Comparison of the Bibles and Tablet XI flood story

“The most remarkable parallels between the Old Testament and the entire corpus of cuneiform inscriptions from Mesopotamia . . . are found in the deluge accounts of the Babylonians and Assyrians, on the one hand, and the Hebrews, on the other,” Heidel stated. A story of a great flood has been recorded by various civilizations, such as the Hebrews with Genesis, from the Bible, and the Babylonians with the Epic of Gilgamesh. The flood story, in the book of Genesis is remarkably similar to the Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Some people make the claim; the Bible plagiarizes The Epic of Gilgamesh, though no conclusive evidence has been found. Their storylines are quite analogous; however they have some significant differences. People wonder if the two myths are based off of each other or even based off a currently unknown, older, similar, source. Although I acknowledge it is a possibility Genesis copied parts of Gilgamesh, there is a surplus of evidence that refutes this claim. Which helps lead to the conclusion, the myths were individually written, albeit both Myths contain many parallels between each other making likely that they were influenced by a similar source.
To figure out which story came first, it would be beneficial to know exactly when each was created. Unfortunately, that information, without the use of a time machine, is impossible to obtain. Scientists have found the earliest written records though, of either story, to be the Epic of Gilgamesh. This flood story was written, on Tablet XI, around 650 B.C. It is understood that both stories most likely predated their written forms through centuries of oral tradition. Dr. John Oakes stated “There is significant evidence that the oral tradition contained in parts of ...

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...onclusive scientific evidence of a global flood; this along with the statistics makes the idea of multiple notable floods seem a strong possibility. Then which in turn, makes it more likely that the Bible’s Genesis flood story is based off of the same large flood, or equally possible a different flood.
It is, at this time, impossible to prove which Flood myth came first. I acknowledge that it is possible the Bible, in respects to the flood myth, borrowed parts from the Epic of Gilgamesh. None the less, there is plenty of evidence to support the originality of the bible relative to Gilgamesh. This helps lead to the most likely explanation, that both texts were created individually but with a similar source. Whether that source is an earlier version both stories borrowed from or, just as probable, both are based on different or the same non-global flood separately.