Creation Stories

The Big Bang

Georges Lemaître was a Catholic priest, mathematician, astronomer and professor of physics at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He is regarded as the scientist who first proposed the Big Bang theory, which is a scientific understanding of how the universe was created. The theory suggests that billions of years ago all space and matter was together in a single mass. Around 14 billion years ago this mass began to expand rapidly and exploded in an event that is known as the Big Bang. As the universe expanded, atomic matter formed. Gravity then caused this atomic matter to clump together to form planets, solar systems and galaxies.

Adam and Eve

The second creation story in Genesis is based in the Garden of Eden and is about the creation of Adam and Eve. In this story Adam is the first human created by God. He does this by taking soil from the ground and breathing life into it. God then creates the Garden of Eden for Adam to live in and allows him to rule over it and name the animals and birds that live there. God then removes one of Adam's ribs to create Eve.

The book of Genesis continues with an account of how there is good and evil in the world.

Adam and Eve give in to temptation and disobey God's commandment by eating fruit from the tree of knowledge. They are punished by being exiled from the Garden of Eden.

Later in the book of Genesis the story of their sons getting into a fight is told. This fight results in Cain killing his brother Abel. The book of Genesis also includes a story about the destruction of creation by God in the myth of Noah and the flood.