No princípio da Bíblia está o mito: a espiritualidade dos mitos de criação

The first eleven chapters of the Bible have always posed particular problems of interpretation, in large part because they are read in closed circuit, for want of knowledge of their context. The discovery of creation myths in ancient Mesopotamia, strictly parallel to their biblical relatives, places them in their specific cultural context and contributes to a theological understanding of them. It is just necessary to recognise that the biblical creation narratives are myths and contain the rich spirituality that creation myths possess. They are the result of a religious intuition, of a constantly contemplative attitude in relation to things and to human existence: they see these things and this existence in the light of God, in relation to God and they see God in them. They aim to interpret them, sublimate them, give them the deepest possible meaning, suggesting that the supreme way of looking at them is to see them as dependent on God. To achieve this, in the form of a story, they attribute their existence to a creative act of God “at the beginning” of all that exists. They are, then, essentially authentic acts of faith and theological narrative.