Anna Tsukroff

Gilgamesh and Genesis both contain very interesting versions of the Flood myth. There are many parallels between the two, such as detailing the specific dimensions of the craft and having the protagonist send out birds to test whether the waters had receded yet. The Gilgamesh story is very different from the Genesis story, however, in the light it displays the Gods in. There is only one God in the Genesis story, and he is an all-powerful vengeful (and later forgiving and fatherly) deity. The Gods in the Gilgamesh story are much more anthropomorphized in the respect that they tend to squabble and disagree with each other. They go behind each others' back to thwart the others' plans, such as how Ea told Utanapishtim to save himself and a few of each type of living being so they could survive the flood that Enlil brought about specifically to annihilate everyone and everything on Earth. The Gods are not focused on humanity in the Gilgamesh story, the Flood is not brought about by wickedness or cruelty as it is in the Genesis story. The catastrophe is released more as an arbitrary whim of Enlil than in response to anything mankind has done. Humans have much less control over their fate in that tale; the Gods do whatever they please, rather as the elements of nature they represent seem to do. Overall, I found the Gilgamesh story to be much more detailed and interesting than the Genesis story, though neither seem likely to have happened in the manner described in the myths. I definitely do think that these stories were based on some sort of catastrophic flood that happened in the fertile crescent region at some earlier point in time, though. There is actually scientific evidence that a flood of that catastrophic nature occurred around 5500 BCE when the Mediterranean Sea is theorized to have basically dumped into a freshwater lake that turned into the modern-day Black Sea. It would make sense for a number of different cultures to have Flood myths that have so many parallels originating from this event, since the flood was supposedly incredibly widespread and devastating.