Both the Hebrew stories and the Epic of Gilgamesh contained flood stories. They stories have some similarities to them like a great flood happened, but they are very different at the same time. The stories differ on three key things.
Length of Flood
In the epic of Gilgamesh the flood did not last that long. “For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and flood raged together like warring hosts.” After that the gods felt bad for man and stopped the flood. They rushed their decision of the flood and after six day and seven nights they could no longer go forward with killing everything. In the Hebrew story the flood was much longer. “And the flood was forty days upon the earth”. God knew what he wanted to do, and he followed through with it.
Motivation
The motivation for the great flood’s where completely different. In the Hebrew story god flooded the earth to wipe out evil. In that story god said “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” He had to cleans the earth of evil. While in the epic of Gilgamesh the gods just where tired of hearing us. “The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the bable.” And their solution to this well it was to just flood the world. It was a more selfish reason then the Hebrew story.
What was on the Ship
In the Hebrew story Noah brought his family his son’s wives and two of every animal in the world. “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark”. God told him this is what he needs to start the world back up after the great flood. In Gilgamesh god said to “Take up into the boat the seed of all living creatures.” Also craftsmen where taken into the boat so they can rebuild after the flood.
I like your post, you basically found the same three differences in the stories that I did.
ReplyDeleteDavid, you did an excellent job here. I really like this:
ReplyDelete"They rushed their decision of the flood and after six day and seven nights they could no longer go forward with killing everything. In the Hebrew story the flood was much longer. “And the flood was forty days upon the earth”. God knew what he wanted to do, and he followed through with it."
Not only did you analyze the stories to find the differences, you makes an argument about what those differences say about the stories. The gods in Gilgamesh seems to be out of control, or at least not omnipotent. It's just the opposite in the Genesis story.