Cunningham And Kelsay: Myth Analysis

In the Cunningham and Kelsay article, myth is described and defined in several ways. The first way that it is defined is that myth "is associated with stories that are not true" (Cunningham and Kelsay 59). After stating that, the authors go onto say that, "In the field of religious studies, myth has a different meaning. Myth indicates a narrative concerning sacred reality and its relationship to humanity." (Cunningham and Kelsay 59) As discussed in class, a myth needs three key components. The first being the function, which is to convey profound truth about reality and human condition and deals with issues of meaning and purpose. The next component is that myth has to do with a sacred reality and its relationship with humanity. The final key component for myth is that is has to be a narrative or story. In the Bible Creation account, I believe that this is a fitting example of myth. As for the Big Bang Theory account, I do not believe that this is a good representation of myth for several reasons which I will further explain in this essay. Throughout this paper, I will give explanations and examples as to why I chose each stance by analyzing the …show more content…
For one, the account starts off with stating that God created the world. This automatically brings in the sacred reality part of myth. Then it goes into paragraphs that contain everything God commanded and it all happened. "Out of original chaos, God created an orderly world, assigning a preeminent place to human beings" (Genesis 1.1 2:3). This directly correlates the sacred reality and its relationship with humanity because it is saying that God created humans. "Then God said, let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds in the air, and over the cattle, and over all the animals over the earth" (Genesis