Exploring Human Nature in The Epic of Gilgamesh and Samuel I

Samuel changed as he went along his journey. He became a leader, he had hunted for food for his family but that didn’t make him as much of a leader as he would become. He ate at a family’s house for dinner one night, and Hessian came and killed the family except a girl named Annie who was younger than him. She went with Samuel since he was the only person she knew, for example later in the book she says “He is all I got” (123). Samuel was a leader

The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the world’s oldest existing stories that were collected in Mesopotamia. It is a story about a heroic king named Gilgamesh, who treated his people in a nasty way. He was a domineering, and cruel leader, feared by many because of his unnatural strength. He forced his people into labor in order to expand his kingdom. The people cried unto the gods and they created Gilgamesh’s equal Enkidu, who they later became friends. Gilgamesh witnessed the death of his close friend Enkidu, and this made him to search for immortality because, he was afraid to die. However, he learnt that, no human was immortal, and that he was destined to die, just like his friend Enkidu.

One of the most fascinating pieces of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, deals with and explores many of the problems humans have wrestled with for thousands of years. Even though the text does not explicitly answer any of the questions it poses, it gives clues that point to the answers. One of these questions, the dilemma of whether to act based solely on a person’s intuition or act based on reason and advice, occurs regularly in the text. Throughout The Epic of Gilgamesh, characters have success and failure when they act based on either their intuition or using reason, but the epic clearly points out, through examples, that acting based on reason instead of intuition constitutes more success in all facets of life.

The epic of Gilgamesh is a story of an ambitious epic hero who influenced historical scene and huge cultural differences in Mesopotamian society. Gilgamesh story implicates a sequence of religious and adventure victories of the century. The story tells a long live life of a brutal warrior and affective kings of different surrounding dominion. Gilgamesh was half human and one-third god, a combination that made him great humanitarian as well as greatest among the combatants. He was one the greatest with superhuman strength and was also proud preserved the wisdom of his people. The story is about showing God giving strength while searching for the meaning of life. Eventually, I don’t think Gilgamesh would be considered as a hero in today society because of spiritual characters and behaviors. He took an adventure to pursue his own desire and find out the secret life of immortality. Gilgamesh was a true hero because he was the strongest, caring and the wisest in Mesopotamian society.

Abusch perceives Gilgamesh to be a man, hero, king and god who acts in a manner that accords limits and responsibility imposed upon him by his society. Abusch illustrates that: “Gilgamesh is aggressive and courageous, even impetuous, and he shows little or no concern for his own safety and focuses all of his energy upon battle, obligation, honor, and victory” (3). The author explains that even with the greatest power and achievements there is no humanly possible power that is able to withstand death. Abusch’s analysis talks about Gilgamesh coming to terms with his nature and learns about death. The main conflict in the article is between Gilgamesh being an epic hero and his ability to obtain moral growth. Gilgamesh exists in

People have been fascinated by tales of heroism for centuries. In ancient Mesopotamia, heroes give people hope and comfort, and fill them with strength. Ancient Mesopotamia is filled with tales of heroes- mighty warriors battling monsters, men ready to risk life and limb to save their true love or to fight for their nation. Still, there is a great difficulty that lies in defining what a hero truly is. Strength alone does not make a hero; nor does intelligence. Moreover, the Epic of Gilgamesh truly defines the definition of a hero. Gilgamesh is portrayed as a true hero through his skill, intelligence, willingness to die, reverence, and his respect for death.

Throughout the famous “Epic of Gilgamesh, the king of an Ancient Sumerian city called Uruk portrays the burden of the flawed human nature that we all carry. Although Gilgamesh was two third divine and one-third human, his actions were very much alike of a human’s. He shared minimal characteristics with his mother the Ninsun, the cow goddess, such as bold physical structures and the strength of a wild bull with his mother, Ninsun, but the rest of him including his personality, ways of thinking, and mentality was a human’s nonetheless.

In The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh’s pursuit for immortality is marked by ignorance and selfish desire. Desire and ignorance, as The Buddha-karita of Asvaghosha suggests, pollutes man’s judgment resulting in his inability to break the cycle of birth and death. At the core of Gilgamesh’s desire resides his inability to accept the inevitability of death, making his rationality behind the pursuit of immortality ignorant and selfish. Implicitly, Gilgamesh’s corrupt desire for immortality conveys that Gilgamesh does not mature as a character.

The epic of Gilgamesh is a tale that displays multiple didactic messages throughout the course of the story. These morally oriented instructions that shape the epic’s characters are very much applicable to our current lives. Messages like: the importance of perseverance, that drive that pushes you to excel, the down side of sexual passion when not tempered, and how we need to keep our pride under control, not letting it cloud our judgement. These principled themes, among others, are clearly visible to the eyes of the audience.

In 2 Samuel the narrative shifts to the reign of David as he rises above Saul’s son Ish-bosheth to become the king, first of Judah and then of all the tribes of Israel (5:1–4). The book records David’s wars of conquest including the capture of Jerusalem and the relocation of the ark of the covenant to the City of David (6:1–19). But the author also records David’s failures: his adultery with Bathsheba (11:1–26), Absalom’s rebellion (15:1–18:30), Sheba’s revolt (20:1–26), and the disastrous census (24:1–25). Like all the prophetic writers, the author presents a portrait of his historical figures from the perspective of their faithfulness to God’s covenant.

What differentiates a civilized human from a wild one? In The Epic of Gilgamesh by an anonymous Babylonian poet, the protagonist Gilgamesh receives an animal-like companion-- one who stays in the wilderness and lives with animals--as a result of his preeminence in the city of Uruk. Tablet II of the long poem, however, reveals Enkidu the wild man’s transformation from an uncivilized man to someone with human traits and human senses. From making love with a harlot to expressing his fear of Humbaba, the guardian of the Cedar Forest, Enkidu becomes tamed as he loses animalistic traits of being carefree and adapts human emotions such as lust, shame, anger, grief, and fear as well as a sense of justice.

1 Samuel 1:5-17 is about Elkanah’s wife Hannah could not bear child. In the past, woman who can not pregnant will be think as cursed by God. In addition to Hannah (1 Sam 1:1-2:21), several other women are childless: Sarah (Gen 11:29-30; Rebekah (Gen 25:20-34; 26:34-27:45), Rachel (Gen 29:15-30:24), Samson’s ,)21:1-8 ;16:1-18:15 mother (Judg 13:2-25), the Shunammite woman (2 Kgs 4:8-37),and the woman in Ezra’s vision (2 Esdr These women

Perhaps one of the main reasons the Epic of Gilgamesh is so popular and has lasted such a long time, is because it offers insight into the human concerns of people four thousand years ago, many of which are still relevant today. Some of these human concerns found in the book that are still applicable today include: the fear and concerns people have in relation to death, overwhelming desires to be immortal, and the impact a friendship has on a person’s life. It does not take a great deal of insight into The Epic of Gilgamesh for a person to locate these themes in the story, and even less introspection to relate to them.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh was mostly divine but shared minimal characteristics of a god. Such characteristics were bold physical structures and the strength of a wild bull which he inherited from his mother, Ninsun, the cow goddess. Everything else such as his characteristics, mentality, and actions mirrors ours, humans which makes him more like us than a god. His actions portray the burden of the flawed human nature that we all carry such as being aggressive, competitive, and running away from our fears.

The Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian epic poem with no known author, is the story of the brute King of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who was two-thirds divine and one-third human, which teaches readers the unstoppable force of death, the wrath of the gods, and also the power of friendship, which are illustrated to readers through the characters journeys, and those encountered along the way. The poem, which is divided into twelve tablets, starts off with Gilgamesh being a vicious tyrant, one who “would leave no son to his father… no girl to her mother”(Gilgamesh 101), and as for newly married couples “was to join with the girl that night”(Gilgamesh 109) transitions to by the end of the story an entirely new man.