I know, it's actually Friday, and I'm late with the word of the week for the second week in a row. My apologies. I had a concept in mind but hadn't figured out how to search for it. I wanted to find a word that described the zero-generation of the gods -- the sudden springing into existence of Chaos or the God of monotheistic religions. I'd seen it in my reading, but had failed to write it down. I've now found two words that serve the purpose -- abiogenesis and autogenesis -- although I'm not sure that either of them is the one had read. The first is based on the alpha-privative (Greek negating prefix) + the Greek word for life (bios) + the word for creation; the second, the Greek for self (autos) + genesis, again. Adjectival forms of these nouns are abiogenetic and autogenetic (autogenic).
A blog post about the Golden Calf of the Biblical book of Exodus [see Moses], on Theophyle's Biblical - ANE Blog, suggests that some have thought that when "Aaron replied, 'Let my lord not be enraged ... They said to me, "Make us a god to lead us; for that man Moses, who brought us from the land of Egypt--we do not know what happened to him." So I said to them, "Whoever has gold, rip it off." They gave it to me and I hurled it into the fire and out came this calf!' (Exodus 32:24)," he wasn't lying. Instead he was saying the Golden Calf was created autogenically.
If you know another word for the zero generation or would like to specify when one of these word should be preferred to another, please reply (in the comments) to this blog.
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