Comparative Essay Example: The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Christian Holy Bible

Across cultures and religions, people can find accounts of floods. The rest of each culture may vary widely but when it comes to these stories, they tend to be very similar. Take the ones from The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Christian Holy Bible. It’s important to understand the similarities between these stories so we can understand what people valued in the past. Taking a couple of these stories and comparing them, it becomes clear that these stories may have originated from one, and they evolved as they migrated from place to place. 

In the latter half of The Epic of Gilgamesh, the titular character was on a journey to find immortality after his friend died. That led him to Utnapishtim, a man who was made immortal after he survived a flood, and he told Gilgamesh his story. The gods were mad because the city they lived in became loud and crowded, so they made a plan to flood the Earth. Ea, the god of wisdom, told Utnapishtim about the gods' plan. Ea instructed him on how to build a boat, and to bring his family, possessions, and “the seed of all living creatures.”  

In The Holy Bible, Genesis recounts how God made the Earth, people, and animals. Soon, though, God became angry because people had become wicked so he made a plan to flood the earth. He told Noah to build an arc, and to bring his son, their wives, his wife and to gather one female and one male of every animal. Hardly into these stories, many of the similarities are already clear, from what they brought, to the reasons the gods of each story were upset. 

In the Epic it rained for six days and six nights. Utnapishtim explained that he sent out birds to see if there was dry land nearby. First, he released a dove, but it came back. Then he sent out a swallow, and it returned as well. Lastly, he sent out a raven, which didn’t return. 

In the Bible, it rained for forty days and forty nights. It was 150 days before the flood began to gradually recede. First, Noah released a raven, which returned to the ark. Next, he sent a dove, which returned as well, leading him to send it out twice more. The last time, the dove didn’t return at all, signifying dry land was near. It’s evident that these methods of verification are very similar, down to the types of birds that were released. 

Furthermore, Utnapishtim says that he sacrificed to the gods after he got off the boat.  After he did, the gods realized Utnapishtim was still alive. They made Utnapishtim and his wife immortal and banished him to a faraway place. In the end, the gods promised not to flood the entire earth again. 

Noah also sacrificed to his God, and He promised never to flood the entire earth again, creating rainbows to signify that promise. He then told Noah and his family to repopulate the earth. Though some of these similarities could be coincidental, the fact that there is so much similarity between these stories makes that very unlikely. 

There are also similarities between the rest of The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Holy Bible. In the book of Genesis in the Bible, there is the story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were the first humans and they lived in the Garden of Eden. They were told that could eat fruit from any of the trees except one, the Tree of Wisdom. There was a serpent and it convinced Eve that she should eat the forbidden fruit, so she ate some and gave some to Adam. God was very angry when He found out what happened and He banished them from the Garden. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, it was a snake that kept Gilgamesh from achieving immortality the second time. In both of these stories and many other stories here in the west, snakes and serpents represent deceitfulness, evil, and sin.

With all these comparisons, it’s ideal to conclude that these stories were originally just one. By looking at the parts the authors chose to keep, but also the ones they omitted, we can see what values people had in the past. Through stories, we can learn from past mistakes so we don’t make them again.