Mayan Creation Myth and Elements of the Genesis Account

I listened to this short video about the Mayan Creation account and was struck by how many elements it shared with Genesis, albeit some in scrambled form. It is clear there is some kind of connection or common origin for the accounts, but these folks were supposed to have separated from Eurasia without, so far as we know, significant contact with the Ancient Near East for more than 10,000 years! It still sounds like they got a scrambled version of the same account.

The account says that at the start there was no light, no sound, no motion, no land. Just water. Obviously it doesn't point to Creation of everything from nothing (or the unseen) as Genesis does, but that is a hard concept for ancient folks to get. Initial conditions they describe sound a lot like those described in Genesis 1:1-2.

Then it describes six "deities" in the waters who help "Heart of Sky" shape the cosmos. This reminds me of the six creation "days" which according to the Christ-centered model for early Genesis, are not light from the sun at all, but rather the Word of God entering creation when God speaks. The light is the "day" and He is the Light. They have six deities while Genesis has God the Logos entering creation six times.

The Maya speak of plants being made before the sun, just like Genesis says the sun wasn't "appointed" or "set in position" until after plants are made. In the Maya account animals are also made but the story says they could not worship. So the deities formed humans from mud, but they couldn't worship either, so were destroyed in a flood! Do you see how the same elements are getting scrambled? They then say another attempt was made with humans derived from wood, but they too could not worship and had to be destroyed, except for those who became monkeys. This leads me to a rabbit trail, the idea of "Others" from the past who were near-human but still not like us. Both science and many ancient traditions tell us that such beings existed.

Finally the gods make a human out of Maize (corn) and get it right. This has shades of Adam, the man made to "tend the garden and to keep it". The idea of man coming along and doing things right is connected to agriculture and thus civilization. Shades of man inside and outside of the garden? Near-humans? Something else?

Somehow these accounts seem to have a common origin. Maybe in antiquity there was contact between the Ancient Near East and South America? In the book I urge people to be open-minded about the idea that Creation itself can communicate its story to unfallen man. Of course, the Lord-God could have told Adam the story of creation in the garden, but there is a case to be made for it being received by other means. Maybe the creation story is much older even than the Garden.

**************************

You Tube Channel

Please "like" and "share".