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For centuries, theologians as well as curiosity driven anthropologists, scholars, students, and devoted worshipers have sought to discover evidence and the true meaning behind the story of the Great Flood. This tale of Noah and his magnificent ark has compelled those grasping a better understanding of the Old Testament and it’s teachings. There is however, another story of a destructive flood, one that some believe may outdate the Bible’s recollection of the Noahic Flood. This second story of a great flood comes from the Far East, and was discovered to be part of the well-known Gilgamesh Epic. Through greater research and careful analysis a distinct parallel between the two stories is clear, and the amount of similarities between them is amazing. This paper will help to identify a great number of those similarities, as well as a few differences between them. The importance of each story will also be addressed, and some critical viewpoints as to which story may have appeared first will be offered. Background Though the tale of Genesis flood is well known to most, a brief background of the story will be helpful in order to distinguish it from the Gilgamesh Flood. Genesis 6, verse 5 explains: “ The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” This became the reasoning for the Great Flood, as the Lord saw man as evil, sinful creatures that had become obnoxious to God. God had intended to wipe mankind, as well as all animals and creatures from the earth, but one man, Noah, found favor in His eyes. Noah was instructed by God to make a wooden ark, with three levels, to be 450 ft. long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Inside this ark Noah was to bring his family, as well as two of every living creature, both male Maliszewski 2 and female, on earth. Once completed, Noah was told by God that rain would descend upon the earth for forty days and forty nights, and would wipe every living creature from existence. And just as God had said the rains came, and after forty days and forty nights, Noah and his family, as well as the creatures he brought onto the ark were the only remaining creatures on earth. In comparison, the Babylonian tale of the Gilgamesh Flood, which is found on the 11th tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, contains many of the same distinguishing features. The Gilgamesh Flood story came as a result of the gods desire to also wipe out mankind due to their numerousness and noisy behaviors. The story states: “In the time before the flood, there was a city, Shuruppak, on the banks of the Euphrates. There, the counsel of the gods held a secret meeting; they resolved to destroy the world in a great flood. All the God’s were under oath not to reveal this secret to any living thing, but Ea (on of the gods that created humanity) came to Utnapishtim’s house and told the secret to the walls of Utnapishtims’s house, thus not technically violating his oath to the rest of the gods.” In this Babylonian account, Utnapishtim is the hero much like Noah in the Genesis story.
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