Preview

Similarities Between Gilgamesh And Hebrew Bible

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
365 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Similarities Between Gilgamesh And Hebrew Bible
In Gilgamesh and the Hebrew bible there are a lot of similar and differenced between the two stories. Within this essay, the discussion about the floods will be compared and contrasted between the two stories within the relationship between humans, Gods and the overall purpose of both floods. Within Gilgamesh and Hebrew bible water was used to destroy humankind. Utriapishtuim in Gilgamesh heard about the flood from the God Ea instead of the God who created the flood Ealil ().Unlike Noah who got direct message from the creature of the flood God himself (). Also, the flood in Gilgamesh lasted seven days, while in the Hebrew bible the flood lasted for 70 days. Ultimately, after the flood Utmpishtim was given immortality without having to die

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Gilgamesh was written thousands of years ago, but those who have read Gilgamesh notice something extraordinarily striking about the story of Utnapishtim’s immortality: there is a nearly identical flood story written in the Bible. Many things about the flood story in the Bible seem identical to the flood in Gilgamesh, but there are still many differences. The differences are seen before, during, and after the flood, making the two stories similar, but not quite identical. The floods described in Gilgamesh and in the Bible have an obvious relationship, but each is extremely different in some ways and exactly the same in others.…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Almost every religion in the world has a story about the “Great Flood” which destroys the earth, and each teaches its followers a different story about this disaster. While the Babylonians have the story of Utnapishtim from the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Judeo Christians have Noah from the Bible. Both men save a few people and many animals. In these stories, Noah and Utnapishtim seem to have similar situations, but a further analysis shows how truly different the two stories are.…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Noahs Ark and Gilgamesh

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Epic of Gilgamesh Flood Story and the Noah’s Ark story from the Bible are similar in many ways. They are similar in the sense that they both got rid of their houses and all of their belongings. Noah received his message from God to start building the boat while Gilgamesh received his message in a dream. But in the story of Noah’s Ark, Noah was to build the boat to exact measurements which were 300 cubits for its length, 50 cubits for its width, and 30 cubits for its height. Where in the Epic of the Gilgamesh it was to be built “shall have her dimensions in proportion, Her width and length in harmony.” The story never tells how big the boat was for all living seeds. So as a reader we can picture Noah’s massive boat where we cannot do the same for Gilgamesh’s boat They were both were to build enormous boats that would be able to hold all forms of life. In the Epic of Gilgamesh Flood Story, Gilgamesh fills his boat with all forms of life along with silver and gold. Whereas Noah built the boat only to fit all animals and his family. The Epic of Gilgamesh fought through only six days and seven nights where Noah fought through forty days and forty nights. But we do know the Bible uses the number 40 as a way of saying a long period of time. Both Gilgamesh and Noah released a Raven and a Dove but Noah released 3 doves while Gilgamesh only released a swallow after the release of other two birds. The Gilgamesh Epic has close parallels with the account of Noah’s Flood. Its close similarities are due to its closeness to the real event. However, there are major differences as well. Everything in the Epic, from the polytheism to the absurd cubical ark, as well as the worldwide flood legends, show me that the Genesis account is the original, while the Gilgamesh Epic is a distortion.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gilgamesh is told to be the oldest existing story in the history of humankind, imminently, the story has many similarities to the bible. Bible is a text oof belief based lessons and the base of the religion of Christianity which has many similarities to Gilgamesh as in they both include the tales of worldly destruction with the reasons, destroyer and the saving. All similarities aside, the two texts can be contrasted as the bible is the root of world’s biggest universalizing religion and the Gilgamesh was not extracted as a manuscript and if man made errors are factored in, it may not have been comprehended as it was supposed to be. Gilgamesh and the bible can be compared and contrasted based on the stories, lessons and the effects on the evolution…

    • 133 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The parallels between The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Benjamin R. Foster, and the Genesis stories, from The Hebrew Bible, are uncanny. The overall theme of these stories talks about divine intervention and questions the human condition of mortality. Both of these infamous literary works address the fact that humans are the only known species capable of abstract thinking, moral judgment, and meta-cognition. While continuous belief compares this ability with the divine, the human life is limited whereas the supernatural is not. Theodore Hiebert raises this same awareness in “The Eden Narrative: A Literary and Religio-historical Study of Genesis 2-3” by saying, “wisdom and immortality are a stable pair in the ancient Near East, and that they are used both in Mesopotamian myths and in Genesis to explain the human condition and to mark the line between human and divine” (p. 2). The literal and metaphoric resemblances will force critical readers to wonder if the antecedent Gilgamesh story influenced the stories in Genesis.…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Objectively explain the similarities and differences between the gods in Gilgamesh and God in Genesis.…

    • 509 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Accepting immortality and the ultimate powerlessness to be in control of death's inevitability is something that both Gilgamesh and Noah encounter. Gilgamesh faces the death of his closest companion, Enkidu, with hopelessness, fear, and anger. "In his bitterness he cried, 'How can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that I shall be when I am dead. '" (p. 141) To Siduri's questioning, Gilgamesh responds, "Because of my brother I am afraid of death, because of my brother I stray through the wilderness and cannot rest." (p. 144) Noah, faced with the impending death of everyone except his own family and the pairs of creatures joining him in the ark, is unquestioning and obedient in following God's instructions. After the instructions about the animals that he is to take into the ark, "Noah did so; just as God commanded him, so he did." (p. 172) When God tells Noah that He will blot out all of creation in forty days and forty nights, "…Noah did just as the Lord commanded him." (p. 171 and 172) Both of the characters deal with death; respond differently, thus resulting in contrasting outcomes.…

    • 1069 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In both versions of the flood something angers the higher power/s. In the epic of Gilgamesh, "The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reasons of the Babel" (Gilgamesh 12). The gods are angered by the disturbance of mankind. In Gilgamesh the Gods are given more human qualities, their decision is an act of selfishness not of a greater good. The council of gods decides to destroy all of humanity so they can sleep…

    • 484 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the main similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Old Testament is they both feature a large flood. In The Epic of Gilgamesh the Gods become annoyed with the people. The Gods found them to be too loud. Because of this they decided to create a large flood that would destroy civilization and return the peacefulness they wanted. In The Old Testament God was upset with mankind as he found them to be too wicked. Because of this he too decided to destroy them by a flood. In both stories there is one person who is chosen to survive the destructive flood. In The Epic of Gilgamesh it is King Gilgamesh who is chosen to survive and in The Old Testament it is Noah who is chosen to be the survivor. After the flood, in both tales, the divine show regret about their hasty decisions and vow to never do anything like it again.…

    • 588 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gilgamesh vs Bible

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Many of the same old past stories can be found in different cultures. Each story differs in some views but the general themes and the main idea these stories want to transmit to their people who believe in their own God can have striking similarities. That why the Epic of Gilgamesh compares to the Bible in many different ways and the epic also has an extraordinarily different perspective than the Bible does. Yet the Bible and Gilgamesh, story or truth, myth or religion, these are questions that are applied to the ancient epic of Gilgamesh. Interestingly, these same questions apply to another major? They were written many years ago, both with many different versions, and in different languages work, the Bible.…

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Essay On Gilgamesh Flood

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Almost all cultures are familiar with the story of the flood found in Genesis. It is a very important and interesting story to many Catholics. The main message of the story is God is angry with all the sin in the world, so he decides to start over by sending a flood to wipe out mankind and restart with Noah and his family. Not everyone might be as familiar with the Mesopotamian story of the flood found in Gilgamesh. One would likely assume the story of the flood would have many difference considering the contrast in the time period and colossal differences of religion but there are many underlying similarities in details of the main characters, Noah and Utnapishtim, and the flood itself.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gilgamesh Vs Genesis

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The occurrence of the flood is similar in both the Genesis and Gilgamesh. In both, two men are employed to build a boat in the event of an upcoming flood. Noah is advised by God to “Make [himself] an ark of cypress wood” (Genesis 6), and to survive the upcoming floods with his family and two of many livestock. Likewise, Utnapishtim is approached by the God Ea to “demolish the house, and build a boat” (Gilgamesh 89). Both are ordered to build a boat with many compartments to save the animals to repopulate the world after the floods. Both Noah and Utnapishtim’s families are also the only survivors of both floods because of the boats. Another similarity between Gilgamesh and…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is apparent in our class readings, that when the gods are angry at the humans they created, these gods unleash unforgiving rains to flood the earth, and kill the human race. Over the years, there have been various texts about these floods. While the occurrences of the floods themselves are continuous throughout these texts, they have varying reasons for the cause of the floods and different aftermaths or consequences. Three of these texts in particular which tell the story of these floods, are Gilgamesh translated by Stephen Mitchell, Metamorphoses by Ovid and Genesis. The main factor in these floods was of course the god or gods who created it. Therefore, the floods in each of these three texts were different, because the gods who created the floods were different. Even though a flood occurs in all of the three texts, the cause, the flood itself and the aftermaths of the floods are different.…

    • 1633 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    With crinkled edges and a dazzling array of colors, daylilies are unsurprisingly a garden favorite. They bloom in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and patterns, and catch heavy interest due to this. Hence the name, a daylily is a starchy flower that has a bloom that only lasts for single day. For decades, many gardeners have been fascinated by daylilies for the extreme versatility of the appearance of the plant. Many amateur horticulturists also attempt to cross-pollinate different daylilies in order to obtain even more unique flowers.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    kettle corn

    • 888 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the Epic of Gilgamesh, humanity and the divine are inextricably intertwined. The gods repeatedly intervene in the lives of men when their actions make them angry, and Gilgamesh himself is part divine. What is more, the gods are associated with physical places and people, for whom they act as patrons. Shamash is Gilgamesh's patron, for example, and Anu takes care of the town of Uruk.…

    • 888 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays