MYTHS OF CREATION
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15. Foregone Ages Past
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Also considerably common to most of these early cosmovisions was the doctrine that the present sequence of cosmic eras had been preceded by still others more or less obscured by the distant mists of time past.
While the condition of the cosmos prior to man’s arrival seems to have been universally viewed as separate and distinct from the Ages that ensued since the beginning of the human cultural era, a fair percentage of the traditions under consideration actually accounted for more beginnings and ends of the world in their mythic histories than their dedicated enumerations otherwise openly declared. Differentiating any single culture’s multiple myths regarding ‘What came first’ in time, as such, mostly depends on determining which beginning of the world was being referred to in each instance . . . |