PC
12-12-2002, 03:14 PM
i made spacing between paragaraphs so it is easier to read. thought i would just share with you all. I have until 2 before i ahve to turn it in, so if you find any grammer mistakes please tell me. is it well written or are things out of shape ? let me know...thanks
Most people of modern day have heard of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, and among the educated most have taken a glance at an old Babylonian Epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Both stories share a common event, the flooding of the world by their God(s). If this was the only likeness then the paralleling of the stories might be over looked, but it's not. Details in both stories have similarities over and above just the flooding. Outside of the two stories, parallels can be sited at the author's birth place, and those events that took place before the writing of both stories that might have helped to shape his outlook on the story. Thus the question is asked, where did these two stories come from? does it have some true historical value or is it completely a myth. Although there has been no hard evidence fond to prove that the world suffered a great flood, facts about the geography of the area where the two stories were written, combined with the likenesses within the flood stories take us further away from the conclusion that the story is completely a myth, and point us in the direction that an actual flood did occur, and different accounts, Noah's Ark and The Epic of Gilgamesh , of the story were passed down to the present.
The first of these two stories written is The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is the King of Uruk, a city in between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in early Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh is two-thirds God and one-third human. Because of his great strength and beauty gilgamesh felt free to do as he pleased harassing the men and women of the town. The Gods responded to this by creating an equal to Gilgamesh, Enkidu. In contrast to Gilgamesh Enkidu was a primal man, born and raised in the wild. Gilgamesh uses a harlot to trick Enkidu into loosing his animal powers. Abandoned by the wild, Enkidu goes to Uruk where a fight brakes out between the two. Gilgamesh is victorious and Enkidu acknowledges him as his superior and the two develop a great friendship. Gilgamesh purposes to go on an adventure that would take them to the cedar forest where they would kill the Guardian of the forest, Humbaba the terrible. When they return to Uruk Gilgamesh is confronted by Ishtar, a beautiful goddess, asking him to marry her. Gilgamesh knowing the fate of her other lovers rejects her. In retaliation, she sends the Bull of Heaven down to destroy the city of Uruk but the bull is slain by Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Because of the destruction of the guardian of the cedar forest and the slaying of the bull, the Gods decide that one of the two heroes must die. Enkidu is chosen and suffers a slow and terrible death with Gilgamesh at his side. The death of his true friend makes Gilgamesh understand that human fame is meaningless in the face of death. Gilgamesh sets of to find the secret of eternal life from the one man that has achieved this, the one who survived the great flood, Utanapishtim. Gilgamesh must journey to a far corner of the world, to the mouth of the rivers. When he arrives Utanapishtim tells the story of the great flood and how he was given eternal life.
Utanapishtim tells of a town called Shurippak situated on the banks of the Euphrates not far from Uruk. This city was very old and the Gods use to live there. The Gods had created man and now wanted to destroy them because they were becoming to populated and noisy. Enlil the chief god decided to destroy humans with a great flood. The God Ea new that if all humans were destroyed there would be no one to make sacrifices, thus the gods would starve. So he went to Utanapishtim and told him that a great flood was coming. He told him to abandon his home and build a great ship. He told him to take his family and bring the seeds of all living things. Ea also gave him measurements for the great boat. The boat was seven stories, and was divided into nine sections. The rains came and the boat was lived off the ground, holding Utanapishtim family, the workers who helped build the boat and all the animals of the land. Even the gods were terror-stricken by the great deluge. For seven days the flood raged until all fail silent. The boat had landed on Mount Nisir. On the seventh day stuck on the Mountain, Utanapishtim released a dove. When it came back he released a swallow. When it came back he released a raven. Seeing that the raven did not return, Utanapishtim gave a sacrifice to the gods. Smelling this, the gods came and gathered around. When the Goddess Ishtar arrived, she gave her jewels from around her neck to Utanapishtim as a sign of graciousness. Then the God Enlil came and was at first anger by the humans survival but then realizing that the God survival depended upon the sacrifices of humans granted Utanapishtim and his wife eternal life.
After the story of the flood Utanapishtim has Gilgamesh take a test to see if he is worthy of the gift of eternal life. He must go without sleep. Gilgamesh failed this test horribly and was sent away, back to Uruk, where he dies an old man.
The first account of The Epic of Gilgamesh was produced in the Sumerian language during the Third Dynasty of Ur, 2000 B.C. The story is written in a dialect of the Akkadian language on eleven clay tablets. It is very possible that these stories were spoken and passed down that way for hundreds of years before 2000 B.C. There is no question that Gilgamesh is a historical figure who ruled Uruk during the early Second Dynasty, 2700-2500 B.C. His name has been mentioned in other Epics as well. Also, Excavations prove that the city of shurippak did actually exist, only about thirty km from Uruk, and was destroyed by a flood around 2800 B.C. The Importance of this story is placed on Utanapishtim and the great flood. This section if the story was actually borrowed from a previous story named the Myth of Atrahasis, which is a story about the creation of the world to the time of the flood. unfortunately most of this story has been destroyed by time, and the best remaining source is the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The fact that a great flood has been mentioned in so many stories tells us that an actually flood probably did occur.
In the Biblical story of the Flood, there are many likenesses to the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story just like the Epic starts with God becoming angry with human beings. The human race is becoming evil and The Lord regrets having ever created them. But he takes favor in one man, Noah. He comes to Noah and tells him that he is going to destroy all of the human race and that he is to build a great boat. God then gives Noah they exact measurements of the boat. God asked him to bring two of every kind of animal on board so that they will be kept alive. He then tells Noah that there will be a great flood that will destroy all living things that live under the sky. He then made a promise to him, his wife, and his sons, that they will all go into the boat and would survive the flood. Seven days later, just as God had promised the rain started to pour from the sky. And just as God had commanded two of every animal was aboard the ark along with Noah and his family. For forty days and forty nights the rain did not stop. It reached twenty feet over the highest mountain and the ark floated on top of the water. For one hundred and fifty days water cover the land killing all living things. Then God remembered Noah, and made to rain stop and the waters reseed. After another one hundred and fifty days the water had gone down so much that it had struck the Mountain of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Noah opened the window that he had made and sent out a raven. Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the land, but it returned with having found no place to land. He then tried again seven days later and this time the dove returned with an olive leaf. On the Twenty-seventh day of the second month of the second year the land was completely dry. Then God told Noah and his family to go out of the boat and with them the animals as well. Noah then built an altar to the Lord where he made a sacrifice to offer God. God was happy with this and said that he would never again destroy the world by flood. God then put a rainbow in the cloud so to remember his agreement between him and the earth.
Although there is no author sited to the writing of the book of Genesis, which holds the story of Noah, Jewish and Christian traditions believe that it was Moses who wrote the first five books of the Torah, including Genesis. If so then it was likely written in the desert area where Moses and his people wandered for forty years. This would place the composition of the book between 1446 and 1406 B.C.
As can be seen quite clearly, The Epic of Gilgamesh, mainly the part concerning the flood, and the Biblical story of the flood have many things in common that cannot be considered just coincident. In both stories the flood is brought on by the violence on earth. In both God, or in Gilgamesh's case one of the Gods, gives the dimensions of the boat though slightly different in details. In both stories one male and one female of every animal on the earth are taken on to the boat. In both cases the boat gets stuck on top of a mountain though named differently. From this spot Noah and Utanapishtim release both a raven and a dove to look for dry land. In Utanapishtim case a swallow is added but in both a bird is released three times. In both a sacrifice is given after the flood and is received graciously by their God(s). The rainbow in Noah's flood is also represented in the Gilgamesh account by the great jewels of Ishtar. In both there is a promise from their God(s) that the world would never be destroyed by a flood again. This means that most likely the stories came from an original source but have been twisted to fit into the authors needs.
The earliest written epics about Gilgamesh dates back to the the reign of King Shulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur, 2000 B.C. He claimed the old kings of Uruk as his ancestors to strengthen his claim to kingship. In hymns in the honor of Shulgi, he refers to himself as the brother and friend of Gilgamesh. It is very likely that Shulgi had payed for the the writing of the epics of his ancestors, but drastically changed the deeds for his own ambitions as king so that most likely only a core of historical truth is present in the epics and the rest is propaganda. For example, in the Roman times, Virgil, a great writer, was commissioned by the Emperor, Caesar Augustus, to write and epic that would glorify the origins of Rome and the bloodline of the Emperor. The result was The Aeneid. A story of a Trojan prince who set sail after being defeated by the Greeks to for fill his destiny by settling on the Italian peninsula which would one day become Rome. Caesar Augustus, just like Shulgi, took a historical event, the Trojan wars, and molded it into something that benefited himself.
Most likely there was a great flood, but did it engulf the entire earth or was it just exaggerated over time. In the area of Isreal no evidence of a great flood can be found. In fact the exact opposite occurs. Evidence of no great floods is found. The area itself is very dry, doted with high hills and in the city of Jericho, a settlement that dates back nine thousand years, there are no deposits of clay accumulation that can be found, a characteristic of a great flood. On they other hand we have The Mesopotamia area, which its geography makes it pron to flooding. It is a very flat valley surrounded by two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, that when early rains, combined with the early melting of the snow from the Anatolia Mountains, the two rivers have been known to burst their banks and turn the entire area into a giant lake. This area more supports the ideal of a great flood.
The biblical account of the flood was probably brought from the Mesopotamia area to the Isreal area by Abraham. He was born in the city of Ur, a town just across the Euphrates River from Uruk. Abraham's journey to Isreal takes him from the city of Ur, up through the entire Mesopotamia area before he comes back down to Isreal. Tablets telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found in cities such as Assur, Nineveh, Nimrud, Sultantepe, Babylon and Uruk. So The Epic of Gilgamesh along with the flood story that preceded it was wide spread throughout the the Mesopotamia area. It is very likely that Abraham brought a version of the flood story from Mesopotamia into Isreal. And in the biblical account of the flood, just like in the Epic of Gilgamesh, certain parts were embellished or changed to serve the purpose of the author, although there is no direct evidence to prove this.
The similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's Ark are undeniably similar not only in the belief of a great flood, but also in small details that pull the two stories together. This, as well as the location of both Abraham and Gilgamesh's birth place along the Euphrates river in the Mesopotamia area where floods are not uncommon. From both of these factors we can say with almost certainty that a great flood did occur in the Mesopotamia Valley, rather than the entire earth, and that two different but very similar accounts of the flood were taken down, The Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's Ark.
Most people of modern day have heard of the biblical story of Noah's Ark, and among the educated most have taken a glance at an old Babylonian Epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Both stories share a common event, the flooding of the world by their God(s). If this was the only likeness then the paralleling of the stories might be over looked, but it's not. Details in both stories have similarities over and above just the flooding. Outside of the two stories, parallels can be sited at the author's birth place, and those events that took place before the writing of both stories that might have helped to shape his outlook on the story. Thus the question is asked, where did these two stories come from? does it have some true historical value or is it completely a myth. Although there has been no hard evidence fond to prove that the world suffered a great flood, facts about the geography of the area where the two stories were written, combined with the likenesses within the flood stories take us further away from the conclusion that the story is completely a myth, and point us in the direction that an actual flood did occur, and different accounts, Noah's Ark and The Epic of Gilgamesh , of the story were passed down to the present.
The first of these two stories written is The Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is the King of Uruk, a city in between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in early Mesopotamia. Gilgamesh is two-thirds God and one-third human. Because of his great strength and beauty gilgamesh felt free to do as he pleased harassing the men and women of the town. The Gods responded to this by creating an equal to Gilgamesh, Enkidu. In contrast to Gilgamesh Enkidu was a primal man, born and raised in the wild. Gilgamesh uses a harlot to trick Enkidu into loosing his animal powers. Abandoned by the wild, Enkidu goes to Uruk where a fight brakes out between the two. Gilgamesh is victorious and Enkidu acknowledges him as his superior and the two develop a great friendship. Gilgamesh purposes to go on an adventure that would take them to the cedar forest where they would kill the Guardian of the forest, Humbaba the terrible. When they return to Uruk Gilgamesh is confronted by Ishtar, a beautiful goddess, asking him to marry her. Gilgamesh knowing the fate of her other lovers rejects her. In retaliation, she sends the Bull of Heaven down to destroy the city of Uruk but the bull is slain by Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Because of the destruction of the guardian of the cedar forest and the slaying of the bull, the Gods decide that one of the two heroes must die. Enkidu is chosen and suffers a slow and terrible death with Gilgamesh at his side. The death of his true friend makes Gilgamesh understand that human fame is meaningless in the face of death. Gilgamesh sets of to find the secret of eternal life from the one man that has achieved this, the one who survived the great flood, Utanapishtim. Gilgamesh must journey to a far corner of the world, to the mouth of the rivers. When he arrives Utanapishtim tells the story of the great flood and how he was given eternal life.
Utanapishtim tells of a town called Shurippak situated on the banks of the Euphrates not far from Uruk. This city was very old and the Gods use to live there. The Gods had created man and now wanted to destroy them because they were becoming to populated and noisy. Enlil the chief god decided to destroy humans with a great flood. The God Ea new that if all humans were destroyed there would be no one to make sacrifices, thus the gods would starve. So he went to Utanapishtim and told him that a great flood was coming. He told him to abandon his home and build a great ship. He told him to take his family and bring the seeds of all living things. Ea also gave him measurements for the great boat. The boat was seven stories, and was divided into nine sections. The rains came and the boat was lived off the ground, holding Utanapishtim family, the workers who helped build the boat and all the animals of the land. Even the gods were terror-stricken by the great deluge. For seven days the flood raged until all fail silent. The boat had landed on Mount Nisir. On the seventh day stuck on the Mountain, Utanapishtim released a dove. When it came back he released a swallow. When it came back he released a raven. Seeing that the raven did not return, Utanapishtim gave a sacrifice to the gods. Smelling this, the gods came and gathered around. When the Goddess Ishtar arrived, she gave her jewels from around her neck to Utanapishtim as a sign of graciousness. Then the God Enlil came and was at first anger by the humans survival but then realizing that the God survival depended upon the sacrifices of humans granted Utanapishtim and his wife eternal life.
After the story of the flood Utanapishtim has Gilgamesh take a test to see if he is worthy of the gift of eternal life. He must go without sleep. Gilgamesh failed this test horribly and was sent away, back to Uruk, where he dies an old man.
The first account of The Epic of Gilgamesh was produced in the Sumerian language during the Third Dynasty of Ur, 2000 B.C. The story is written in a dialect of the Akkadian language on eleven clay tablets. It is very possible that these stories were spoken and passed down that way for hundreds of years before 2000 B.C. There is no question that Gilgamesh is a historical figure who ruled Uruk during the early Second Dynasty, 2700-2500 B.C. His name has been mentioned in other Epics as well. Also, Excavations prove that the city of shurippak did actually exist, only about thirty km from Uruk, and was destroyed by a flood around 2800 B.C. The Importance of this story is placed on Utanapishtim and the great flood. This section if the story was actually borrowed from a previous story named the Myth of Atrahasis, which is a story about the creation of the world to the time of the flood. unfortunately most of this story has been destroyed by time, and the best remaining source is the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh. The fact that a great flood has been mentioned in so many stories tells us that an actually flood probably did occur.
In the Biblical story of the Flood, there are many likenesses to the Epic of Gilgamesh. This story just like the Epic starts with God becoming angry with human beings. The human race is becoming evil and The Lord regrets having ever created them. But he takes favor in one man, Noah. He comes to Noah and tells him that he is going to destroy all of the human race and that he is to build a great boat. God then gives Noah they exact measurements of the boat. God asked him to bring two of every kind of animal on board so that they will be kept alive. He then tells Noah that there will be a great flood that will destroy all living things that live under the sky. He then made a promise to him, his wife, and his sons, that they will all go into the boat and would survive the flood. Seven days later, just as God had promised the rain started to pour from the sky. And just as God had commanded two of every animal was aboard the ark along with Noah and his family. For forty days and forty nights the rain did not stop. It reached twenty feet over the highest mountain and the ark floated on top of the water. For one hundred and fifty days water cover the land killing all living things. Then God remembered Noah, and made to rain stop and the waters reseed. After another one hundred and fifty days the water had gone down so much that it had struck the Mountain of Ararat on the seventeenth day of the seventh month. Noah opened the window that he had made and sent out a raven. Then Noah sent out a dove to find out if the water had dried up from the land, but it returned with having found no place to land. He then tried again seven days later and this time the dove returned with an olive leaf. On the Twenty-seventh day of the second month of the second year the land was completely dry. Then God told Noah and his family to go out of the boat and with them the animals as well. Noah then built an altar to the Lord where he made a sacrifice to offer God. God was happy with this and said that he would never again destroy the world by flood. God then put a rainbow in the cloud so to remember his agreement between him and the earth.
Although there is no author sited to the writing of the book of Genesis, which holds the story of Noah, Jewish and Christian traditions believe that it was Moses who wrote the first five books of the Torah, including Genesis. If so then it was likely written in the desert area where Moses and his people wandered for forty years. This would place the composition of the book between 1446 and 1406 B.C.
As can be seen quite clearly, The Epic of Gilgamesh, mainly the part concerning the flood, and the Biblical story of the flood have many things in common that cannot be considered just coincident. In both stories the flood is brought on by the violence on earth. In both God, or in Gilgamesh's case one of the Gods, gives the dimensions of the boat though slightly different in details. In both stories one male and one female of every animal on the earth are taken on to the boat. In both cases the boat gets stuck on top of a mountain though named differently. From this spot Noah and Utanapishtim release both a raven and a dove to look for dry land. In Utanapishtim case a swallow is added but in both a bird is released three times. In both a sacrifice is given after the flood and is received graciously by their God(s). The rainbow in Noah's flood is also represented in the Gilgamesh account by the great jewels of Ishtar. In both there is a promise from their God(s) that the world would never be destroyed by a flood again. This means that most likely the stories came from an original source but have been twisted to fit into the authors needs.
The earliest written epics about Gilgamesh dates back to the the reign of King Shulgi of the Third Dynasty of Ur, 2000 B.C. He claimed the old kings of Uruk as his ancestors to strengthen his claim to kingship. In hymns in the honor of Shulgi, he refers to himself as the brother and friend of Gilgamesh. It is very likely that Shulgi had payed for the the writing of the epics of his ancestors, but drastically changed the deeds for his own ambitions as king so that most likely only a core of historical truth is present in the epics and the rest is propaganda. For example, in the Roman times, Virgil, a great writer, was commissioned by the Emperor, Caesar Augustus, to write and epic that would glorify the origins of Rome and the bloodline of the Emperor. The result was The Aeneid. A story of a Trojan prince who set sail after being defeated by the Greeks to for fill his destiny by settling on the Italian peninsula which would one day become Rome. Caesar Augustus, just like Shulgi, took a historical event, the Trojan wars, and molded it into something that benefited himself.
Most likely there was a great flood, but did it engulf the entire earth or was it just exaggerated over time. In the area of Isreal no evidence of a great flood can be found. In fact the exact opposite occurs. Evidence of no great floods is found. The area itself is very dry, doted with high hills and in the city of Jericho, a settlement that dates back nine thousand years, there are no deposits of clay accumulation that can be found, a characteristic of a great flood. On they other hand we have The Mesopotamia area, which its geography makes it pron to flooding. It is a very flat valley surrounded by two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, that when early rains, combined with the early melting of the snow from the Anatolia Mountains, the two rivers have been known to burst their banks and turn the entire area into a giant lake. This area more supports the ideal of a great flood.
The biblical account of the flood was probably brought from the Mesopotamia area to the Isreal area by Abraham. He was born in the city of Ur, a town just across the Euphrates River from Uruk. Abraham's journey to Isreal takes him from the city of Ur, up through the entire Mesopotamia area before he comes back down to Isreal. Tablets telling of the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found in cities such as Assur, Nineveh, Nimrud, Sultantepe, Babylon and Uruk. So The Epic of Gilgamesh along with the flood story that preceded it was wide spread throughout the the Mesopotamia area. It is very likely that Abraham brought a version of the flood story from Mesopotamia into Isreal. And in the biblical account of the flood, just like in the Epic of Gilgamesh, certain parts were embellished or changed to serve the purpose of the author, although there is no direct evidence to prove this.
The similarities between The Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's Ark are undeniably similar not only in the belief of a great flood, but also in small details that pull the two stories together. This, as well as the location of both Abraham and Gilgamesh's birth place along the Euphrates river in the Mesopotamia area where floods are not uncommon. From both of these factors we can say with almost certainty that a great flood did occur in the Mesopotamia Valley, rather than the entire earth, and that two different but very similar accounts of the flood were taken down, The Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's Ark.