This is a moth not a myth
Myths were a storytelling device widely used among ancient people.
Initially – forget about ideas of true and false – that is a bit of a red herring.
Remember that in ancient civilizations the majority of people could not read or write.
Information had to be passed by word of mouth. Songs, poems or stories were more popular than pieces of factual information.
Important events and momentous happenings had to be shared among the people.
How the world came into existence would be one such event.
It is important to realize that the act of creation itself would have had no spectators, or at least no human ones.
Religious people felt very strongly that God was behind the idea of creating the world. They needed to get this across somehow. Other ideas about God could be included as well.
What better way could there be than using a popular form of literary activity such as a poem or a story?
They could pack into the story, the event, described in a way people would understand it, and other important ideas about God and the world he made.
So in the creation myths one reads how the particular author understood God.
How the author understood man in relation to God.
How the author understood the relationship between other aspects of creation and God.
WHY MYTH?
Because it contains fundamental truths about God, mankind and the world.
It describes something that was desperately important to the cycle of life and death.
It was a medium of communication which people would have been at ease with.
It could be repeated as often as required.
And somehow it might transport the hearer to feel that he or she was part of the great event.
