We Choose The God In Us
A few days ago, I chanced upon a new idea about the creation story in Genesis. I was blown by this particular idea because that was the first time that I ever heard that particular interpretation. The author reflected on the many creation stories that circulated in the ancient near east and even around the world and drew an interesting distinction between Genesis and all these creation stories.
In my own Fanti tribe of Ghana, we had our creation stories long before we were introduced to the creation stories in Genesis by Christian missionaries.
Here is one that I found on Wikipedia: “According to Akan oral tradition, the first being was Nyame, who created Asase Yaa to be his wife. Asase Yaa later created the deity Abo, the primordial cluster of stones. Later, Bosompo appeared, and married Abo, giving birth to the primordial abosom. Some abosom decided to inhabit the corporeal world, becoming landmarks like lakes and mountains, while others inhabited the spiritual realm. Nyame and Asase Yaa went on to have other children, such as Bia, Tano, Epo, and Anansi.”
Interestingly, all the different personalities that are named here are not only part of the creation that we see and appreciate, but they are deities. The sea embodies the personality of a deity, some rocks are gods, and part of a forest could be designated as the habitation of a god.
What my Akan tribe seeks to be saying is that creation did not emerge on its own, but came from something, and whatever it is that came from is divine. For this reason, fishermen from my tribe cannot go out to fish on Tuesdays, nor can farmers go to their farms on Thursdays. Those days are meant for the gods.
What is unique about the Akan creation story and the creation story in Genesis is the underlying belief that a power (call it God) created the universe - that the universe didn’t come out of nowhere. It has a creator. The belief that it has a creator generates a sense of accountability - not only to the creator but to the created as well.
And so, whilst the Akans refer to God as Nyame, which literally translates as Have me and be satisfied – a God of provision, the people of Israel refer to God as Yahweh, which means To Be. Millions of people in our world have different names for this Being we all call God.
The difference is that whereas the Akans believe that the created order is also god, Genesis is different. Genesis postulates an idea vastly different from others, Genesis argues that God is Other, God is in creation and yet outside of creation. Creation, including humans, bears an image of God, but creation, including humans, isn’t God. That was a notable difference from all creation stories.
If others, including the Romans and Greeks, believed that human beings, especially their emperors are and can be gods, Genesis argues that human beings are not and cannot be God.
Yes, human beings have within them that divine spark, human beings bear within them an image of God, but human beings are not God. And if human beings aren’t gods, then we cannot worship another human being. We can respect another human being, we can honor another human being, we can celebrate another human being, we can extol another human being, we can help another human being, but we cannot worship another human being - to do so, is apostasy.
When we profess our faith in one God, we proclaim a faith that rejects belief in any other god, save from the one God who revealed the self to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
Manny+
(This is a two-part article. Part 2 comes out next week.)