The Flood Stories in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh - Essay Example

ic and Modern Literature Comparison of the flood Stories in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh Ever since age-old time, there have been very many stories about different occurrences that have affected the world in different manners. One of the major types of stories passed from generation to generation is about floods. There have been tales about floods ever since the days of the bible and have continued to even contemporary times. In the bible, there is the mention of two major different floods. One of the floods mentioned is the great Babylonian flood while the other one is the flood that took place around the time of Noah (Suggs & Sakenfeld 183). In contemporary times, one of the major floods referenced is the floods that took place in the floods of Gilgamesh. It is very important to scrutinize these three different floods in an effort to identify the distinguishing activities while still trying to find out what binds them. Moreover, the discovery and understanding of the lessons learnt from the floods is a deal of great importance. The first focus is on the floods accounted for in the bible. The great flood of Babylon is described in one major text referred to as the Epic of Atrahasis. It talks about the initial days when the world was being formed. There was only one supreme God but there existed lesser gods with less power as the initial one. For this reason, their survival strictly depended on the amount of work that they put in their dwelling. Thus the men dug rivers so that they could attain a clear and simpler manner of getting water, the erected hills and mountains to make the world appear better and numerous other activities to ascertain their comfort. After toiling for many years, they become tired and angry at the supreme God for making them work that hard. Upon this, human beings were created and some of them turned against their creator and worshipped the lesser gods. It was during their worship for the lesser gods that they decided to build a tower that would help them get closer to the Supreme Being. This was not a very appropriate plan as it angered God who ensured that their efforts did not succeed. God decided to wipe all of them using a flood and teach them a lesson of respect. The story of Noah’s ach is similar to that of the Babylonian flood. In the story of the arch, God had lived in harmony with human beings as long as the accorded him respect and did not carry out activities that seemed immoral. This went on for several decades until a point came that people started committing crimes such as theft, they went to other people’s houses and committed adultery and even to some extent killed each other. This took place at a large extent that made God very angry. God tried instructing the people to repent their sins and get back to living holy lives but the people did not listen. It was after this that God decided to wipe out the whole world by a great flood. However, God had mercy on the few people that continued believing in him and following his life teachings and thus instructed Noah to build an arch to prevent them from drowning. Noah took the advice and started building the arch. He invited people to go with him but most of them just laughed and mocked him. When the time for the floods came, Noah and his family together with the animals and few people who had taken his advice saved from the floods. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most ancient poems presented in Mesopotamia. There are different versions of the epic but the ideal and standard ones describe the story of the floods in different tablets amounting to 12. The epic rather describes the flood as a myth that has been taken seriously through time. The myth is also referred to as the The Deluge. Similar to the Babylonian and Noah stories God is the one who controlled the activities of the various physical features though differently in this case. Gilgamesh, a king at the time is in a quest for any immorality on the surface of the earth and that is when he meets Ut-napistim in the Epic of Gilgamesh (Kovacs 158). Upon their meeting, they decide to discuss the manner in which they can attain power just like the supreme God. Due to this conversation, God got angry and led them to inflicting massive flooding of rivers and lakes and thus people swept away. The difference between the myth and the other stories is that the people did not directly receive instructions from God but rather used indirect means to pass the message. However, there is a similar lesson learnt in all stories that it is important to follow God’s instructions and accord him the respect he deserves. 2. Comparison of Character Relationships to the gods As observed from the studies carried out, the gods from the stories all had different characteristics that made them stand out, however, the characteristics that were similar to all of them were the most. The fact that they wiped out the world showed that they had one thing in common. This is the fact that they wanted a world free of the many depressing situations brought about by the sinners. The wiping out meant that there could be the bringing up of pure generations with less criminal activities. This is witnessed from the activities of God as he told people to repent or they would face his wrath. This is the same situation witnessed when Giglamish tried to look for a way of solving the mystery of the world. This characteristic meant that God had the best interests of humankind in mind and did not want to spoil them. A characteristic observed by these supreme beings from the different stories is that they did not like disrespect and treated respect and honor with a lot priority. This disrespect generally leads to the Supreme Being portraying the characteristic of anger. Anger portrayed due to various reasons. One of them was due to the amount of games that people were playing, in the bible, God is angry at the human beings when they cheat on each other while in relationships. The bible has it that God instructs people to be faithful to each other and the aspect of adultery to be very disrespectful. God also has it stated in the bible that one of the most important things to observe and respect is human life. The importance of cherishing and observing the rules of upholding human life is because human beings are the most important creatures to God. Human beings at that time used to engage in activities that endangered their lives. Some of these activities involved in associating themselves with activities that could render them broke; being broke, they could go ahead and borrow money from the various people around them. This could lead to various misunderstanding when it comes to payments and they could get angry at each other and commit crimes such as murder. The supreme anger from the story of the Babylon floods is also found angry due to the various activities of human beings. In this case, the anger is because human beings do not respect him but rather try to get to his level. This is by their building of the great tower. Moreover, they created smaller gods that they used to worship instead of paying respect to God the creator and offering him the deserved respect that he deserves. This angered God and he warned them against the carrying out of these activities. However, these people did not listen to the instructions and continued carrying out these activities. God got angry and punished them through floods. In the final story, there is the disrespect showed towards God in the Epic of Gilgames. This is where Gilgames meets up with Up-napistm and they get into an agreement or rather they try devising a way of getting to the level of the Supreme Being. God finds this disrespectful as it shows that they do not show any appreciation for the gift of life. People that were under them were of similar notions and did not show much respect to God. This got God angry and thus there was the flooding of rivers and other water sources in a manner that wiped out the world. The Oresteia is another story that shows the amount of anger that God bore for the people due to their disrespect. In this case, not only did he portray the anger characteristic but also the concept that he had power (Johnston 234). This is because even in the Oresteia, people did not respect him. In this situation, people committed many crimes including all those mentioned in the various stories of floods, these include the worshipping of idols and high amounts of immorality. There was lack of respect for the other person’s stuff that lead to a lot of theft in the areas. God reacted by showing that he had the power to punish them by bringing upon them different tragedies such as lack of food that saw them suffer the consequences of their actions. 3. The Idea of Death According to Ancient Heroes There are very many different aspects of death observed from the various stories of ancient times. One of the most inspiring stories on the aspect of life and death is that of Gilgamesh. As mentioned earlier, Gilgamesh was a king in the ancient times who was very ambitious and wanted to receive the power of a supreme being and have the ability to avoid death. Prior to the storm, he had very many views about death and life from many different stories and thus did not actually hold a solid stand on it. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most ancient poems presented in Mesopotamia. There are different versions of the epic but the ideal and standard ones describe the story of the floods in different tablets amounting to 12. The epic rather describes the flood as a myth that has been taken seriously through time. The myth is also referred to as the The Deluge. Similar to the Babylonian and Noah stories God is the one who controlled the activities of the various physical features though differently in this case. Gilgamesh was very powerful and wanted to increase his power, it was while he was ruling that he heard of a person that had had the ability to withstand a storm and was alive up to that moment. This made him very anxious and his quest to meet this person was satisfied while he was travelling around his kingdom. Upon meeting the man, Atrahasis, he asked him about the secret that he was using to ensure that he did not die through the flood. Atrahasis on his side answered him by giving a number of tasks that he had to accomplish for him to bear immortality. The tasks were rather challenging but Gilgamesh took them up. Gilgamesh tried his best to ensure that he accomplished them in the manner required but his efforts were futile. It was after this that he had a specific and direct view towards life and death. He recognized that death was something that he had to go through but by this time, he had already surpassed the limits and died from his actions of trying to become immortal while that is just God’s ability. Hector from the ancient stories had a direct and similar view of life and death. He had the notion that life and death were completely in the life of humans. However, despite his position of a warlord and the much amount of power he bore., he had to face a fight between him and troy and it was at this point where he had a near death experience that he realized the holiness of life but despite this, he eventually died (Verity 467). Hector was a very strong and influential leader and fighter, however, the one thing that made him fail in his endeavors was his lack of respect for the Supreme Being. He failed to understand that he gave him power and strength to overcome enemies. All the stories lead to one common derivation that God deserves respect. These two stories about Hector and Gilgamesh describe heroes that did not initially treasure life and thought that death was a concept but not a reality. However, their aspects changed later but at a much greater consequence than expected. Work Cited Johnston, Ian. The Oresteia. New York: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Kovacs, Maureen. The Epic of Gilgamesh. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers, 2009. Print. The Oxford Study Bible: Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha. Suggs, Jack., & Sakenfeld, Katharine. London: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print. Verity, Homer. The Iliad. NewYork: Palgrave Printers, 2008. Print. Read More