Comparing Gilgamesh And The Ten Commandments

We often look at the Bible as one of humanity’s most important texts, where we gather most of our morals, information and logic. The Bible is over 1,500 years old and has influenced billions of people. However, many historians have looked at the Bible’s texts and found that some of its verses and stories are closely related to religious texts that existed far before the Bible was originally created. With this new study we must look closely at three key stories within the Bible to see how closely they relate to the previous religious texts. We must closely look at the stories of The Garden of Eden, The Great flood and The Ten Commandments in order to determine the similarities with other religious texts.

The story of the Garden of Eden has many related aspects to the story of the Epic of

Gilgamesh. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest recorded texts in human history that tells the story of a man named Enkidu, who was created from the earth by a God. This is very similar to the creation story in the thought that a God also created Adam from the ground. Enkidu, the “Adam” in the Epic of Gilgamesh, lives amongst animals in a natural paradise until a woman, Shamhat, tempts him. This is similar to the Bible in the idea that a woman, Eve, also tempts Adam. Just like in the Garden of Eden, Enkidu accepted the food from this woman and is forced to leave the place where he lives after becoming aware of his own nakedness. Later in the epic, he encounters a snake that stole a fruit of Immortality. This is also somewhat similar to the Garden of Eden where a snake is responsible for an act with a food (Allen, Ten Ways). There are obviously many similarities here between these texts that can often cause the historians and believers to question the originality of the Bible.
The Great Flood story in the Bible is also very closely related to the Epic of Gilgamesh. In both of these epic tales, the arks depicted were huge and similarly had a single door and at least one window. In both of the stories, a similar great rain covered the land and mountains with water. The Biblical flooding lasted “40 days” (The Holy Bible, Genesis 7.14), while the Gilgamesh flood was much shorter lasting only six days and nights. In both stories, birds were released to find land after the rains ceased, and both arks came to rest on a mountain. Noah’s ark came to a rest on Ararat and Utnapishtim’s (the “Noah” in The Epic of Gilgamesh) came to rest on Nisir. Sacrifices were offered after the flood in both tales and God was pleased by the sacrifices. At the end of the story both Noah and Utnapishtim received blessings and both Gods also promised not to destroy humankind again. There are clearly multiple similarities between these tales, which yet again begs the question of whether or not the Bible had stolen stories from other religious texts.
The Ten Commandments is another story in the Bible that has numerous similarities to another religious text.

This religious text is the Egyptian Book of the dead, which was written in around 2600 B.C. In the Bible, the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and were written on stone tablets, allegedly by the hand of God himself. This was thought to take place around 1490 B.C. However, the Negative Confession in Egyptian Book of the Dead is very similar to the Ten Commandments written in the Bible. Some close examples include when the Book of the Dead wrote, “I have not blasphemed.” (The Book of the Dead, The Negative Confession) and in The Bible God said “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain” (Holy Bible, Exodus 20.7). Another example is when the Book of the Dead says, “I have not committed adultery, and I have not lain with men” (The Book of the Dead, The Negative Confession) and God says in The Bible, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Holy Bible, Exodus 20.14). These are even more examples that the Bible could have stolen from other religious

texts.
The Garden of Eden, The Great Flood and The Ten Commandments are stories we must closely examine to understand if the Bible stole stories from other religious texts. It is clear that there are many close resemblances with the Bible’s stories to those of other religious text. If these stories were in fact copied the whole religion itself could have a major flaw in it. It may never be known if these stories were copied but we should still not eliminate this possibility.