Week 3: Storybook Topic and Styles

Topic

The topic of my Storybook has not been chosen from my previous brainstorming post, but rather chosen from my last storytelling assignment from week 3 regarding creation. After creating my own story about creation and man, I am captivated to go much further in depth about this subject with my storybook for this course. Many of the stories I want to choose for my storybook come from the Adam and Eve unit of the Untexbook; some of the specific stories I want to use include are The Creation,  Paradise, and The Darkness. I believe with these stories, and some others within the Adam and Eve unit, I should have more than a sufficient amount of readings to further detail my own story in my finished storybook.

(Creation of the Universe: Source)

Bibliography

1. The Creation, King James Bible: Genesis 1-2
2. The Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg: Book 1, Chapter 2 Adam
3. The Forgotten Books of Eden, Rutherford H. Platt, Jr: The First Book of Adam and Eve 13-14-15

Possible Styles

Perspective of the Creator. This would be my first and main approach for my creation story adaptation. I really want to stick to the same theme as my last week 3 storytelling post, and by telling it the creators perspective it allows for details of each and every different planet contained in the universe, rather than keeping the focus on just one specific "Earth". I plan on splitting the different sections of the story up by century, following all the different planets each century and tracking their progress individually. I think this would make for the most interesting read!

Native Storyteller. This perspective would be from a native storyteller on a specific planet. I am taking  a "Native American Philosophy" course this semester and have been learning a lot about their spiritual ways of life. It would be cool to think that on one planet out there, there are native people that know the exact truth about the creation of our universe and pass the story down generation after generation much like the Native Americans do now with stories from the wise elders.

Animals. The perspective of different animals on different planets would be a very interesting take on my own creation story. For this style, each section could be broken up into different planets; describing the details of each different one from the perspective of all the different animals each planet contains.

Reincarnation. Being interested in the though of reincarnation, this style would follow the many different lives of one soul who is "reborn" again each time on a different planet. This style could also be broken up by each different planet and follow the new reborn life of the single soul on each one. This style also allows for description of each different planet which I think would be most interesting to read.

Storytelling Week 3

The dawn of time has come. God has started life on thousands if not millions of different planets scattered all throughout our universe. Once he spoke the words, we all entered into existence for the first time all together. His planning was precise; leaving enough light years between each planet so that they could never discover one another. He was to leave us all be and watch what we would become. Many planets of life had short lives by being destroyed by meteors and asteroids within the first 500 years or so. Many planets had tremendous advances in science and technology and many planets were still living in what would be considered the dark ages of their lifetime. Free will was key in all this planning from God; He chose to let us decide our fate for ourselves. His one and only plan for the future, is to show the last final standing planet all of the universes beauty. This last planet will be so far advanced from all the others that they will be the only ones who can truly comprehend the universe in its entirety and harness all its energy it has to offer to make even further advances for themselves. This final standing planet was to be called "Earth" by the people who habitat it. There was a period of downfall for this planet though, between the years of 1950 and 2200, heavily pollution almost caused global warming to end life as they once knew it. A life saving change occurred in the 23rd century, their breakthroughs in science allowed them to reverse the process of global warming prolonging the life of "Earth" well into the 51st century, where God finally showed them the entire universe and his final plans.

(Creation: Source)

Author's Note:

This is my adaptation to the creation of our universe as told in the Bible in Genesis chapters 1-3. How life was started on this planet has always been of great fascination to me, I really enjoy pondering all the different possibilities. I love watching science fiction movies like Prometheus or 2001/2010: A Space Odyssey that involve the creation of mankind. Prometheus alone has really been my main inspiration for this adaptation of this creation story. Here is its IMDB page if you care to get more info on the film!

Bibliography:

Here is the link to the original "Eve" post regarding creation. This original story is from chapters 1-3 of Genesis in the King James Bible.  

Week 3 Reading Diary (Continued): Adam and Eve

The punishment of Adam and Eve after betraying God and eating the forbidden fruit sounds harsh to me, but after reading "If I had let My wrath fall heavily upon thee, I should have destroyed thee, and had I turned thee into darkness, it would have been as if I killed thee.", I guess it could have been a lot worse. Adam and Eve were given one rule to follow: do not eat the forbidden fruit. How hard could this have been? This story describes one of man's greatest downfalls, temptation. Temptations are placed all around us in this world, sometimes unknowingly, and man has been known to fall for these temptations whatever they may appear as. This "forbidden fruit" represents all of life's temptations. It sounds dumb that they could not follow this one and only rule they were given, but when you take a step back and think about the meaning, it describes man very accurately. We are imperfect creatures with many flaws; giving into these temptations can be considered just one of these flaws. God could not take control over Adam and Eve's actions because then there would be no free will and they would not be able to think for themselves. God gave them 12 hours of darkness as part of their punishment; does this mean he created the moon and physically sent our planet into orbit around our sun for this darkness to occur? When was the rest of the universe created? Were there other planets that creation form God happened on besides just Earth? What if there is an ocean of "Earths" out there that were all suddenly spoke into existence by God all at the same time, and God is watching for the final outcomes of each and every different one. I believe we will manage to kill ourselves off slowly but surely by scavenging all of this Earth's precious resources like hungry vouchers always craving to do more and push the limits further and further.

(Darkness engulfing the world for the first time. Source)

These thoughts were taken during the reading of Adam and Eve: The Darkness contained within The Forgotten Books of Eden, edited by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr.

Week 3 Reading Diary: Eve

I am very interested in possibly creating a story that rhymes. This thought came to me as I read "...And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise..." I find it interesting how Eve was also made directly from Adams rib. This makes me think about how far back woman's rights go. I feel like the thought of the mother being a "stay-at-home" wife dates very far back and though I do not believe it, I feel like this creation story has had some influence on the way the woman has been viewed by society in the past. What if both Adam and Eve were created in parallel in this story? Would we still have all the same views of women as a society in general? Would we have had so many issues regarding woman's rights in the past? Why was voting such a huge issue for women at some point? The same judgement's can be applied to racism against blacks I think. Maybe all our flaws throughout history can be connected back to these early creation stories...Food for thought.

(Creation of Eve from the rib of Adam. Source)

These thoughts were accumulated while reading through the story titled Eve within the Biblical unit of the UnTextbook. The story source is form the King James Bible: Genesis 2/3. Here is the link to the section.