Similarities Between Gilgamesh And The Hebrew Bible

Anna O’Tool
Professor Volger
World Literature 1
14 June 2023
The Epic of Gilgamesh vs. The Hebrew Bible
“Where did we come from”. A question as old as time, pun intended. Humans have been asking this from the very beginning, and we know this because of the texts that they wrote. Thousands and thousands of writings have been created to attempt to answer it, but a few stick out. Both The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible seek to answer this question, thus connecting in various ways. The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible connect in their formatting and themes of death, but have differences inside of that theme as well.
The first thing to discuss when comparing these two texts is the obvious similarity in formatting and writing style.

The first is the reaction of death. As mentioned before, Job lost his entire family but never lost his faith in God. Instead he was questioning the reason for his suffering saying “what is my offense that I have done to You O Watcher of man? Why did you make me Your target.. For soon I shall lie in the dust.” (The Hebrew 101). The reaction of death from The Epic of Gilgamesh is plain and simple devastation. When Gilgamesh’s best friend dies, he cries “ I mourn for my friend Ediku, I howl as bitterly as a professional keener.” (The Epic 56). The second is literal vs. metaphorical death. The Hebrew Bible tends to be more metaphorical in general, especially when it comes to death. Often, the word death means death of the soul, not of the body. This stays true in the example of Adam and Eve. Though God said the two would die if they ate of the forbidden tree, they did not actually die. Instead, they lost their innocence and goodness in God’s eyes. In The Epic, death is very literal. They were warned about the death from disease from going into the forest qwhere they killed Kumbaba, which is what Enkidu later died from. The third is references to other gods that can cause death. During the time when the Epic was written , it was very common to have belief in more than one god, some more powerful than others. The Hebrew bible is very different in this way, saying the only god is Him and he is the only being that has

The Hebrew bible is divided into 4 parts: testament, book, chapter, and verse for easy access to the teaching. The Epic is only divided into one part called tablets. The second difference in formatting would be the description of the gods. The Hebrew Bible never describes God as anything but all-powerful and all-good, whereas the Epic goes further in that description. Not only does it describe Gilgamesh’s power, it also discusses his looks saying ”The God of Wisdom brought his stature to perfection. He was perfection in height, ideally handsome.” (The Epic 24). It also describes how he came into the world, but the bible makes no such reference, as the God is supposed to come before the world in that story. The last difference is that the Epic dives into explanation much more than the Hebrew bible. People who follow the teachings of the Hebrew bible value faith greatly, meaning they are able to believe in their god without much explanation behind the teachings. However, the audience of the Epic of Gilgamesh is reading the tale with hope for answers for their many questions. Because of this, the writers had to be much more careful about explaining things. They explained the extent if his power, who had more or less power than him, what can make him lose his power and what characteristics make him powerful, instead of just assuming an all-powerful, all-good being. These two texts are very different in this