Chaos, Cosmos and Creation in Early Greek Theogonies

Cosmological narratives like the creation story in the book of Genesis or the modern Big Bang are popularly understood to be descriptions of how the universe was created. However, cosmologies also say a great deal more. Indeed, the majority of cosmologies, ancient and modern, explore not simply how the world was made but how humans relate to their surrounding environment and the often thin line which separates humans from gods and animals. Combining approaches from classical studies, anthropology, and philosophy, this book studies three competing cosmologies of the early Greek world: Hesiod’s Theogony; the Orphic Derveni theogony; and Protagoras’ creation myth in Plato’s eponymous dialogue. Although all three cosmologies are part of a single mythic tradition and feature a number of similar events and characters, Olaf Almqvist argues they offer very different answers to an ongoing debate on what it is to be human. Engaging closely with the ontological turn in anthropology and in particular with the work of Philippe Descola, this book outlines three key sets of ontological assumptions – analogism, pantheism, and naturalism – found in early Greek literature and explores how these competing ontological assumptions result in contrasting attitudes to rituals such as prayer and sacrifice.

Almqvist’s book is a fascinating read warmly to be welcomed. Constantly enlightening and thought-provoking, it is interspersed with intertextual parallels, analytic commentaries treated with intellectual vividness, close attention to detail and due caution to the pitfalls of the intra-/intertextual contextualisation and textual criticism., This book offers a fresh look at early creation myths in Greece (Hesiod’s Theogony, the Orphic poem of the Derveni Papyrus and Plato’s Protagoras) challenging the traditional interpretations and opening new paths to the understanding of the Greeks’ views on the origins of gods, humans and cosmos., Almqvist offers a striking and thought-provoking new insight on the Greek cosmological myths, imposing anthropological lenses on founding texts. It is not only “Descola among the Greeks”: this book investigates the Greeks’ own exploration on ontological differences through poetry, and proposes a contribution to the ontological turn, via a fifth ontology, the pantheism.

Olaf Almqvist is a Lecturer in Greek and Classical Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.