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|Contexts and Comparisons||Chapter 2 - Sacred Texts|
All the peoples of the ancient Near East, among them the Sumerians, Akkadians, Egyptians, and Hittites, told tales of a great flood. These fictions apparently attempted to explain and justify a catastrophic deluge that ravaged Mesopotamia some time around the year 2900 B.C. The story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible, drawn from these earlier tales, reveals the uniquely moral orientation of the Bible. In contrast to other versions of the story, a just God in the Book of Genesis sends the flood to punish sin and follows the devastation with a rainbow, symbolizing a second chance for humankind.
Other than the biblical account, probably the most detailed and picturesque story of a deluge occurs as one episode in The Epic of Gilgamesh, originally an oral masterpiece likely to have been written down around 2000 B.C. This poem came to the attention of modern scholars when twelve tablets on which it was inscribed were discovered in the late nineteenth century during the excavation of an ancient Assyrian royal library. In the epic, the lone survivor of the flood narrates his experiences to Gilgamesh, king of the city of Uruk in southern Babylonia.
In his youth a selfish and abusive ruler, Gilgamesh is reformed by his friendship with Enkidu, a wild hunter civilized by the love of a woman from Uruk. Although the original plan of the city's priests had been to tame the unruly king by recruiting a man strong enough to be his rival, Enkidu and Gilgamesh become inseparable companions, venturing together into the cedar forest where they hunt down a monster and kill him. Shortly thereafter, Enkidu dies.
Despairing and lonely, Gilgamesh then embarks on a long voyage, determined to find the secret of eternal life. Along the way, he must discard the trappings of power as he struggles to survive. In effect, he reverses the process by which Enkidu, his alter ego, was humanized. Reduced to living like an animal, Gilgamesh rejects a goddess's offer of human comforts, and persists in his quest, wandering in the desert until he reaches Utnapishtim, the counterpart of the biblical Noah, who alone might tell him the secret of eternal life.
Unlike Noah, Utnaphistim attained immortality by surviving the flood. In the passage quoted below, however, the goddess who has observed Gilgamesh's frustration suggests why human beings cannot expect to live forever and urges him to give up his search before he comes upon Utnapishtim.
Gilgamesh, "he who saw everything," refuses to listen to this advice. He journeys onward, only to be disappointed. For though he meets Utnapishtim, whose name means "he found life," Gilgamesh ultimately loses the plant that Utnapishtim grudgingly offers him as a source of rejuvenation. Before relenting, he recalls for Gilgamesh the instructions he received from the Akkadian deities when the flood was imminent. As you read the passage below, compare the behavior and motives of the Sumerian gods (Ea, patron of fresh waters and the arts, is the most sympathetic of these gods; Enlil is the Sumerian god of earth and wind) with those of the biblical god, as they relate to the human communities they are about to destroy.
Here Utnapishtim quotes the words of Ea who spoke to him on behalf of the gods who were about to send the flood.
Questions for Discussion
- Note that Ea instructs Utnapishtim to deceive the community by announcing that the coming rain is a shower of blessings. By contrast, the Jewish Sages, in their elaboration of the text, taught that for one hundred and twenty years before the Flood was brought upon the universe, God issued warnings for repentance, a premise repeated in the Koran's version of the story of Noah. What does this contrast suggest about the different attitudes toward divinity in pagan and monotheistic religions?
- What reward is given to Noah in the Hebrew Bible? How might this be viewed in light of the goddess's advice to Gilgamesh?
- All the ancient stories of floods treat the deluge as a catastrophe. Yet the biblical account is basically optimistic. How does the narrative perspective of The Epic of Gilgamesh shift the focus of the story to detract from the significance of Utnapishtim's survival?
1. This epic is preserved in different ancient languages. These passages are drawn from translations by E. A. Speiser from both the Akkadian and the Sumerian versions. Sections of the poem are identified by the number on the tablet on which they appear.
2. The name of the city appears in two different forms in the original; "Shurippak" is an uncommon spelling.
3. The Sumerian god of creation. The Apsu is also a personification of the primeval waters that the god "ceiled" -- compare this with the idea of the firmament in Genesis.