Noah Vs. Ut-Napishtim
Both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Genesis speak of a flood.
Both stories being very similar to each other it is unclear as to where the
story first began. One thing that is clear, is that there was a massive flood
or a series of floods.
Here are some of
those similarities;
- · Each Variations contain numerous, noisy, sinful human beings and a displeased God(s).
- · The God(s) send a flood to drown and ‘cleanse’ the earth from their creations.
- · There was a righteous man in each story, Noah or Ut-Napishtim
- · Each was ordered to build an ark.
- · The ark had many internal compartments.
- Each had one single door and window.
- · Ark contained, the hero, other humans, animals.
- · A ‘great’ rain submerged the world.
- · Ark Landed on a mountain in the middle East.
- · Hero sent out birds to find dry land.
- · First two birds didn’t find dry land last of the birds never returned.
- · The Hero and family left the ark, sacrificed animals to the God(s).
- · Heroes were Blessed.
- · Both Gods regretted their actions.
Here are some differences;
- · Noah received his directions directly from God, Ut-Napishtim received them in a dream.
- · Noahs Ark was 3 stories are high and rectangular. The Babylonian Ark was 6 stories high and square.
- · Lasted 40 days in the Bible and 6 in the Babylonian account.
- · Noah released a raven once and a dove twice. Ut-Napishtim released 1 dove, 1 swallow and 1 raven.
Between different faiths and theologies, it’s hard to place
exactly where the flood took place.
According to David R. Montgomery, geologists can place that
great floods did take place in the Mesopotamian area. However, he does say he
knows it wasn’t a worldwide flood.
I think this is interesting because it ties religion, science
and ancient history together. Looking at evidence left by both flood waters and
ancient civilizations we can tie beliefs and major events back to their stories
and the catastrophic things nature did then.
Ted Talk
https://youtu.be/chHU5HPkxmM
This was a very intriguing article to read and it really sparked a lot of thought in my head. To start, it is amazing how this type of story is seen throughout most ancient history. These catastrophes most likely seemed like the end of the world for them too because they had no knowledge of how big the Earth actually was. They most likely thought that whatever land they lived in was the extent of the world, so to them it really was the end. This also makes me wonder if we will have any modern day stories, or events that could be another depiction of the ancient story. Will we have any massive natural disasters that will go down as being a total civilization catastrophe? Or could we even potentially be having a similar catastrophe right now, such as with all the flooding going on in the Houston area.
ReplyDeleteI’ll be honest I wish you had continued writing about this topic because it’s something that I’ve noticed while studying the ancient world. Gilgamesh also shares a lot of similarities with Homers ‘The Odyssey’ although there was no flood involved in ‘The Odyssey’, Homer too writes about a giant, the long journey back home, the sirens, and many more similarities. That being said I believe many early forms of writing and storytelling are stolen and recreated off of one another just like the flood with Noah and the flood in Gilgamesh because they all seem to connect in some way.
ReplyDeleteWhat you talked about I found very interesting. I like how you used the bulleted list. You had a lot of good information typed up. It made me want to keep reading, and made me very intrigued. Did we have any modern day stories?
ReplyDelete