Flood Stories of Gilgamesh and Genesis

5 Pages 1291 Words

People grow up listening to the story of Noah and the flood. They remember the length
of the flood, the dove, and the rainbow very vividly. However, most people do not realize
that the story is told throughout many different cultures and with accounts older than
Genesis¹s version in the Bible. Although each of the accounts tells of the flood, there are
many variations to the story. One such story can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Although the Epic of Gilgamesh is similar to the Genesis version, there are some
differences in the days leading to, during, and after the flood.

The days leading to the flood are different as well as similar in the Epic of Gilgamesh and
the Genesis version of the flood. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods decided to send a
flood because the people on Earth were noisy. One man, Utnapishtim, was given a dream
by one of the gods because of an oath. Contrastingly, in Genesis, God sent a flood to
destroy the evils that man had created. He warned Noah about the flood because Noah
was good. Both Utnapishtim and Noah constructed boats to survive the flood.
Utnapishtim¹s boat was 120 cubits and a perfect cube. It was completed with seven decks
that were divided into nine sections each. On the other hand, Noah¹s ark was three
hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in width, and thirty cubits in height. It had a skylight
and a door in the side. It was only three stories high. After the boat was constructed,
Gilgamesh ³loaded into her all that I (he) had of gold and of living things, my family, my
kin, the best of the field both wild and tame, and all the craftsmen²(p. 37). Noah, similarly,
loaded his family, food, and a male and female pair of each animal. Now each group
wa...