Summary of Rosemary Radford Ruether

438 Words2 Pages
“Three Classical Creation Stories” By Rosemary Radford Ruether Summary Throughout the reading, Ruether explains how, “The Babylonian Creation Story,” “The Hebrew Creation Story,” and “The Greek Creation Story,” reflect the values of that society, and the way they shaped the Christian religion. According to Reuther the stories reflect the relationship between, “…the divine and the mortal, the mental and the physical, humans and other humans, males and females, humans, plants, animals, land, waters, and stars…(p.15).” The first story Ruether analyzes is “The Babylonian Creation Story.” The most important social message given by the story reflects is how hierarchical and military society Babylonia is. According to the story, there were older and younger gods that ruled the world. A goddess ruled this society, which shows a matriarchal side of this society. However, after Marduk, a young god, kills his father and then mother in order to start the creation of everything, society becomes influenced by military power. Then he kills another god in order to create “enslaved humans” that will serve the gods, creating a hierarchical society. According to Ruether, this story reflects the social gap between the “god” or king and his servants, and the military power Babylonia had during those times. “The Hebrew Creation Story,” is the second story analyzed. In this story, God creates the earth, animals, and humans in different days. The separation between animals and humans is clear when the story refers to humans as being made “in the image of God.” Even though both female and male where created as a representation of God, in Genesis 2, the male was created before the female, falling in to a patriarchal society. Ruether also argues that hierarchy is shown in the story when the humans can rule the animals. However, she explains that God gives Adam the responsibility of

More about Summary of Rosemary Radford Ruether

Open Document