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Comparing the flood of Noah and the flood of Gilgamesh
Comparing Noah's Ark to the epic of Gilgamesh
Comparing Noah's Ark to the epic of Gilgamesh
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The Flood of Noah and Gilgamesh With the discovery of texts from ancient civilizations, many people have come to believe that various texts are common to one another. Examples of these texts are the creation stories from the Hebrews found in the Bible, The Hymn of Ra from the Egyptians, and the Enuma Elish stories from the Babylonians. In addition to these stories are the flood stories. These stories have caused many discussions among scholars involved with ancient civilizations. The two main stories largely discussed are the Genesis and Gilgamesh flood stories. Although different in regards to the details, the main plot is similar between the two stories from two different civilizations. Because of this similarity, many people believe that either “Genesis was copied from an earlier Babylonian story, or the Gilgamesh myth was copied from an earlier Hebrew story, or both were copied from a common source that predates them both (Robinson). There are many similarities between the Noah flood story and the Gilgamesh flood story. In both stories, the divine are annoyed with humanity. In Genesis, God notices that man has become sinful and wicked in their actions and their thoughts. In Gilgamesh, the divine assembly find that humankind are too numerous and noisy. So to rid the earth of humankind, both stories tell of a flood that will destroy everything including animals. However, in each story, a righteous man finds favor with God (god) and has his life spared. In the bible, God finds favor with Noah and warns him of his plans to destroy the world. In Gilgamesh, Ea does not agree with Enlil and his plans to flood the earth, so Ea warns Utnapishtim through a dream of Enlil’s plan. After finding out about the flood, Noah and Utnapishtim build an ark using the specifications provided to them and bring in every living creature into the ark in order to spare them. After building the arks, Noah and Utnapishtim close the doors and it begins to rain. It continues to rain and the flood covers the earth and kills everything that is not in the ark. After the rain stops, both Noah and Utnapishtim arks land on a mountain, Mount Ararat for Noah and Mount Nisir for Utnapishtim; both mountains are located in the Middle East, only a few hundred miles apart (Robinson). Then, Noah and Utnapishtim each send out birds at regular intervals to see... ... middle of paper ... ...hat is what saves him, Enlil decides to bless Utnapishtim. Enlil lays his hand on Utnapishtim and his wife and proclaims, “Utnapishtim and his wife have been mortal, now they are immortal. They shall live far away, they shall dwell at the mouth of the rivers” (Matthews and Benjamin 28). Although, native to different civilizations, Noah to the Hebrews and Utnapishtim to the Babylonians, these two stories are very similar to each other, with only the specific details that are different. These similarities have brought some people to believe that one of the stories developed from a copy of the other story. Regardless of what people think, however, there is one thing that is for sure, these stories tell of the power of the all-powerful God (gods) of the people and how the people fear to displease their God (god). Works Cited Matthews, Victor H. and Don C. Benjamin. Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East. New York: Paulist, 1997. Robinson, B. A. Comparison of Babylonian and Noahic Flood Stories. 1 Feb. 2004. Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. 12 Mar. 2004 . Women’s Devotional Bible (NIV). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1995.
Most cultures have a creation myth, a story of how humans came to exist in the world. Often, they involve Gods of some capacity who exist without much question or explanation. Many myths have a common idea for the origin of the world, like Earth being born from water, a golden egg, or a great monster. The Mayan creation myth and the Babylonian creation myth are similar in that they both begin with water, and account the creation and purpose of man. They also differ, as the Mayan Popol Vuh chronicles a peaceful tale of trials to forge the Earth and sentient beings to worship the gods, while the Babylonian Enuma Elish tells of wars between gods that lead to the creation of Earth and of man as a servant to the gods.
Noah and Utnapishtim both were told to do something similar by their God or gods. The two differences that I noticed the most between these two texts include; the duration of the flood and the landing spot of the ark. In both the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible a person is approached and told to abandon the possessions they have and to build an ark. Noah is approached by God and told to build an ark. Utnapishtim had a different experience. He was told of what to do through a dream that was caused by one of the gods. Another similarity is the way that Noah and Utnapishtim were told about the ark was that they both were given specific measurement of how to build the ark.
The Sumero-Babylonian version of the epic of Gilgamesh, after two and a half millennia of dormancy, was resurrected by British archaeologists in the nineteenth century. Amid the rubble of an Assyrian palace, the twelve clay tablets inscribed the adventures of the first hero of world literature – King Gilgamesh, whose oral folk tales go back to at least 3000 years before Christ (Harris 1). Tablet XI contains the story of the Flood. In this essay let us compare this flood account to the more recent Noah’s Flood account in Genesis of the Old Testament.
The Epic of Gilgamesh records a story of a world-wide flood and pre-dates Genesis. So some claim that this invalidates the Genesis record. But P.J. Wiseman presents an interesting theory in this regard in his book Ancient Records and the Structure of Genesis (New York: Thomas Nelson, 1985).
Most of us have probably heard the famous bible story about Noah’s Ark and The Flood. What most may not know, is that this story is just one of a great many. A variety of ancient cultures, from the Greeks and the Middle East, to Asia and the Americas, have in their mythologies a story of a Great Flood that drowns the earth. These stories mostly contain the same themes: a god or group of gods becomes angry; they flood the earth but save a small group of people. These people build a boat to survive. After the flood they repopulate the earth.
The theme in Gilgamesh, Genesis and Sur 11 are comparably the same in that the people in each story were with sin and wickedness. In all three literatures, the people in the beginning were mean and sinful. The people in the Epic of Gilgamesh were evil and when Gilgamesh came to power he did not known what to since it was his first time beinging king. So, he would rule in a stern way to keep the people from sin. On Genesis God wanted to flood the Earth from the people who were sinful. God asked Noah to build an ark and to take his family and two of each animal.
Some of the simpler similarities are that the extent of the flood reaches every part of the earth, the flood is intended to destroy mankind, aside from the heros and their families, Utnapishtim and Noah are found righteous by their God or gods, and they build an ark to certain qualifications. An example of a less obvious similarity is the location of where the arks first touche land. In the general sense, they both landed on a mountain: Noah’s “ ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventh day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 75) and Utnapishtim's “boat stuck fast beside Mt. Nimush” (Gilgamesh 57). Taking this information a Step deeper reveals that Mt. Ararat and Mt. Nimush are about 300 miles apart. Both boats land in a relatively close proximity. Further proving the idea that the Sumerians and Hebrews experience the same event. Utnapishtim’s and Noah’s lives are dramatically changed by the flood. They sacrifice all that is familiar to them in order to receive the blessings of God or the gods. The heroes are both examples of a term I will call the archetypal path of blessing. Utnapishtim and Noah are both comfortable with what they have before the flood, but as Christopher Columbus States “One can never cross the ocean until one has the courage to leave the shore.” Utnapishtim and Noah give up what is ordinary to receive what is great. The blessings of both characters exceed
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 first tablet describes the creation of humans in the world, the second deals with the over crowded humans who made noise which was distracting for Gods, so they gave flood in order to control the overpopulation which is in the third tablet. It is same as Gilgamesh epic; Gilgamesh was a king of Uruku, “Gilgamesh epic was written in 1900 BC by some Akkadian scholars” (Colavito, Jason). Atrahasis was saved along with his family and makes offerings to God just like Utnapishtim, survivor of the flood story. Both stories are similar; they are almost same. But there are some dissimilarity between Genesis flood and Babylonian flood. Noah the main character from genesis flood was addressed directly from Yahweh while in Babylonian stories Gods addressed about the flood in dream to the main character. Yahweh was the God in genesis while Ea in the Babylonian version. The Gilgamesh epic was written before the Genesis, the former was written in 2000 BC in Sumerian cuneiform, and the latter in 400 BC. Humans showed wickedness, wicked schemes, corrupt, and lawlessness, Yahweh regretted himself for creating man so he decides to destroy the world by flooding. The reason of
A good number of people know the famous story of the Genesis flood, but do they know how it resembles to the Gilgamesh flood story? It is mind bending how the main stories are so alike. The main theme is the biggest similarity between the two. They also differ greatly in the smaller details in the events that take place. In both stories the number of days for events are different, but the same basic event takes place. Along with many other similarities and differences. The stories are very much the same, but when comparing the details within they are very different.
lines 100-140.” This is not the only times the story show similarity in both stories it is implied that humans were made in God’s image as well . Both stories depict a devine resting of a God once the universe is constructed where in Genesis it states, “Yahweh takes up divine rest in his cosmic-temple after creation out of chaos” and in Enuma Elish it states, “Marduk and other gods take rest in temple after victory over creation-conflict”. It is interesting to point out that in both stories the Gods feel the need to rest after achieving similar feats in terms of the creation of the universe. In different ways both narratives involve the creation of humans.
The Enuma Elish mirrors the subordinate disordered lives of the Babylonians that created it. Genesis mirrors the newfound freedom and idealism of the Jewish people who created it after years of oppression. These two writings contrast the differences between the ancient Babylonians and the ancient Hebrews. Creation stories give great insight into the lives of the people who created them.
The flood story that is told in The Epic of Gilgamesh has the same principle as the story of Noah told in the book of Genesis in the Bible, but there are some major differences. In the epic, Utnapishtim is immortal and, although Noah was extremely old when he died, he wasn’t immortal. Utnapishtim was a human, but because he saved mankind, Enlil said, “Hitherto Utnapishtim has been a human, now Utnapishtim and his wife shall become like us gods.” (Gilgamesh 11.206-207) In the Biblical story, God told Noah that he was going to send a flood and asked him specifically to make the ark in order to save mankind. In Genesis 6:13-22, God tells Noah why he’s flooding the earth and exact instructions to build the ark. “13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress[a] wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.[b] 16 Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit[c] high all arou...
The roles of Noah and Utnapishtim in the Flood Myths are quite similar. There are several differences regarding the two flood myths, but the general idea behind the two remains consistent. In the Mesopotamian Flood Myth, the Gods were overwhelmed by the amount of humans that existed on Earth and were unable to sleep due to the noise of men. So they decided to "exterminate mankind." While in the Hebrew story of Noah and the Flood Myth, God grew tired of the evil that had plagued mankind and engulfed the earth. So God decided to start the world over to undue the mistakes of man. Both of these stories display an attempt by the Gods to start the world over to cleanse the earth. Both Utnapishtim and Noah were spoken to by Gods and asked to build large boats from which all who were to be spared would seek shelter during the storm. Both men were allowed to spare the lives of their family via the safety of the boats. Also, the method used by the Gods in these myths are the same, the skies would rain down upon the earth flooding the land and killing all who were not ordered onto the boats.
Within the texts of Genesis which belong to the biblical scriptures of the Hebrews, and the myths of Egyptian origin, there are a multitude of similarities and differences. When compared side by side, the most obvious factor of both texts is that a single God was the creator of all that we know today. In Genesis that creator is simply referred to as God, while in Egyptian mythology, the creator is known as Neb-er-tcher. Both creators have striking resemblances, such as the ways they went about the production of the world.