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The Gilgamesh flood tablet 11 (XI) contains additional story material besides the flood. The flood story was included because in it, the flood hero Utnapishtim is granted immortality by the gods and that fits the immortality theme of the epic. The main point seems to be that Utnapishtim was granted eternal life in unique, never-to-be-repeated ...
The Deucalion legend as told by the Bibliotheca has some similarity to other deluge myths such as the Epic of Gilgamesh (which Stephanie West writes was likely the source of this myth [8]); the story of Noah's Ark in the Judeo-Christian telling; and the story of Manu's ark in the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain religions.
Cuneiform tablet with the Atra-Hasis epic in the British Museum. Uta-napishtim or Utnapishtim (Akkadian: 𒌓𒍣, "he has found life") was a legendary king of the ancient city of Shuruppak in southern Iraq, who, according to the Gilgamesh flood myth, one of several similar narratives, survived the Flood by making and occupying a boat.
The flood story in Genesis 6–8 matches the Gilgamesh flood myth so closely that "few doubt that [it] derives from a Mesopotamian account." [65] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives. [66]
Several versions of the Epic of Gilgamesh were already known. The earliest surviving tablets date to the 18th century BCE and are named after its hero, Atra-Hasis. Finkel was able to read the clean first verses of the tablet famous among Assyriologists as the opening lines of the Atra-Hasis Flood Story.
Heidel's book on the Gilgamesh flood myth is a comparison of the Mesopotamian epic with the biblical account of Noah's Ark and the biblical deluge. The University of Chicago Press published the first edition in 1946 and the second edition in 1949. The book remains in print.
Cultures around the world tell stories about a great flood. [14] In many cases, the flood leaves only one survivor or group of survivors. For example, both the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Hebrew Bible tell of a global flood that wiped out humanity and of a man who saved the Earth's species by taking them aboard a boat. [15]
[3] [b] In the Gilgamesh flood myth, the highest god, Enlil, decides to destroy the world with a flood because humans have become too noisy. The god Ea , who had created humans out of clay and divine blood, secretly warns the hero Utnapishtim of the impending flood and gives him detailed instructions for building a boat so that life may survive.