatomical version of the universe’s origin. He believes that God is within each of us and that we are the creators of the reality. Having made/conducted the different tests on the human brain, Dr. Persinger has suggested that all the visions associated with divine beings may be a figment of human imagination. The

The Book of Genesis third hypothesis of the origin of the world - a cybernetic (or computer) theory.its author is Will Ride - the popular computer game "The Sims" creator. He believes that we live in the virtual world, which is run by the divine creator using a super-computer that has the magical properties. RIde also considers that with time, when the computer and the human mind become indistinguishable from each other, the people themselves will be able to fulfill God’s roles with the help of computers. Definitely, in today's world of the high technologies scientific outlook on life dominates. However, no scientist referred in this that film, denies the existence of God. On the contrary, they try to explain the existence of the Creator in the scientific way. All these scientists believe that the world was created by someone’s divine hand. So, you can endlessly speak about the origin of our world. People have always been interested and will be interested in this topic. The main thing is not to forget about the true spiritual values, searching the truth, and not to forget that we are primarily people, not computers. „After Earth” Maksims Slobodjaniks There are many versions about how world was created, one of such versions is shown in a film „After Earth”. A planet „Nova Prime” becomes humanity’s new home. General Cipher Rage returns to his family after a long mission and becomes a full dad to his 13 year old son, Kitai. When an asteroid hits the ship that had Cipher and Kitai on it, they crash on the long lost and left behind earth. As his dad is nearing his end, Kitai must make and dangerous journey through the planet to retrieve the evacuation device. The film is good and interesting, it represents the main idea well. Garry Whitt shows one way of the planet’s end, to be honest, each has his own ideas about the end of the world. “Genesis” Marina Gedrovicha To understand how appeared our Earth, I had to watch one of the films where the I could see one of the hypotheses about appearance of the world. And I chose to watch the film "Genesis". This is my favorite film about the world. It has a very deep meaning. Colorful, philosophical film, fascinates and attracts attention from the very first minutes of viewing, and the epigraph is very accurate, then what can be told about for ages is said just in a couple of sentences. "Genesis" allows us to experience oneness with the universe, to live planets childhood with it, to know her better, how you know person in the first conversation. Getting to know the nature, you learn about yourself. Motive film raises the question of its own essence, about the origins of the energy that feeds us, the nature of the substance of which we are made. Where to look for the beginning of all things - in time and space, that is the miracle of life and the true beauty - all these secrets reveals to us "Genesis", it reveals to us ourselves, lets look at the world differently and see your own role here. Circle of life, matter and energy will never cease until the sun will rise above the Earth. But what does human life mean compared to desert sands? Pulsation of blood in our veins, streams of the great rivers, which had given beginning to the ancient civilizations, the birth of life in the womb and the Big Bang, all the fire of life, riot elements and elemental power of mind - the works of the Cosmos. "Genesis" - the recognition love of the Earth and over life, philosophical picture, revealing the most important issues. Let us always remember the unity and do things, knowing that we are responsible for nature's treasures. Very colorful film! French filmed great film! I think it would be boring and not interesting film, but my opinion was wrong. I got a lot of fun, learned something new, and I suggest you to watch it. “Worth of the Earth” Valerija Čudova “In the beginning was the World, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made…” John 1:1-2a.

The Book of Genesis I had seen a film about World making by God. How did all begin? What was the first? One day every person asks about that. A lot of people were trying to find the answer and some of them spent all their lives to find the truth and make new theories. Today we have a big world full of technologies around us, which is moving on a new level day by day, but these is not any limit. There wouldn’t be all that, if there wouldn’t be a long story, all things had the beginning, some source. There are a lot of theories of the world beginning. There is an expression: how many people, so many opinions. But to be honest, in every situation, despite all options, there is only one that is true. People are enraptured with art, poetry, music… but all that is making by human beings. But who had made a human beings? Do you remember the last time when you were enraptured by something that was not made by people, like flowers, woods and the nature? There are so much information in our world, so many fields of science, believe me, we can’t know everything! We can’t understand all with our min. But I know Someone, who knows all, Someone, who not only understands all, but also has made all. His name is God. So there is a difference between a human being and God, God knows everything, all things are in Him. The Lord made the world from nothing. He is so great, that He made the world by word. If You read first book from Holy Bible, called Genesis. In 6 days God made all in the world. He made light, water, nature, the sun and stars, all animals and people – all that was made only by God’s word. I believe in real Miracle Maker that could make all around me! We can see these beauty around us and be really thankful for every thing. “Origin of life on Earth” Valerija Grigorjeva A lot of people are interested in how the Universe began. There are many versions and questions. I have watched a film called “Origin of life on Earth” in order to find answers to my questions. Two main versions have been shown in this film. First of all is that the Universe began in the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago. In the beginning there was emptiness: no people, no countries, no planets. A large fireball formed in this emptiness, which exploded later. As a result, the Universe and our planet appeared. But not everybody believes in it. Explosion is chaos and mess and it cannot create any kind of life. At the same time, how could a large fireball appear from nowhere? The second version says that God created our world. The Bible says that in the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth. On the other hand, nobody can prove the existence of Creator. I think it was a really cognitive and memorable film. Everybody has their own version of the world creation, which seems to be the most plausible. Today it is a very interesting and important question, but we have no answer to it. “Giperboreja” Vladislavs Lamans Everyone has an opinion about paradise and each is his own. Some think that paradise is in skies ,it a theory behaves anymore to religion. Some think that paradise is somewhere on earth and expeditions are conducted in search of paradise. I am anymore predisposed to the scientific hypothesis at existence of paradise on earth. About paradise many movies are made both religious and scientific films. Recently I watch a film about paradise on earth. A film is named Giperboreja . In a film told about the hidden world that is in the north, scientists gave the name to this world Giperboreja. In a film tells about expeditions, myths and legends of Giperboreja. Scientists studying myths and legends suggested a hypothesis that Giperboreja was the country of Titans and Gods and that exactly there is paradise .Also they found many unstudied temples look like pyramids .Scientists found many proofs at existence of Giperboreja and until now find the imprints of the past. Now Giperboreja is considered the lost paradise of humanity. Watch film I was thoughtful about the searches of paradise .I think that paradise will search by centuries and there will be much opening,but he will be so not found as in religion so in science because at the each paradise.

The Book of Genesis „History of the World in 2 hours” Žanna Treščalina I watched a documentary film “History of the world in 2 hours”, it describes the scientific theory of creation of the universe which begins with the Big Bang and ends at present. When I started watching this film, I thought that it would be boring, but it was very interesting and I learned a lot of facts which were unknown for me previously. The history of the universe has 13, 8 billion years. The film tells that our world, our whole universe, appeared from the tiny bundle of energy, smaller than an atom. How from obscurity have grown cities and civilizations. And all events on Earth are interconnected and their path leads to us. Captures awareness that 13 billion 700 million years ago, there was not anything that surrounds human, and is customary for his eyes. And the man himself did not exist. There was only emptiness. And from the little congestion of energy, for reasons that may forever remain unsolved, happened a big bang. That in a split second created all the energy, of which were born stars, planets and all that is in the universe. Then, after 380,000 years, there were first atoms, that formed the basis of all the surrounding world. Of which, by gravity, were formed the stars and planets. And to this day, people can watch them, looking at the night sky full of stars… All about this tells you a documentary film “History of the world in 2 hours”. I think that this film will be an interesting both for adults and for children. Because it is very colorful and spectacular describe the alleged events, which contributed to creation and the development of our universe. I have watched 13 billion 700 million years of the world history only in 2 hours and that is great!

Creation of the world” Anna Krasavina How was created our planet and its inhabitants? Not just one or few people are asking themselves this question, but the whole current generation on Earth is very interested in this. Many of us will remember, that being kids we have been asking this question to our parents and adults. There were occasions when adults had troubles in answering clearly on that, but some grown-ups were able to easily tell a lot of things about this topic. These people usually knew several different theories or myths about the creation of the world. Some people believe in Darwin theory or the creation of the world, some people believe in Bible and think that God created the world. There are others who believes in the creation of the world from chaos. Recently I have seen Jim Tetloy’s movie about the creation of the world and it made me think thoroughly about this topic. I can say for sure that life on Earth, as all alive and not alive creations have been created from something certain. Lots of facts shows us that the Earth, Universe and the solar system have been created by the Big Bang Theory, but still some people prefer to believe in the theory that God have created the world. As we all know there are a lot of different theories about the creation of the world, but in the end each person decide himself what to believe in.

Authors: The project was carried out by students from 7th till 11th grade in Russian and English languages.

The Book of Genesis