Curated playlist
Creator gods
- JesusJesus left no writings of his own. Almost everything known about him comes from accounts by others.
- ShivaShiva began as an adjective meaning kind, not as a god's name. The Rig Veda used it that way roughly 1700 to 1100 BCE.
- OdinOdin hung himself from a tree for nine nights to win secret knowledge. The Norse god also gave up an eye for wisdom.
- GaneshaBefore a wedding, a new business or a dance, Hindus invoke Ganesha first.
- EnkiBound by an oath, the god Enki warned humans of a flood by pretending to speak to a reed wall.
- RamaIn the Jain telling, Rama never kills Ravana and ends life as a monk. His brother Lakshmana strikes the fatal blow.
- KhnumKhnum was an Egyptian god who sat at a potter's wheel and shaped human beings from clay. When a body was finished, he placed it inside its mother's womb. A text in the Ipuwer Papyrus, from the 12th dynasty, shows what it meant when this…
- BrahmaIn the Shiva Purana, Shiva cuts off one of the creator god Brahma's five heads for lying.
- KrishnaA hunter mistook the sleeping Hindu god Krishna for a deer and shot him in the foot. Krishna forgave Jara and died.
- PtahThe word Egypt comes from the name of a temple to the god Ptah. Hut-ka-Ptah in Memphis became Aiguptos in Greek.
- AtumAtum, the creator god of ancient Egypt, once told Osiris how the universe would end. According to the Coffin Texts, he said that after millions of years only the two of them would remain, both in the form of serpents. That is a startling…
- YahwehYahweh may first appear in writing on an Egyptian inscription at Soleb, dating from the time of Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1390 to 1352 BCE. The inscription names a place as 'YHWA in the Land of the Shasu.' The Shasu were nomads from…
- GodCould God create a stone so heavy that even he could not lift it? Philosophers call this the omnipotence paradox.
- RaEvery night, the serpent Apophis attacked the boat of the Egyptian sun god Ra. Hymns and spells helped him win.
- AmunAmun's name meant "the hidden one," yet his temples became Egypt's largest.
- KhepriKhepri is an ancient Egyptian god with the face of a scarab beetle, and his task was to be the sun at the moment of dawn. Each morning the sun returned to the sky, and Khepri was the deity who embodied that return. Through it, he also…