Essay On Atrahasis And Gilgamesh

Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, and the Genesis are mythical flood stories that share many similarities and differences. In Atrahasis, the younger gods complain to the elders of their workload and ask that man be created to take the work load off their backs. The womb goddess is then instructed to create mankind from clay. Turns out mankind for the gods ends up being something unexpected so Enlil orders a drought at first and figures that his ideas to lessen the population is not working. So Enlil has no choice to send a flood in hope to depopulate the society but he first sends Atrahasis to build a boat and gather two of each kind. In contrast to the flood in Atrahasis, the story in Gilgamesh reflects that of Gilgamesh. The story of Genesis could also be compared to Atrahasis and the Gilgamesh flood story because the creation of mankind, human tragedy, and regret. The similarities of

In the story of Atrahasis, the gods focus is on “slave labor” itself. With that being said, it is evident that their society relied on labor in society. The fact that labor played a role in the rebellion of the flood posed an importance. For one, the labor was heavily relied on in the society in Atrahasis and when the humans were forced to work the load it set up a sense of hierarchy. Also the view that they believed in many gods was quite different from Genesis. The story of Genesis would then hold the idea of the monotheistic view. After examining the stories side by side we learned the many values and beliefs based off the author’s narratives of the stories. The myths reflect the cosmogony of the world; much rather an aspect of it called the creation of man. Within the creation of man many ideas within it are expressed such as destruction of mankind, recreation, and rebellion. Although the stories were much alike, differences are also evident but made no difference to the points made by the