Destruction Myths

In Genesis, “the Lord said to Himself: ‘Never again will I doom the earth because of man, since the devisings of man’s mind are evil from his youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done’”(Gen. 8:21.) This statements makes the Lord sound as if he has remorse of flooding the Earth, almost as if he wish he never did. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, “‘Do not drive him too hard or he perishes… rather than the flood, would that famine had wasted the world.’” This statement is from dialogue between Enlil and the all the other gods. All the gods are trying to convince Enlil to never flood the earth again. The gods in both stories felt that flooding Earth may not have been the best decision and promise to never do it

With the endless variations of myths, each can be set into specific categories. The apocalyptic archetype in particular contain recurring elements that have symbolic significance in the myths. Leeming states,” The apocalypse motif must be seen as closely related to the flood archetype. The apocalypse is a ritual cleansing of cosmic proportions, a large-scale expression of the human fascination with the death and resurrection process” (69 Leeming).

Both the story of “Noah and the Flood” in the book of Genesis in The Hebrew Bible and the flood story in The Epic of Gilgamesh detail a grand flood in which a man saved life from extinction by building an ark, earning fame and immortality in some form. The theme of completing this grand task for a moral purpose holds true to both stories, but the depiction and actions of the divine and mortal characters in the stories contain different similarities and differences.

In both Gilgamesh and Noah and the Flood, man’s wickedness leads to death, destruction, and rebirth all caused by billions of gallons of water sweeping the earth’s surface. The flood in both stories destroys most of mankind. The floods represent rebirth and a new beginning for mankind, as well as the gods and God’s wrath. In Gilgamesh the gods decide to destroy mankind by flooding the earth for six days and nights. Utnapishtim is chosen to build a boat in order to restart mankind after the flood. In the Bible God also decides to flood the earth due to the increase in wickedness. God chooses Noah to build an ark and store seven pairs of every clean animal and two of every other kind of animal on it

The Hebrew Flood story of Noah and his obligation to preserve man kind after God had punished all living creatures for their inequities parallels The Epic of Gilgamesh in several ways. Even though these two compilations are passed on orally at different times in history the similarities and differences invoke deliberation when these stories are compared. Numerous underlining themes are illustrated throughout each story. Humans are guilty of transgressions and must be punished, God or Gods send a flood as punishment to destroy this evil race, a person is selected by the gods to build a craft that will withstand the flood and allow this person to create a new race. An

Then Ea randomly selects one man (Utanapishtim) and his wife to survive the flood and repopulate the Earth. This part of the epic is countered by the biblical story of the flood. God is hurt, pained in His heart, about how His creation, man, has turned their back on their creator. Enlil was not even the god who had created man. He just wanted to destroy mankind because he felt like it “For [Enlil], irrationally, brought on the flood” (11. 174). God made a promise to never destroy the earth by flood again. He even made a sign so that we know His promise still stands today. “And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.’” (Genesis

In Genesis the word of God leads humanity in the direction of self preservation, urging them to procreate, to ”Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 9:1), and to minimize hostility and violence among people. As Freud asserted, “Besides the instinct to preserve living substance and join it into ever larger units, there must exist another, contrary instinct seeking to dissolve those units and bring them back to their primeval, inorganic state” (Freud 77). Genesis exemplifies the struggle between the two opposing human instincts, with God acting as a moderator between them. Forms of justice are put into place in an attempt to control these drives, one example being the proclamation that “Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed” (Genesis 9:6). The ethics and laws that develop throughout Genesis seek to “prevent the crudest excesses of brutal violence” but are unable to control “the more cautious and refined manifestations of human aggressiveness” (Freud 70). Since they cannot be completely eradicated, the scriptures instead play into the more negative aspects of human nature, especially narcissism, and manipulate them into a force for conservation rather than annihilation.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the goddess of love, Ishtar who is coveted Gilgamesh’s beauty, and she wants to marry him. But Gilgamesh rejected. Then Ishtar feels angry and insulted, which are the feeling that humans have. Sometime, the gods are very emotional and childish. The gods decide to destroy humanity through a great flood for no reason, and the only man that survives from the flood and becomes eternal is also no reason. It is not because the gods like him or he has good personality, just because he is lucky, and the gods are

Zeus can be compared to Superman in the sense that he is powerful, he protects the weak, and punishes the wicked. He is a human-like god in a sense he commits adultery, and is often to his wife Hera. The real life ideals represented by Zeus’s role, is one of a just and powerful character that gets justice against those that are bad and by protecting the good and weak. For Zeus being the god over all the Olympian gods it is quite easy to be powerful and just. In real life instance the justice system is the one to execute injustice through the law, the police and court system. This enables the victims that a sense of justice has been served.

Legends of a great flood exist in the records of many cultures: the Middle East, Asia, South America. One Babylonian document in particular, “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” parallels the story of Noah and the flood. The Bible presents the flood as an act of God against rebellious people, not merely an accident of geography or climate. The churning waters described stand as a

The two stories similarly utilize the symbolic cleansing associated with water as motivation for the destructive floods. Both acts of divine authority were a punishment sent from the heavens to exterminate humankind. Although provoked by comparable fury, the stimuli that enrage the deities conflict. In the polytheistic society of Gilgamesh, the decision to abolish the earth of

The mythological character and God, Zeus, is portrayed in many ways, by many different people. Hesiod describes Zeus as being relentless in his fury. When he gets mad he unleashes all of his power. If his brother Hades wasn’t in charge of the Underworld, he’d make all of Hell break loose. For example, in Hesiod’s Theogony, which is about when Zeus defeated his father, Cronus, he says, “Then Zeus did not hold back any longer, but now immediately his heart was filled with strength and he showed clearly all his force.” (Morford and Lenardon 85) He tends to treat others, mortals and immortals, very unfairly. Two mortals could do the same exact type of sacrilege towards him, and depending on how he felt that day, he would take two very different approaches to how he would treat them. He also doesn’t take any threats towards him very lightly at all. If anyone ever threatens him, he normally punishes them very severely, if he doesn’t destroy them completely. Hesiod’s approach to Zeus’ behavior is overdramatic, and makes it seem more extreme than it probably would’ve been.

The story of the great flood is probably the most popular story that has survived for thousands of years and is still being retold today.  It is most commonly related within the context of Judeo-Christian tradition.  In the Holy Bible, the book of Genesis uses the flood as a symbol of God's wrath as well as His hope that the human race can maintain peace and achieve everlasting salvation.  The tale of Noah's Ark begins with God's expression of dismay as to the degenerate state of the human race at the time.  People were behaving wickedly and sinfully and God decided that a genetic cleansing was necessary.  He spared only Noah and his family, along with two of every type of animal; one

The relationship between gods and humanity in Atrahisis: The Account of The Great Flood seems to carry great irresponsibility. Most of the gods display the weak characteristics of humans. They whine about work, constantly complain, selfishly create humans and then wish them dead. Enki and Atrahasis, two of the main characters in the flood story (one god and one human), gain a mutual respect that displays the proper relationship between humans and the divine. A relationship of prayerful ‘calling out’ to the gods, followed by a merciful response toward humankind, is the healthy and correct picture this story shows us. A correct relationship between gods and humans carries the possibility of eternal life

The flood occurs in many creation myths such as the Theogony, Genesis, Yoruba Creation, Mayan Creation, and Popol Vhu. With the floods which occur, there are only a few survivors and the survivors build a boat. In Popol Vhu, the flood occurs to wipe out all of the incompetent people who were created to worship the gods and were notweren’t properly doing so; the incompetent people then become monkeys so the new people see what they should notshouldn’t be like. In the Yoruba creation, there is a flood caused by Olokun because he was not included in the process of humans and actually didn’t know the humans were being created; he then wiped these humans out with the