Comparison of Two Flood Stories - Assignment Example

Comparison of Two Flood Stories OVERVIEW The two flood stories i.e. “The Flood of Noah” and “The Flood of Gilgamesh” have been taken from the “GreatBible”. In these two particular stories, a description about flood of different times has been highlighted. It will be vital to mention both of these flood stories have different contexts and dissimilar heroes. In this similar context, in relation to the story of “The Flood of Noah”, the hero can be duly considered to be none other than Noah and in case of the story of “The Flood of Gilgamesh”, the hero can be noted as Utnapishtim.

It is worth mentioning that “The Flood of Noah” is the older story of the Bible, wherein all manhood got destroyed by the flood except the family of Noah. On the other hand, in case of “The Flood of Gilgamesh”, all mankind of the civilization got destroyed excluding the family of Utnapishtim (Lorey, “The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh”). COMPARISON OF THE TWO FLOOD STORIES Noah was quite spiritual in nature and he lived with his family. When the age of Noah was 500 years, the God said him to make an ark for his family.

God also said Noah that after 120 years, a flood will occur, which will destroy the entire mankind and give him instruction to live in the ark with his family. Later, the flood took place, which continued for forty days. Notably, Noah along with his family stayed in the ark for full one year. After the completion of one year, when Noah found a land and left the ark, God blessed him and his family with the power of immortality (Davidson 49-77).With regards to the story of “The Flood of Gilgamesh”, Gilgamesh was the king of Samaria.

The Sumerian hero journeyed the whole world and met an old man named Utnapishtim. The Utnapishtim told Gilgamesh about the disaster flood story of the Sumerian civilization. The flood took place for six days, which was a short duration, but resulted in destroying the entire civilization (Davidson 49-77). Identifiably, there lay certain differences between the above discussed two flood stories. In this context, the announcement of Noah’s flood was made by the God directly, but in relation to the case of Gilgamesh flood story, the announcement came from God via dream.

The cause behind the flood of Noah was the increasing mischievousness of the people, however, in case of Gilgamesh, the reason was man’s sins. The landing space of the ark in Noah was Mountain Ararat and the landing spot of the boat in Gilgamesh was Mountain Nisir (Lorey, “The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh”). Apart from the above identified differences, certain similarities of the two flood stories can also be apparently noted. In this regard, one of such similarities is that in both of the stories, the character of the heroes i.e. of Noah and Utnapishtim were found to be quite virtuous and can be found in the Bible.

Apart from this, the flood means also deemed to be quite similar in these two flood stories. This can be justified with reference to the fact that one of the flood means was mainly heavy rain, which distorted their respective entire civilization at large (Lorey, “The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh”).Works CitedDavidson, Richard M. “The Genesis Flood Narrative: Crucial Issues in the Current Debate.” Andrews University Seminary Studies, 42 (2004): 49-77. Print.Lorey, Frank. The Flood of Noah and the Flood of Gilgamesh. 1997. Web.19 Sep. 2014.