In November 1872 , a self - taught historian named George Smith toiled away in the archives of the British Museum sorting through fragments of clay tablets recovered from ancient Mesopotamian archeological site in modern - day Iraq . The tablets were write in cuneiform — a language that had only recently been recovered and translate after 1,000 years of obscurity — and most of the fragments contained humdrum account statement records or opaque vaticination from castle priests .
But then Smith encounter something remarkable . As he translated the cuneiform word by word , a familiar story unfolded . There was a god punishing humanity with a ruinous photoflood , one human who was select to pull through using a peculiarly construct sauceboat filled with creature and seeds , and after the overflow , birds being released to chance dry soil .
This was n’t the chronicle ofNoah and the ark , though , and this was n’t the Quran of Genesis in the HebrewBible(known to Christians as the Old Testament ) . What Smith had discovered was only one chapter in a sprawl Mesopotamian tale now known as the Epic of Gilgamesh , first written in 1,800 B.C.E. , around 1,000 eld before the Hebrew Bible .
" The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest tragic epic for which we have evidence , " says Louise Pryke , an honorary research fellow at the University of Sydney and writer of " Gilgamesh , " a deep analysis of the text and its influences on later works , from the Bible to Homer ’s " Odyssey . " " It ’s something that ’s come to represent ancient Mesopotamia in mod culture . "
When Smith first made the connection between the two flood stories in Gilgamesh and Genesis , legend say that he became so activated that he danced around the elbow room bump off his clothes . Smith ’s discovery shook the foundations of biblical scholarship by aim that some , if not all , of the Hebrew Bible was adopt from neighboring civilizations .
Pryke says that while the outpouring narrative in Genesis is clearly inspire by the story in Gilgamesh , the similarities and remainder in the ancient accounts can teach us crucial things about what these two culture valued and their cosmic worldviews .
" These are cultures that are in talks with one another and their stories are in dialog with one another , " says Pryke .
What’s the Epic of Gilgamesh All About?
The Epic of Gilgamesh chronicle the adventures of the semi - providential King Gilgamesh ( circa 2700 B.C.E. ) as he leaves his home city of Uruk to battle mythical beasts and obtain the secret to eternal life-time . Not only is this text one of the earliest examples of a hero ’s pursuit , it ’s the first to feature a " bromance " in the partnership of Gilgamesh and his best friend Enkidu , who sadly buy the farm midway through the story .
The flood story forms the heart of Tablet XI , when Gilgamesh search out the only survivors of the great cloudburst , Utanapishtim and his wife , whom the Supreme Being granted with immortality . As Utanapishtim severalise it , the chief god , Enlil , was trite of humanity keeping him awake with all their noise , so he decided to destroy them ( or at least " diminish " them ) with a dread torrent .
Enlil force the divinity to make a pact not to tell any humans about the imminent inundation , but Ea , the god of wiseness , figure out a clever workaround . He loudly tells a reed paries about Enlil ’s plan , bonk that Utanapishtim is behind the paries and will catch everything . Utanapishtim play along Ea ’s instructions to progress a boat of specific dimensions , load it with wealth , seeds and animals of every kind , and seal it against the coming violent storm .
When the torrential rain staunch after six day and seven nighttime , Utanapishtim sends out three birds in succession — a dove , a sparrow and a Corvus corax — to receive dry land . When the raven does n’t render , Utanapishtim and his house tender sacrifice to the graven image , who are near famishment without any people to feed them .
While the oldest fond sherd of Gilgamesh date back to nearly 2000 B.C.E. , Pryke says that the best - known Babylonian version was likely compose by sinfulness - leqi - unninni , an exorcist non-Christian priest who dwell around 1100 B.C.E. The earliest division of the Hebrew Bible , let in much of Genesis , were written around 950 B.C.E.
Similarities and Differences Between the Two Flood Stories
Comparing the flood lamp narrative in Gilgamesh to the scriptural flood in Genesis " is an area of scholarship that has attract more tending than pretty much anything else in the history of Assyriology , " says Pryke . What ’s even more incredible about Smith ’s breakthrough is that more than a century later , the outpouring is still the strongest connection between the two text .
Here are the factor of the flood story that Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible parcel , says Pryke :
While the similarities have drawn most of the scholarly attention , Pryke articulate there ’s as much to get wind from where the accounting differ and what that tells us about the cultures in which each tale was told . Some of those differences include :
Morality Tale vs. Wisdom Literature
Perhaps the biggest difference between the flood narratives in Gilgamesh and Genesis is the lesson of the two history . In both traditions , a divine magnate settle to down off humanity , but in each tale , mankind survives for unlike reason . Noah is preserved because he is the most virtuously sportsmanlike and obedient . Utanapishtim , on the other hired man , is saved quite literally by wiseness , by obtaining elysian knowledge .
Pryke says that while the Hebraic reading of the flood story hinge on ethics — the death of the wicked and the saving of the righteous — the authors of Genesis expose a " wary engagement with wisdom " elsewhere . believe of the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden ; Adam and Eve are penalize for consume its yield and trying to obtain godlike wisdom ( and become like God ) .
In Gilgamesh , the flood story is mean to be instructive for young King Gilgamesh so as to learn his place in the cosmic order .
" As king , Gilgamesh has to mediate between humanity and the gods , " says Pryke . " And if that intermediation breaks down , thing can become quite revelatory . "
Did the Bible ‘Steal’ the Flood Story from Gilgamesh?
All signs point to yes , that the writer of Genesis were distinctly aware of the providential torrent distinguish in the former Epic of Gilgamesh .
" We in reality have the smoking gun , " says Pryke . " Archeologists have found bits of the Epic of Gilgamesh all over [ Ancient Israel ] . It looks like Gilgamesh was something that was in broad circulation at the time . "
Since both the Bible and Gilgamesh were passed along as unwritten traditions long before they were written down , it ’s possible that the Mesopotamian flood narrative first entered Hebrew culture as a case of " contest lit " similar to 1001 Arabian Nights .
" the great unwashed traveled somewhere and they ’d compete to state the most singular stories that they knew from their culture , " say Pryke , " and then you got this cultural discourse that was happening . "
Other Similarities Between Gilgamesh and the Bible
While the flood tide story is the nifty representative of Mesopotamian influence on Hebrew civilization , there are some other crossover .
Found among the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls , for example , is the apocryphal book of 1 Enoch that includes the " Book of Giants , " an score of the supersized beings who walked the Earth before the floodlight . One of those titan , not coincidentally , is named Gilgamesh , and another shares the name of a ogre that Gilgamesh destroy in his epic story .
There ’s also a remarkable similarity between some sagely advice first given in Gilgamesh and later in the book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible . Here ’s the schoolbook from Gilgamesh :
And here it is in Ecclesiastes 9:7 - 9 :
However , the law of similarity in these texts may simply intend that these were common sayings of the time . " It would be precipitant to surmise that the similarities between these two passages inevitably lead from cultural contact or any lineal contact between the texts . Good advice seems to have a sure timeless character , peculiarly when it is express in wide terms that may be applicable to a range of situations and periods , " Pyrke wrote on the internet site The Bible and Interpretation .
Do Multiple Accounts Point to a Real Flood?
Irving Finkel is a modern - daylight heir to George Smith . Finkel also works at the British Museum and in 1985 find out yet another ancient deluge narrative written in cuneiform on a sherd of pad recovered in Iraq . This news report , believed to be even older than Gilgamesh , features a Noah - similar character mention Atrahasis whom the gods dominate to build up a circular boat in formulation for a withering waterspout .
So , the raw inquiry is , does the existence of multiple ancient flood narrative amount to proof of a real inundation that came close to wiping out all of humanness ? Finkel evidence the London Telegraph that it ’s very potential there was a monolithic flood that chance on the Tigris and Euphrates Valley between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago and hang in in the corporate Mesopotamian memory . Pryke hold that " it ’s a fair thing to assume that there was [ a flood ] . "
