China is a nation with a long history and culture of five thousand years. Chinese thought underlied Oriental cultures, whereas Christianity based upon the Bible, in the context of the Ancient Near East, has been the foundation of Western cultures. Does there exist any cultural similarity between the two areas which gave birth to two of the so-called four great civilizations of the world? This dissertation examines the resemblances and dissimilarities between the Chinese Myth of Creation and the Creation Narrative of the Old Testament through the comparative analysis.
Chaos figures both in the Chinese Myth and the Creation narrative of the Bible. The two records have something in common in that chaos refers to the disorderly state of all things in the universe at their original states. The Chinese Creation Myth and the Old Testament are also similar in that number 7 is not simply numerical but implies a mystery of creation.
In addition, the Chinese Myth and the Old Testament have something in common about the creation of men. In the Chinese myths, the goddess named Nüwa(女왜) created men after the reflection of herself on the lake. Similarly, in the Old Testament, the Lord God created men after the form of himself. Furthermore, the material used to create men is similar in the two records of Creation. In the Chinese myth, the goddess Nüwa used yellow ocher to create men. Likewise, the Lord God in the Old Testament used a mass of clay to create men.
In general, the myth of flood is thought of as a part of Creation myth. The Chinese Myth of Genesis and the Creation Narrative of the Old Testament have something in common in explaining the cause of flood. In the former, the cause of flood is twofold. One is the fighting of gods against each other, and the other is the crime and wrongdoing of men, although slightly implied. In the Old Testament, the only cause of flood is clearly given, for it did not happen by accident or from the fight of gods against each other but resulted from the corruptive crimes of men. The records of Creation used similar expressions to describe the overflowing process of flood: In the Chinese myth, the Heaven had a cracked hole out of which a mass of water flooded, and the goddess Nüwa blocked the hole with a five-color stone(五色石). And in the story of Noah's Ark, the Heaven had a window open and poured out a huge amount of water, and then the Heavenly God presented a rainbow as a sign of covenant.
It is the recreation of men or the motif of marriage that always comes with the myth of flood. What appears in this motif is the marriage of gods. The Chinese Myth includes the marriage of the two creative gods, Nüwa and pangu(盤古), leading to the prosperity of humankind. The Old Testament however does not have a story of gods' marriage. Genesis 6 : 1-2, in which God's sons married and men's daughters, is sometimes interpreted as a story of marriages between gods and human beings, but this interpretation is not in accord with the coherent thought of angels' characters.
The Chinese Myth of Creation and the Old Testament Narrative of Creation have much in common. According to the Bible, all the human beings are Noah's descendants. Some similarities may come from the view that the two races have the same ancestor. Also, there is a universally shared understanding of human beings and human cultures, from which these similarities may come.
Despite these similarities, there exist a lot of differences between the Chinese Myth of Creation and the Old Testament Narrative of Creation. In the former, chaos appeared as the god of creation, flood came from gods' faults, number seven implied a mysterious competence, and men were created for gods. What the Bible tells us is different form this mythical and polytheistic thoughts. In the Bible, the Lord is the only creator; there is a clear division between gods and men; a god cannot marry a man or another god; a man is just a creature. In spite of that, God created men noble and capable of talking with him, and there is a man in the center of creation. These are uniquely characteristic of the Old Testament.