“The acts of creation involved naming, separating, and temple building. This coincides with what Eliade observed [Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York: Harper, 1954)] concerning the perspective prevalent in the ancient world: the 'ontological thirst' of the ancients was the pursuit of a view of reality that could give meaning to life. Modern material ontology offers no secure understanding of the meaning of life, but the functional ontology of ancient Near Eastern peoples gave meaning to the reality that they experienced in the way the world worked.
“In the ancient cognitive environment, it was more important to determine who controlled functions than who or what gave something its physical form. We could therefore conclude that in the ancient world something was created when it was given a function.”Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, page 43
<idle musing>
I could try to be funny and make a snide remark about some people not really existing...but I won't :)
</idle musing>
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