The seven days myth
“What is the very oldest story you know?” Jane asked her grandmother.
Her grandmother thought for a moment. “I guess it must be the story of
the Creation, from the Bible.”
“How old is it?” Jane wanted to know.
“Why, many people think it was first told more than three thousand years
ago by a man named Moses,” said her grandmother. “Moses was a great
Jewish leader who freed the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt. The
Biblical story of the Creation is called Genesis, which is a word that
means beginning.”
Jane sat down on the floor beside her grandmother’s chair and crossed
her legs. “Tell me about it.”
“Before the beginning of things,” said her grandmother, “there was no
earth and no sky. There was only a great dark emptiness and a great dark
ocean of water. God gazed upon the water and thought.
“Then God said, ‘Let there be light!’ And there was light. It pushed
back the darkness and shone upon the water. God called the light Day and
the darkness Night. That first time of light and darkness was the first
day of the world.
“On the second day, God said, ‘Let there be a great sky. Let it divide
the waters so that some of the water is above it and some below it.’ God
called the sky Heaven.
“On the third day, God said, ‘Let all the water beneath the sky come
together in one place. Let the dry land appear.’ The water rushed
together and the land appeared, with mountains and valleys. God called
the dry land Earth. And the waters He called Seas.
” \’Let the earth grow grass, and plants, and trees, with seeds and
fruit,’ said God. The earth turned green with growing things.
“On the fourth day, God made the stars, the sun, and the moon. He set
them in the sky to separate the day from the night, and to be signs for
the seasons and the years.
“On the fifth day, He made all the creatures that live in the water and
all the birds that fly in the sky. Then, on the sixth day, He made all
the animals that live on the land. Finally, God made a man and a woman
in His likeness. \’Have many children and fill the earth with people,’
He told them. \’I have made you to be the rulers of the earth.’
“Now the world was finished. God’s work was all done and He was pleased
with it. So, on the seventh day, He rested.”
Grandmother looked down at Jane. “And that’s the oldest story I
know—the story of the Creation as it’s told in the Bible.”
