FREE ESSAY ON SIGNIFICANT DETAILS: THE GILGAMESH EPIC

SIGNIFICANT DETAILS: THE GILGAMESH EPIC

Significant Details
Fiction or history, 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 work, the Bible. Who is to say what is real and what is fiction of these
two very old books? They were written many years ago, both with many different versions,
and in different languages with slight variations. While it is claimed that Sumerians
wrote Gilgamesh as early as 3000 B.C., there is much controversy surrounding the time the
Bible, mainly the Old Testament was written (Loery). Strangely, these two books have
similar accounts of very meaningful events and symbols in today's society, yet one is a
myth and the other is the basis of many different religions. The similarities between
parallel stories in Gilgamesh and The Bible make it hard to believe that one work did not
influence the other. While the two flood stories are obvious parallels, there is one pair
of other similar accounts that deserve as much attention, the creation of Adam and the
creation of Enkidu have four important similarities in the Bible and in Gilgamesh.
The most talked about and obvious parallel in these two works is the depiction of a very
large flood. In Gilgamesh, the main character, Gilgamesh, talks with Utnapishtim, the man
who survived the flood. He tells Gilgamesh the story, revealing details strangely similar
to those of Noah's flood in the Bible. Utnapishtim was ordered to build an ark in a dream
by one of the gods who had pity on mankind (Sin-Leqi-Unninni XI, I). God told Noah to
build an ark because he was "blameless in that age" and deserved salvation from total
destruction (Genesis 6:9). Though God did not use a dream to notify Noah, both were
instructed on what to take on the ark. "Load the seed of every living thing into your
ark," Ea says to Utnapishtim (Sin-Leqi-Unninni XI, I, 27). Likewise, God told Noah to
take pairs of each type of animal with him to "keep their issue alive all over the
earth," (Genesis 7:2). Noah and Utnapishtim both took family members with them in the
ark. Noah took take his wife and his sons and his sons wives (Genesis 7:18). Utnapishtim
took some friends with him, along with his family (Lorey). 
Overall, the frameworks of the descriptions are comparable from how the main character
learns of the flood to the sacrifice that man makes after landing (Clough). Both men had
seven days to complete the arks before it started raining, however, in the Biblical
account, it rained for forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7; 12), while, according to
Utnapishtim, the flood lasted six days and seven nights (Sin-Leqi-Unninni XI, ii, 127).
When the flood was over, the two boats proved to have landed in the same region of the
Middle East (Lorey). Supposedly, Noah's ark landed on Mount Ararat, while Utnapishtim's
ark landed some 300 miles away on Mount Nisir (Casselman). There are somewhere around
80,000 flood stories in seventy-two languages, yet these are two have the closest landing
spots (Kneisler). Landing so closely together, it must be maintained that one writer or
people borrowed the concept from the other, while modifying it slightly to fit that
geographical area. After landing, both survivors thanked their protector by sacrifice.
Utnapishtim "set out a drink offering upon the ziggurat of the mountain" and set up the
sacrifice. Noah offered an animal up to God and God, seeing this, said to Noah "Never
again will I doom the earth because of man," (Genesis 8:21). Enlil, a minor god, blesses
Utnapishtim with immortality, which is intersesting, considering Noah was already six
hundred years old at the beginning of the flood. Here, the Sumerians may have taken the
fact that Noah was so abnormally old as immortal, weaving it in to their own flood story.
Taken as a whole, the flood stories have similar details that make it impossible to
believe that there is some connection between them.
A less obvious parallel is in the creation of Adam in the Bible and in Gilgamesh, the
creation of Enkidu. There are actually two different stories in the Bible in which Adam
is created while there is only one story of Enkidu's formation. Combining the two
Biblical accounts, however, gives many parallels to Gilgamesh. In Genesis, chapter 2,
Adam, the first man, is created out of clay (line 7). Similarly, when Aruru, the mother
goddess forms Enkidu, she throws clay into the wilderness where she gives birth to Enkidu
(Sin-Leqi-Unninni tablet I, column ii, line 35). This concept of formation out of the
earth makes man one with the earth. Adam and Enkidu are portrayed as one with nature, an
idea that cannot be original to both accounts. In chapter 1 of Genesis, the writer gives
a little more information on the creation of Adam. It is stated that God "formed man in
His image," (27). When creating an equal for Gilgamesh, Aruru "form[s] an image of Anu in
her heart," (Sin-Leqi-Unninni I, ii, 33). Anu is the god of gods; he is the "highest of
the pantheon" as John Gardner explains in his interpretation of the work
(Sin-Leqi-Unninni 71). Enkidu is made in the image of Anu with one very important detail,
he is mortal, which connects to Adam's creation. Adam, made in the likeleness of God, is
also mortal, though much like God. With the god-like image, both men are in tune with
nature which could possibly be the ideal way of life for the writers of both works,
explaining why both stories have these significant details.
Again, stressing harmony in nature, Enkidu grows up in the wilderness. He "fed with the
gazelles on the grass/with the wild animals he drank at waterholes" (Sin-Leqi-Unninni I,
ii, 39-40). There seems to be a link here with the creation of Adam; at first, Adam is
given dominance over the animals in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:30). It is only later
that this is gift is taken away from him, when he gains knowledge. Enkidu also gains
knowledge, in the form of a woman's love. After a courtesan lies with him, "the beasts of
the wilderness fled from his body," as if Enkidu is now too civilized and the animals
sense it (Sin-Leqi-Unninni I, iv 25). Adam's problem, stems from a woman: Eve tempts Adam
to eat the forbidden fruit, which gives him knowledge, and as a punishment, God cast him
out of Eden, separating him from nature (Genesis 3:17-24). While the use of a woman
suggests evil rooting from females, as many myths and religions believe, the harmony with
animals depicts how man came to dominate the earth. A very large question has always
been, why is man so superior to the animals? This is one way to explain it. Again, the
similarities are so close that it is hard to ignore the fact that one influenced the
other.
Most people conclude that the ancient story of Gilgamesh the hero and king influenced the
later writing of the Bible (Kneisler). Yet, in the words of Frank Lorey of the Institute
for Creation Research in California, "the probability exists that the Biblical account
had been preserved either as an oral tradition, or in written form handed down from
Noah... and eventually to Moses, thereby making it actually older than the Sumerian
accounts... (2). This statement, while referring to just the flood stories, should be
applied to all the similarities between the Old Tesetament and Gilgamesh. While there is
estimation as to when Gilgamesh was written and what period the story originally comes
from (as early as 3000 B.C.), there is no evidence of when the Bible was written (Loery).
Since the Old Testament covers a span of almost two thousand years, it is very likely
that before it was written down (somewhere around 1000 B.C.) it was passed on orally.
Therefore, it is wrong to assume that concepts in the Bible were influenced from concepts
of other works, such as Gilgamesh, but one should still keep in mind that one did
inevitably influence the other.
Bibliography
The Bible.
Casselman, Linda "Gilgamesh and Parallels to the Bible." 1 October 2000 
.
Clough, Brenda W. "A Short Discussion of the Influence of the Gilgamesh Epic on the
Bible." 3 July 
1999. 1 October 2000. http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/gilgam.htm.
Sin-Leqi-Unninni. Gilgamesh. Trans. John Gardner and John Maier. New York; Vintage Books,

1985.
Kneisler, Matthew "Noah's Ark: The Story and Gilgamesh Epic." 1 October 2000. 
http://arksearch.com/nastory.htm#Gilgamesh Epic.
Lorey, Frank. M.A. "The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh." Vital Articles on 
Science/Creation. (March 1997). 1 October 2000 .