Genesis And Mesopotamian Flood

There are many various depictions of The Great Flood. The Aborigines have an account of the Flood which includes a woman whose third son was killed and so she speared the “eye” of the sea. The Mayan interpretation presents the theory that the Flood destroyed wooden people that were created by the gods in an attempt to create human beings. Two very well-known clarifications are in The Bible and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Although they are about the tantamount occurrence, there are many differences, including who told who to constitute the ark, what was on the ark, and how elongated the flood persevered.

The ideology for the flood in Genesis was God’s means of punishing violent, selfish, and cruel people. He wanted to start a better world by wiping out malevolence (Puchner, 2014, pg. 122). On the other hand, in The Epic of Gilgamesh the gods were not punishing people for their sins, but instead eliminated them for being too noisy (Puchner, 2014, pg 84). However, both stories implicated some

The general idea of both stories follows the idea of punishment for one’s unacceptable behavior. In the first flood myth, the idea of four monsters morphing into one large beast is presented. This large beast is supposed to represent society as a whole. When society adapts malicious intentions and negative traits, a higher being decides whether or not a “cleansing” of society is necessary to improve the planet. Similarly, the story of Genesis follows the idea that humans have begun to behave in an irrational and shameful manner, so God creates a flood to punish the humans who had behaved poorly. “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.”

Have you ever wondered what it was like to live 4,000 years ago? When people feared monsters, giants and Gods? The flood stories of Gilgamesh and Genesis are very similar and happen at about the same time, which means there could be two different people who wrote about the same thing. Both of the stories tell about a huge flood that almost destroyed humanity but in different ways. In both of the stories they each talk about a boat that survives the flood. They both have a God or Gods who control what happens.

Throughout the Genesis Flood, Atrahasis Flood and the Epic of Gilgamesh flood, there are many different ways to interpret the different views of The Flood. These different narratives in these stories have their own explanation on how this myth took place and the different beliefs that occurred during this flood. The way you portray each narrative is based on what exactly your beliefs are.

Although the stories are similar they are not identical. In Genesis God sent the Flood to destroy humankind because of man’s wickedness. Unlike The Gilgamesha where the reason was never said however the sender of the flood was a secret council of gods the idea was brought up by Enlil , the god of earth wind and air. God favored Noah because he was a righteous man therefore, he was chosen to build the ark that was three hundred cubits long, fifty cubit wide, and thirty cubits high, about three stories. Utnapishtim was chosen out of the cleverness of Ea, the god of wisdom and crafts. God came directly to Noah to tell him about the Flood where as Ea was swore to secrecy so “he repeated their plans to the reed fence” so he would no break the oath to the group. The boat Utnapishtim was directed to build was a rectangle shaped measuring one acre and about 6 stories high. When the floor came in Gilgamesh it was only rainwater however the Flood in Genesis was rain water as well as ground water. Both floods did indeed wipe out all of humankind but the did not last equal as long. After the flood Utnapishtim was gifted the gift of eternal life where as Noah was to multiply and have rule over the animals.

The Mesopotamian society thought the Great Floods was “sent by the gods to destroy the impertinence of men” while the Egyptians saw it “as a gift rather than a challenge.” Both cultures had many myths about the Great Floods thus documenting the waters importance to

The two flood myths mentioned above have a few similarities. The first is that the floods had come from the anger of powerful beings. The first story mentions that the God Jupiter had been angry

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

This term paper compares the flood story in the book of Genesis in the Old Testament of the Bible and the flood story in Gilgamesh. It identifies links

“Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time- Richard Dawkins”. We all know the breath taking story of the Genesis flood, but have we ever noticed how similar it is to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Genesis is the story of how one God created mankind, along with everything else on Earth, and what punishments he put upon them when they acted wrong .Genesis is a chapter in the Holy Bible, which was written in the 18th century B.C. by Moses. Genesis is a Hebrew story about the creation of life and how God once destroyed it and Earth. The main characters were Adam, Eve, and the serpent. Each of them was provided a task from God, but disobeyed him and was punished forever.

Someone once wrote “The Lord saw how great was man’s wickedness on earth, and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the time”(Noah and the flood pg.171). “ The uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel” (the Epic of Gilgamesh pg.147). Both stories from two different cultures but despite the differences in the heroes, their gods, and the flood stories in “Noah and the Flood” and “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” both of these stories appear to refer to the same historical event the great flood.

The Christian creation stories in Genesis are very similar to the Babylonian/Mesopotamian creation story. Some of these similarities include: the planet initially being formless and then ultimately teeming with life and activity, the birth of the Gods each adding something to the world with their unique power (Earth, Fresh Water,Sky) can represent each day of creation in the book of Genesis, sacrificing flesh and blood to create humankind (taking Adam’s rib to create Eve= Kingu’s body and blood being used to create humans), the God-made garden of Eden can represent the God-made city of Babylon, and the human relationship with our creator as we were made to be stewards of the world and do Gods bidding (CTT 30). These two different-yet-similar

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.” (New International Version, Genesis 6.13) these words said by God in the book of Genesis led to one of the greatest disasters told by men all over the globe. The story about the flood that brought an end to all of mankind. In the story, God or a higher being chose a particular man to build an ark and take his loved ones, and all the animals on the ark to survive the imminent flood.

The Mesopotamian creation myth incorporated many characteristics that define to most myths in general. One of the characteristics incorporated in the creation myth is that it takes place in the distant past, or in this case the beginning or pre-history. This characteristic is initially described in the opening passage of the Enuma Elish, “when on high [enuma elish] heaven and earth had not yet been named” (Leeming 19), and further codified by describing how the gods Apsu and Tiamat created “the silt deposits Lahmu and Lahamu, which we call ‘land’” (Leeming 19). A second characteristic of myths portrayed in this creation story is that it is a tale of supernatural beings, goddesses, or gods. Besides, Apsu, freshwater, and Tiamat, great saltwater