Name two creation myths from different continents and compare their approach to divine agency in creation.

• A. The Enuma Elish presents mortals creating the gods; Kojiki depicts gods shaping humanity.
• B. Popol Vuh depicts mortals creating the world; Hesiod shows demons creating humans.
• C. Theogony depicts humans shaping the cosmos; Popol Vuh describes natural phenomena.
• D. Hesiod’s Theogony depicts divine agency shaping the cosmos, while Popol Vuh portrays divine beings collaborating to create humans; both center divine influence but differ in agency and process.

Answer: (D)

Two creation myths from different continents show contrasting ways divine agency operates in bringing the world and humans into being. Hesiod’s Theogony from Greece presents the gods as the primary builders of the cosmos; divine power and will organize disorder into order, with a clear ascent of divine authority that explains the origins of gods and the structure of the universe. The agency here is centralized and decisive—gods act to set the cosmos in place and establish the rules that govern it.

Popol Vuh from the Americas, by contrast, shows divine beings working together to create humans. Creation emerges through collaboration, negotiation, and trial, with multiple gods contributing to the process and learning from earlier attempts. The emphasis is on cooperation among deities and on the gods’ ongoing relationship with the created beings, rather than a single, unilateral act of creation.

So, this pairing highlights two continental perspectives: one where divine agency is a concentrated force that orders the cosmos, and another where divine agency is a collaborative, communal effort that brings humans into existence. The contrast illustrates different ways stories frame the role of gods in creation while still centering the gods as the influential force behind how the world and humanity come to be.