Kenneth Rush
Worldview Comparison Paper # 1
Dr. John Dryden
23 June 2015
The Creation Accounts
Creation plays a vital role in our world today by shaping our own human existence. It is a
very powerful force of nature that controls our spirits and souls in the world in which we inhabit.
The role of creationism had a large impact on that of Hindu culture in that it shaped their own
human instincts and powers in the universe. Most of all it shaped their beliefs in a higher power
that descended from above. Although the creation account in the Vedas and Genesis chapter play
similar roles in the universe, they differ by various doctrine standards through their teachings and
practices.
The Hindu creation account stresses roles of unequal importance in human superiority.
Purusha was the god that was said to have breathed out wonders from his mouth, and the
Brahmin was his mouth from which creatures were spoken into existence (Novak 8). The
Brahmins were the priests and ritual specialists who alone performed religious rituals for the
gods. Vedas were the sounds of the bronze age that were recited at prayers, religious functions,
and other auspicious occasions in Hinduism. In the Jewish account of creation, the belief was
that God was the source of all creation and human existence. They believed in the Messiah that
was the creator of all things and ordered the universe around in full circle of the earth. There was
a period of seven days featuring creation whereon the seventh day, God rested, and this was the
observance of the Sabbath concerning Jewish faith (Novak 177). Jews were monotheists that
believed in only one God that ruled the universe and overlapped time.
Judaism in contrast affirms the world’s goodness, concluding that its assumption was that
God created it for our own pleasure per say. Whereas the Hindu’s were polytheists, believers of
multiple Gods, the Jews were monotheists believing that God is one and in him all heaven and
earth dwells in his fullness and power. For the Hindu’s infinite being, awareness, and bliss are
within their reach, and these are goods people already possessed in their lives. Hindu’s want
pleasure, success, desire, and renunciation to satisfy their personal gains achieved through long
term goals and rewards in the end, for what they have accomplished. They take into account
themselves for the bigger picture for what they envision to be seen from the gods above through
signs and wonders. In the Genesis chapter, nature was made by God to give us nourishment.
Smith states that “the striking feature of Jewish view of human nature is that without blinking its
frailty, it went on to affirm its unspeakable grandeur. We are a blend of dust and divinity” (Smith
