Popul Vuh's Creation Myths

The Epic of Gilgamesh: story of the flood is a story telling of the time when the Sumerian gods flood the Earth hoping to get rid of the annoying humans. Throughout the story, Utnapishtim would be the preserver of life; by building a ship that would carry two of every animal. In Genesis 6-9, the Hebrew God chose to cleanse humanity by flooding the Earth, and in this story Noah would be instructed by the Lord to build an ark and put two of every animal with this ark. These stories of the flood have many differences, one major difference being that The Epic of Gilgamesh is a fictional story of Sumerian gods, while Genesis is a religious book with in the Bible. Although there are many differences between Genesis’ and Gilgamesh’s story of the flood, there are significantly more similarities linking the two stories.

     With the discovery of texts from ancient civilizations, many people have come to believe that various texts are common to one another. Examples of these texts are the creation stories from the Hebrews found in the Bible, The Hymn of Ra from the Egyptians, and the Enuma Elish stories from the Babylonians. In addition to these stories are the flood stories. These stories have caused many discussions among scholars involved with ancient civilizations.

Popol Vuh and Gilgamesh actually had more similarities than dissimilarities, but it is the significance of those similarities, not the quantity, that really counts. The fact that small details come up in both texts does not overshadow the fact that these two texts have different meanings. In this essay

Many cultures have stories of a great flood, and probably the best known story is of Noah's Ark. The next most notable is the Sumerian story of Ut-Napishtim found in the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the ancient Babylonian depiction of the flood story, the god Enlil creates a flood to destroy a noisy mankind that is disturbing his sleep. Gilgamesh is told by another god, Ea, to build an ark (Monack 1). The Epic of Gilgamesh has broadly the same structure and plot as Noah's Ark, suggesting the possibility that the Biblical account has drawn influence from the archaeologically older Sumerian depiction. University professor Alexander Heidel concludes that these accounts are undeniably

Popul Vuh shares a great many similarities with the creation story in Genesis from the Bible. Just as the Plumed Serpent created the earth by saying the word “Earth”, God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth in the world (Tedlock 524). When the humans became too powerful in Popul Vuh and threatened the gods in vision and in knowledge, the gods stupefied them, then took back the human’s advanced vision and replaced it with a fuzzier view. This parallels with the story in Genesis, by how God throws Adam and Eve out of the Garden lest they “become like one of us in knowing good and evil” (Genesis 4:22: ESV) The motivation of these tales is to rationalize the creation of the heaven and earth, and to have a god to serve or a reason to

This relationship between humans and the divine for Genesis is a stark contrast to Gilgamesh’s story. In The Epic of Gilgamesh there isn’t one God, there are multiple gods.

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

The ones in Popol Vuh desire someone to worship them and to pray to them. They try designing their ideal “ race ” one that would praise them and “ keep their days ” or beliefs. Yet the Gods are not pleased with anything that they create, even after several attempts to do so. They struggle a lot while creating the humans. It requires four tries to generate beings that fit their criteria. Their first strive is unsuccessful because they make humans that have no feelings at all. The people do not display any gratefulness to their superiors, for they do not pray to them nor praise them. Therefore the Gods murder them explaining that their works are clumsy and ineffective - “...Their faces were smashed because they were incompetent before their mother and their father, the Heart of Sky, named Hurricane” (Applebee p.82). After this the Gods finally create humans, they are satisfied with, who obey their creators, and who are willing to do whatever they can to make them happy. In Genesis though, things go in a completely different direction compared to Popol Vuh. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge, and this way they disrespect God’s will. As a result, they are heavily punished. Further, out of disappointment from what He had made, God creates a massive flood on the Earth, killing every living thing, apart from Noah and his family. They are the only people who are truly loyal to the

The Christian covenant promises that people will receive an earthly or heavenly inheritance on the premise of good behavior while the people of Mesopotamian society attempt to please the gods with no guarantee in their fate. The Christian God represents not just what is most powerful but what is morally best—humans were supposed to aspire to reach His level and ultimately imitate him especially since they were created in his image, whereas the Gods in Mesopotamia each had their own rules that the people were to follow. “You have assigned to everyone his place….You create the life.” (McKay, pg. 16). The Bible comes from the same region as Gilgamesh, and shares some of the same concepts and events, such as the snake as the enemy who deprived humans of eternal life and in Mesopotamian society, the flood. In both the Bible and Gilgamesh, disobedience to a god, or gods in Mesopotamian society, brings dire consequences; “The gods of the city turned away… The population breathed in fear.” (McKay, pg

In the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ and ‘The Biblical Flood Story’ have a very similar plot line, but many several key differences. In both stories a flood occurs, which were caused by the God/s( This shows that in Gilgamesh they were polytheistic while in the Biblical version they were monotheistic. ) to destroy the people of the earth. For both flood stories, a specific person is chosen to build an arc but for different reasons. In the Biblical story, Noah builds the arc due to his righteous character but in Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim built the arc to save himself. Later on in both stories birds are released making them seem very similar. In the end, the stories are separated because of the covenants

The stories of “Genesis” and Gilgamesh were written centuries a part, yet there is one undeniable similarity between them. There is a section of each text that talks of a flood that the gods brought down upon the earth to kill all living things, but there was an ark that saved each species. The flood stories within these two texts have analogous events within them, but there is one difference that sets the two stories apart. There are many elements of the stories that gives the reader a deeper understanding of just how different the two stories are. These include the reason for the flood, how the individuals were chosen to be saved, how they were awarded, and the ultimate acts of the individuals at the conclusion of the flood. The relationship between the gods and the humans is the pivotal difference between the two stories by the fact that it encompasses all these differences.

Ancient world literature and early civilization stories turn around human’s relationship with higher beings. Ancient civilizations were extremely religious, holding the belief that their very lives were in the hands of their almighty god or goddess. This holds true for both the people of biblical times as well as those of the epic era. However, their stories have some differences according to cultural variation but the main structure, idea and theme are generally found correlative. It is hard to believe that that one work did not affect the others. The first great heroic epic poem of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament are two cultures that are hundreds of years apart. Upon studying the book of Genesis and the story of Gilgamesh; whereas one

After reading the book Polpol Vuh, I was able to instantly point out many similarities and differences between two other myths that we have read throughout the class. The first myth that came to mind was Genesis. Genesis and Polpol Vuh both talk of creation of animals, trees, and mountains, as well as the creation of mankind, After doing research in the past, I knew that Genesis and Gilgamesh had similarities which then put Gilgamesh in the category with Polpol Vuh and Genesis. While reading these tales, I was also able to answer a series of questions based on my opinions. In this essay, I will explain my beliefs about what the people in these three tales seem to believe about how they came to be, what qualities they share, what is important to them, why their creator(s) make them, their reason for being where they are and lastly, what a good person and bad person would be like if these people wanted to be like their creator(s).

Ancient world literature and early civilization stories are mostly centered on human’s relationship with higher beings. Ancient civilizations were extremely religious, holding the belief that their very lives were in the hands of their almighty god or goddess. This holds true for both the people of biblical times as well as those of the epic era. However, their stories have some differences according to cultural variation but the main structure, ideas, and themes are generally found correlative. It is hard to believe that one work did not affect the others. The first great heroic epic poem of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament are parts of two cultures that are hundreds of years apart. Whereas Gilgamesh is a myth and the book of Genesis is

Gods and Goddesses and God Have you ever read a mythology story and thought “wow these gods are basically just overpowered humans?” Well, the Epic of Gilgamesh is no different. You have a lot of different gods interfering with humans, you have goddesses sleeping with humans, the gods are really like the humans. The only real difference is the gods use humans more as a form of entertainment, of a source of food. If you take a different viewpoint of religion you get something like the Bible.