Genesis Vs Gilgamesh Essay

“Build a boat”, they said. “The flood will come”, they said. The flood stories of “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and “The Genesis” are both accounts of the great disasters that wiped out most of the population of Earth that have both differences and similarities on what happened when the floods occurred. These stories parallel each other in many areas including the warning given to an individual being, the instruction to build an ark, the instruction to bring a sampling of species on board, the method by which land was eventually discovered at its conclusion, and the sacrifice offered by each at the end. While very few, there are some differences in the tales. The length of the strife, and the way that the individual was warned are just some of these differences. In “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, Gilgamesh goes to Utnapishtim hoping he
In both, an individual was warned of the great flood to occur. Both Noah and Utnapishtim were advised to build an ark big enough to survive the flood and sustain the life their families and a subset of Earth’s species. The floods in both instances were global disasters and exterminated all of mankind. At the end of each tale, a bird was sent as a method to discover if land was nearby. Finally, Noah and Utnapishtim offered sacrifices to the gods for choosing them to survive the flood. Although the similarities between “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and “The Genesis” story are many, the variances are very few. Utnapishtim was warned in Ea’s dream, while Noah was directly warned by God. The flood in Utnapishtim’s epic was ordered by Enlil but sent by the whole assembly of gods. In Noah’s fable, the flood was sent by God himself. Lastly, the length of time that the heroes were made to endure the great disaster was very disparate. Utnapishtim had to only survive a short period of time which was 6 days and nights. Noah endured hardship for a much longer period. His journey was 40 days and