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Genesis Vs Gilgamesh Essay

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In the following readings, Genesis and The Epic of Gilgamesh, women are perceived as subjects towards men. For example, in Genesis the first woman to be created by God is Eve and in The Epic of Gilgamesh the harlot Shamhat. Both characters are subjected to obey men in a point of their stories because it is the norm of the society of which these texts are written in. Even though both texts were written in the same part of the world, modern middle east, Genesis is the creation story of earth that was written in modern day middle east during Babylonian Exile of the 6th century BC, while The Epic of Gilgamesh was, however written in a different time, dating back to c. 2000 BC. Genesis was written before The Epic of Gilgamesh, which means that the norm of women being submissive towards men originated from Genesis to The Epic of Gilgamesh. In Genesis, Eve is the first woman to be created by God to accompany Adam, the first man to be created by God. Adam worked all by himself for God without any help: “Therefore the LORD God caused a heavy sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, he took one of his ribs, and closed up the instead thereof. And the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man, made he a woman, and brought her to the man” (Genesis 8). Eve was …show more content…

In Genesis, Eve was sinned by God to be in sorrow and to be subjected to the husband because of her disobedience to God by eating the fruit of the tree when the serpent told her to. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Shamhat is subjected in the beginning because of her occupation as a harlot. That alone, lead men in the epic to see her as a sexual object for the pleasure of men, especially to Enkidu, who does not have self-control of his desire when he saw

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