Creation stories of the ancient world

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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MrMacSon
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Creation stories of the ancient world

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This looks good

https://www.wondrium.com/creation-stori ... ient-world

Creation stories—which recount the origins of the universe, the earth, and humanity—show us how ancient cultures made sense of the human condition. In this course, you’ll explore great creation texts such as the Babylonian Creation Epic, the Egyptian Memphite Theology, the Hittite Kumarbi Cycle, the Greek Theogony of Hesiod, the two contrasting accounts of creation in the biblical Genesis, and more.

Wondrium is a rebrand of 'The Great Courses'.

They want you to sign up to a monthly plan https://www.wondrium.com/customer/plans but there is a 14 day free trial.

Engineer.in.VA wrote:
... this course is about the creation stories of the eastern Mediterranean...that is, the creation stories that interacted with Judaism and Christianity. It totally ignores Eastern Asia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Europe, and the Americas. It is a short course, both in terms of number of lectures (12 instead of the more normal 24) and also length (20-25 minutes instead of the more normal 30 minutes per lecture).

The course focuses on creation stories of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hattusa, Greece, and Israel (i.e., the Jewish and Christian creation stories). Dr. Lam outlines the similarities and differences and presumed influences of these stories. Much of the material is a duplication of material from other offerings by The Great Courses (TGC) although the Hittite material may not be covered elsewhere.

Dr. Lam is a critical scholar, which means that he approaches the subject from a literary perspective, i.e., as a literary critic (hence the name) rather than as an authority for faith. Further, he treats all the texts (i.e., Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hittite, Greek, and Jewish/Christian) as equally valid or true.

Dr. Lam teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where I believe he is a colleague of Dr. Bart Ehrman, with whom he shares a theological outlook. However, I consider Dr. Lam less provocative while he presents essentially the same material. While Dr. Lam obviously adheres to and emphasizes his critical perspective, he does sometimes refer to Catholic and Evangelical perspectives and he does so respectfully.

The course guide is above average by The Great Courses (TGC) standards. It is written in paragraph format. It contains several useful graphics. There are no appendices but there are suggestions for additional reading at the end of each lecture.

I used the video version. Although there are some useful graphics in the video version, in general it can be used in audio-only mode, such as while jogging or commuting in a car, without significant loss of content.

The course was published in 2023.

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