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Similarities Between The Epic Of Gilgamesh And Genesis

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“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception (Carl Sargon)”. According to The Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis, unprecedented floods occurred in both stories. The exception fell on the kind men, Utnapishtim and Noah: they survived the powerful event of destruction. However, in the same theme of the stories, there are sources of similarity and differences. Even though both The Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis are similar in that they all use the floods for a destruction, both the stories are different from each other in the distribution of roles within the gods and a way to warn the extermination from the gods. First, the similarity between The Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis is the relevance with the flooding that used to exterminate the human. To prove the occurrence of the flood, chapter 5 of The Epic of Gilgamesh records, “For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts (line 62-63, p. 21)”. Also in Genesis, the text “The waters flooded the earth for a hundred …show more content…

The Epic of Gilgamesh had the gods who are Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, Ea (line 2-3, p.20). In contrast to The Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis had the only God according to the whole story. As the omniscient God existed over the world, the God in Genesis naturally controls every field of the world without distributing roles. On the other hand, a number of the gods in The Epic of Gilgamesh can split the roles into parts. For example, Anu is the lord of the firmament, warrior Enlil is the counselor of the city Shurrupak, Ninurta is the helper, Ennugi is the watcher over canals, and Ea is the god of wisdom (line 2-3, p.20). After all, the only God affects every part in Genesis, but lots of the gods in The Epic of Gilgamesh perform separate

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Between “The Babylonian Creation Epic” and “Theogony” there are many similarities and differences that can be found. One similarity between these two is the idea of two beings, Tiamat and Apsu (fresh and salt water) and Gaia and Ouranos (earth and sky) who couple together and give birth to the first gods. In Gaia and Ouranos’s case, these ‘gods’ are called Titans. In the Babylonian story Marduk, a son of the gods, kills Tiamat and creates humankind from the blood of one of the gods who stood on her side. Whereas in “Theogony” Ouranos is hated by all of his children and ends up castrated by his son Kronos.

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559 Words | 3 Pages

When looking at all of the gods in “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and the Maker, Modeler from “The Wooden People,” there are quite a few differences between them, but they are pretty similar. To start off, in both stories, the deities created human life, and they controlled all of the things that would happen in the world around them. In “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” the gods are looked up to as strong and powerful, and people are completely aware of that. Even Gilgamesh who is only two thirds god is looked at as strong and thought highly of (“Epic” 14). The Maker, Modeler isn’t as lucky to have people who worship him.

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602 Words | 3 Pages

Whereas the similarities between the two stories are found in the overall story of the flood account, the differences lie in the details of the two narratives. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the divine beings are depicted as powerful gods that quarrel among

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1002 Words | 5 Pages

In the beginning of The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s brief lineage is explained: “[s]on of Lugalbanda, Gilgamesh, perfect in strength, Son of the lofty cow, the wild cow Ninsun.” The author goes on to state that “Belet-ili designed the shape of his body.” Gilgamesh is said to be hand-crafted by the gods and is two-thirds divine. This is often his excuse to act as if he were three-thirds divine. In his killing of Humbaba and dogged pursuit of immortality, Gilgamesh is committing sacrilegious acts, even though he is said to be closely related to the gods themselves.

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364 Words | 2 Pages

Man and God's Relationship The Epic of Gilgamesh and In the Beginning have many similarities. Both incorporate the Hero’s Journey and three archetypes: character, situational, and symbolic. Both are about man's relationship with God(s), including man’s struggle with temptation, and the serpent as a symbol.

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677 Words | 3 Pages

Gilgamesh is generally seen as a historical figure, since writings have been found which confirm the existence of other figures associated with him in the epic. If Gilgamesh existed, he probably was a king who ruled sometime between 2800 and 2500 BC. The king claims that Gilgamesh ruled the city of Uruk for 126 years. According to the Tummal Inscription, Gilgamesh and his son Urlugal rebuilt the sanctuary of the goddess Ninlil in Tummal. The story of Noah and the Ark and the Epic of Gilgamesh are similar because they both tell a story of the earth being destroyed by a Great

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855 Words | 4 Pages

References in the 11th tablet name multiple gods, where as in Genesis there is only one. This difference makes the two versions unique to their own area of origination. The Babylonian’s description of the great flood begins with a council amongst the gods in which Enil, the warrior god, decides to end all mankind for their wickedness. EA disobeyed Enil’s wishes of secrecy and forewarned Utnapishtim of the upcoming deluge.

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The Parallel Stories Whether God is real or not, there’ve been many stories in ancient times concerning god. Especially stories about floods. For example “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, and “Noah and the Flood”. The Epic of Gilgamesh, is one of the oldest epics ever to be created. The sumerian story was composed before 2000 B.C.

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The flood in both these stories represent a fresh start because the flood is the way for the gods to have a clean slate. It also shows that even the gods have flaws and make mistakes, even though they are often portrayed as

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This is the source of controversy between if the story of creation given by Genesis is valid or not. Gilgamesh is the oldest written text known to date, therefore, Genesis would have to be written after, and some people may have suspicion that Genesis ripped off the deluge story of Gilgamesh. People have a valid point when arguing this because the stories are almost identical: a man is warned by gods/God to build a boat to survive oncoming disaster brought on by gods/God because of the unpleasing behavior of mankind. Both bring animals and both survive the flood. The duration of the flood is different but the method of finding land is the same; a raven, a swallow, and a dove.

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There were also gods of lesser things such as love and scribal arts. Looking at Mesopotamia’s geography, you can see how it might have served as inspiration for deities. The Euphrates and Tigris rivers surrounding Babylon could’ve been inspirations for the many water gods like Apsu, Enki, and Tiamat, as could the Persian Gulf located nearby. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods are depicted as harsh and wrathful because they decide to wipe out the human race with a flood just because they make too much noise (Ward p.20). The gods’ destructive nature is likely based off the chaos caused by flooding from the Tigris and Euphrates.

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2037 Words | 9 Pages

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest story known to mankind, being written on Sumerian clay almost five thousand years ago (Garone). Since the story was originally known orally, the culture and themes from The Epic of Gilgamesh must have existed long before it was finally inscribed (Mark 4). Having known this, the cultures and themes can be compared to today’s society, discovering about how they have shifted and evolved, and also observe how they are similar. The ancient days of Gilgamesh has brought culture that has greatly influenced today’s society. Because Gilgamesh was set around the time of late Babylonian or early Sumerian society, the Babylonian and Sumerian cultures also play a role in shaping the world into what is is today (Mark).

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The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible have a few similar events and historians think that they may refer to the same event. The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible share a similar event, the flood, and a similar character, the serpent. Though there are still several distinctions between the two stories. The Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh both contain a serpent as one of the less significant characters.

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756 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout history there have been many myths concerning a great flood that challenged the humans and animals at the time, from the story of Noah’s Arc to the tale of the Yellowstone Valley. Some are harsher than others, but all teach a lesson. In addition, many are part of different cultures. For example, the story of Baucis and Philemon is Roman, Deucalion and Pyrrha is Greek, and the Great Flood of the Yellowstone Valley is Native American. Within the stories consist of both similar and different details, such as what morals were taught and the types of roles people played.

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413 Words | 2 Pages

In the Epic of Gilgamesh interrelationships between the humans and gods are not what we are used to in most modern monotheistic societies. Perhaps the greatest difference between the power of humans and gods is when Gilgamesh is referred to as “Two-thirds of him was divine, one-third of him was human!” (39) as this reveals Gilgamesh to be the son of Lugalbanda the former king and the goddess Ninsun. This would indicate that the line between human and god is an extremely thin one and thus gods cannot and are not that vastly different from their human counterparts. Indeed, throughout the journey of Gilgamesh we are confronted by gods and goddesses who are similar to humans in their desires and means of achieving them.

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