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Chaos (cosmogony)

Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: Kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in ancient near eastern cosmology and early Greek cosmology. It can also refer to an early state of the cosmos constituted of nothing but undifferentiated and indistinguishable matter.[1]

This article is about the mythological void. For other uses, see Chaos.

Etymology[edit]

Greek kháos (χάος) means 'emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss',[2] related to the verbs kháskō (χάσκω) and khaínō (χαίνω) 'gape, be wide open', from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂n-,[3] cognate to Old English geanian, 'to gape', whence English yawn.[4]


It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness.[5] Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BC) interprets chaos as water, like something formless that can be differentiated.[6]

Hawaiian tradition[edit]

In Hawaiian folklore, a triad of deities known as the "Ku-Kaua-Kahi" (a.k.a. "Fundamental Supreme Unity") were said to have existed prior to and during Chaos ever since eternity, or put in Hawaiian terms, "mai ka po mai," meaning "from the time of night, darkness, Chaos." They eventually broke the surrounding Po ("night"), and light entered the universe. Next the group created three heavens for dwelling areas together with the Earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and assistant spirits.[46]

Gnosticism[edit]

According to the Gnostic On the Origin of the World, Chaos was not the first thing to exist. When the nature of the immortal aeons was completed, Sophia desired something like the light which first existed to come into being. Her desire appears as a likeness with incomprehensible greatness that covers the heavenly universe, diminishing its inner darkness while a shadow appears on the outside which causes Chaos to be formed. From Chaos every deity including the Demiurge is born.[47]

Modern usage[edit]

The term chaos has been adopted in modern comparative mythology and religious studies as referring to the primordial state before creation, strictly combining two separate notions of primordial waters or a primordial darkness from which a new order emerges and a primordial state as a merging of opposites, such as heaven and earth, which must be separated by a creator deity in an act of cosmogony.[53] In both cases, chaos referring to a notion of a primordial state contains the cosmos in potentia but needs to be formed by a demiurge before the world can begin its existence.


Use of chaos in the derived sense of "complete disorder or confusion" first appears in Elizabethan Early Modern English, originally implying satirical exaggeration.[54] "Chaos" in the well-defined sense of chaotic complex system is in turn derived from this usage.

Emergent Universe

Ginnungagap

Greek primordial deities

Nu

Tiamat

Tohu va bohu

The Void

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Aristophanes

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Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East

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ISBN

Clifford, Richard J (April 2007). "Book Review: Creation and Destruction: A Reappraisal of the Chaoskampf Theory in the Old Testament". Catholic Biblical Quarterly. 69 (2).  43725990.

JSTOR

Day, John (1985). God's conflict with the dragon and the sea: echoes of a Canaanite myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge Oriental Publications.  978-0-521-25600-1.

ISBN

Gantz, Timothy (1996). Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. Johns Hopkins University Press.  978-0-8018-5360-9.

ISBN

Guthrie, W. K. (April 1952). "The Presocratic World-picture". The Harvard Theological Review. 45 (2): 87–104. :10.1017/S0017816000020745. S2CID 162375625.

doi

(1914). "Theogony". The Homeric Hymns and Homerica (in English and Greek). Translated by Evelyn-White, Hugh G. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press – via Perseus Digital Library. Greek text available from the same website.

Hesiod

. Grant, Mary (ed.). Fabulae from The Myths of Hyginus. Translated by Grant, Mary. University of Kansas Publications in Humanistic Studies – via Topos Text Project.

Hyginus

Jaeger, Werner (1952). The theology of the early Greek philosophers: the Gifford lectures 1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  891905501.

OCLC

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The Presocratic philosophers

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Chaos

Morford, Mark P. O., Robert J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology, Eighth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007.  978-0-19-530805-1.

ISBN

Most, G. W., Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, , No. 57, Cambridge, MA, 2006 ISBN 978-0-674-99622-9. Online version at Harvard University Press.

Loeb Classical Library

Ogden, Daniel (2013). Dragons, Serpents, and Slayers in the Classical and early Christian Worlds: A sourcebook. Oxford University Press.  978-0-19-992509-4.

ISBN

(1892). Magnus, Hugo (ed.). Metamorphoses (in Latin). Gotha, Germany: Friedr. Andr. Perthes – via Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Ovidius Naso

(1922). Metamorphoses. Translated by More, Brookes. Boston: Cornhill Publishing Co – via Perseus Digital Library.

Publius Ovidius Naso

(1873). "Chaos". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London – via Perseus Digital Library.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Smith, William

Szulakowska, Urszula (2000). The alchemy of light: geometry and optics in late Renaissance alchemical illustration. Symbola et Emblemata – Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Symbolism. Vol. 10. BRILL.  978-90-04-11690-0.

ISBN

Tripp, Edward, Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology, Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970).  0-690-22608-X.* West, M. L. (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814169-6.

ISBN

Tsumura, David Toshio (2020). . Journal of the American Oriental Society. 140 (4): 963–970. doi:10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.4.0963. JSTOR 10.7817/jameroriesoci.140.4.0963.

"The Chaoskampf Myth in the Biblical Tradition"

Tsumura, David Toshio (2022). . In Watson, Rebecca S.; Curtis, Adrian H.W. (eds.). Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes Creation, Chaos and Monotheism. De Gruyter. pp. 253–281.

"Chaos and Chaoskampf in the Bible: Is "Chaos" a Suitable Term to Describe Creation or Conflict in the Bible?"

Watson, Rebecca S. (2005). . De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110900866. ISBN 978-3-11-017993-4.

Chaos Uncreated: A Reassessment of the Theme of "Chaos" in the Hebrew Bible

Wyatt, Nick (2005) [1998]. "Arms and the King: The Earliest Allusions to the Chaoskampf Motif and their Implications for the Interpretation of the Ugaritic and Biblical Traditions". There's such divinity doth hedge a king: selected essays of Nicolas Wyatt on royal ideology in Ugaritic and Old Testament literature. Society for Old Testament Study monographs, Ashgate Publishing. pp. 151–190.  978-0-7546-5330-1.

ISBN

Wyatt, Nicolas (2022). . In Watson, Rebecca S.; Curtis, Adrian H.W. (eds.). Conversations on Canaanite and Biblical Themes Creation, Chaos and Monotheism. De Gruyter. pp. 203–252.

"Distinguishing Wood and Trees in the Waters: Creation in Biblical Thought"