Primary Source Review: The Story Of The Flood

10/24/2017
Gino Cendejas
Dr. White, HIST 1113l
Primary Source Review: The Story of The Flood
A bustling young region renown for being the cradle of civilizations, Mesopotamia, is the setting of this epic poem, The Story of The Flood. The Story of The Flood is embodied into the 11th tablet of 12, that together, compose the many heroic stories of The Epic of Gilgamesh. This narrative is the oldest piece of Epic Western Literature, that is of Sumerian/Babylonian origins. It is believed to have been composed sometime from 2,700 B.C.E. to 2,500 B.C.E. and first inscribed in 2,100 B.C.E. to 1,400 B.C.E. The best-preserved version of the story originates from the Babylonian writer Shin-Leqi-Unninni, presumed to have been written sometime between 1,300
As the epic story was orally passed on, long before it was inscribed, it has been debated if the written form mentioned above, was of early Sumerian or later Babylonian cultural influence. The Sumerian scholar, Samuel Noah Kramer has written on this matter, “Even in those episodes which lack Sumerian counterparts, most of the individual motifs reflect Sumerian mythic and epic sources. In no case, however, did the Babylonian poets slavishly copy the Sumerian material. They so modified its content and molded its form, in accordance with their own temper and heritage, that only the bare nucleus of the Sumerian original remains recognizable. It is definitely a Babylonian, rather than a Sumerian, development and achievement. (History Begins at Sumer, 270).” This insert from “History Begins at Sumer, 270, Samuel Noah Kramer” aids in reinforcing the argument that the story is of Babylonian origins, which was later
In his search for immortality, he chances upon Utnapishtim, whom was granted immortality, along with his wife, at the hand of The God Enlil, who was the one behind the flood to wipe out humanity. Utnapishtim then recited the story of The Flood to Gilgamesh and of how they were granted immortality after surviving the catastrophe with the aid of The Goddess Ea. Through the walls of her house, she had spoken to Utnapishtim & warned him of the great flood coming & instructions on building a ship & filling it with 2 of every animal. After surviving the flood, through the use of an inviting, savory sacrifice in cauldrons, he lured the Gods to the mountain top to show his gratitude for having survived & his newly learned lesson, while excluding Enlil, for he was the one who brought down the flood, to wipe out human kind for being intolerably loud & depriving him of sleep. This makes the story very intriguing, as it almost completely parallel’s the story of the flood in the Genesis book of the Bible and that it was created long before the Christian story. Many have debated over the origins of both, to resolve the mystery of whether the Genesis story was a spin-off of the Sumerian version, vice-versa or if they both originated from a real