Epic_of_Gilgamesh

We as people can never truly see everything that has happened in the world, including huge historical events that go way back in time. There are many stories about the way things happened and what certain cultures believed in. The bible tells about our past and what according to the bible happened, but like almost anyone we don’t just start to believe everything we hear. People around the world seek evidence to either prove or disprove our past history. Many archeologists have found certain pieces of evidence which shows them that some of these ancient myths out there are real, like the Genesis of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Flood of the Bible. Many believe that only one of these stories is true, and that possibly one story inspired many other stories to come about. The two stories (Genesis and the Flood) had a lot of similarities like they both built a boat, there was a flood, and they had animals of all kind on board. As I kept reading though I realized that these alike stories also have a large amount of differences, and that’s what I’ve been concentrating on. One of the differences I came about first was probably the most obvious one. When you read both stories I noticed how one was a total of 6 days and 6 nights, and the other was a total of 40 days and 40 nights which is a huge difference. I can’t picture a person mixing up a story and going from 6 days to 40 days. In Genesis it says “For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and the flood raged together like warring hosts.” In the Flood it specifically says”And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” Which makes me wonder, if we found evidence that there was a flood, then which of the stories is talking about the real flood and which is just a fable' In the Bible there is only one god, so for Noah he only believed in God. Noah was told by this God to create an Ark, for God is going to flood the world. Well in Genesis there are many gods. These gods got upset and flooded the world, so one story believes in one God that caused the flood and the other thinks it was many gods. I caught attention toward the god’s vs. God when I was reading a quote in Genesis stating “When Enlil had come, when he saw the boat, he was wroth and swelled with anger at the gods”. When I saw gods I started to realize that in the quote from the Flood said “Never again will I doom the earth because of man.” It said I in it when God was talking to Noah. I meaning that he was the only God. Both stories believed in different reasons for the cause of the flood, and who caused the flood. The third difference I noticed was harder to notice. I thought about this over and over, I realized that through the similarities in both stories there were differences also. When the stories started to talk about a new beginning they were aiming for a new start in the world were everything is better off. That is a huge similarity but... They way the story described the new beginnings were different, they had separate examples and meanings. In Genesis they quoted” Come here, and see this marvelous plant. By its virtue a man may win back all his former strengths.” In the Flood it says “Be fertile and increase, and fill the earth.” One says how the restart of the earth may man be better, and the other is saying give it time be safe and smart and man will be fine. In all I feel that the two stories had similarities but at the same time way more differences. We can’t prove though yet that one is more correct then the other, until further studies. Yes there was a flood, how big was it' Who knows, were their survivors' Who knows, who was the survivor and how many animals did he have with him' No one knows. We only have the stories to look at and relate to, and we only can imagine what really happened and what didn’t between the stories. The way people find this out is by cancelling out similarities and differences to see what they both agreed on, which made it probably true, and what they disagreed on, which tells us that one story has it right and the other doesn’t.