That is one theory that has been posited in an attempt to explain the otherwise supernatural characteristics of "the flood." No one knows for sure, though.
Yes/no. The Gilgamesh flood story predates the Bibical story. There are at least five different flood stories in this region. One predates the Gilgamesh story by at least five hundred years.
I teach this epic.
Gilgamesh was a harsh king who raped other men's brides, so the gods heard the prayers of the people and sent Gilgamesh a cave man named Enkidu to absorb his energies. They go an a quest.
Gilgamesh and his sidekick Enkidu slay a giant named Humbaba who guards the cedar forest. The god of light, Shamash, helps them prevail by sending winds from four sides that pin down the giant. Humbaba controls fire, so this is like the Greek Prometheus legend. Gilgamesh conquers fire when he kills the guardian of the forest Humbaba.
Enkidu has a dream about a gloomy underworld where even kings eat dirt and work as servants. He dies having complained about how unfair it is that he must go to the gloomy underworld even tho' he slayed Humbaba with the help of the god of light, Shamash.
After Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh goes on a quest for eternal life as a man. He is 2/3 god and thinks he deserves more than the underworld. He visits the Mesopotamian Noah, Unapishtim, who was given eternal life as a man (he lives forever) because he survived a flood. Gilgamesh wants Unapishtim's advice about how to get eternal life.
The gods sent a flood because man was too noisy. However, one god, Ea, the sly god of the waters, warned Unapishtim the flood was coming. Ea was not supposed to tell the gods' plan, but he was also loyal to Unapishtim; so he told Unapishtim's house walls, and the walls told Unapishtim in a dream. This is more understandable when you know that their houses were made of woven reeds. Basically giant upturned baskets. Whatever Ea said to the walls would have gone right into the house.
Unapishtim builds an ark like in the Bible. The other gods are horrified by the flood and the death of mankind. They get mad at the mean god Enlil who sent the flood. Unapishtim gets eternal life on earth as a man from the remorseful gods.
Gilgamesh is tested by Unapishtim and is found undeserving of eternal life. He can't stay awake for even a week, so how could he live forever?
Still, Unapishtim relents a bit tells Gilgamesh where he can get a flower that gives man eternal life. Gilgamesh gets this flower under a deep channel in the water, but a snake steals it when Gilgamesh is taking a nice bath.
Gilgamesh is devastated. He had wanted to be a savior to his people and give them eternal life. (Get that?) Initially Gilgamesh had started his quest for his own immortality, but he had matured and wanted to give his people eternal life.
Gilgamesh is very sad, but when he gets to his walled city in a boat on a canal, he shows the ferryman all the magnificent features of the wall.
The narrator suggests that Gilgamesh had a kind of immortality because he built a wall that protected his people.
In 5600 BC, the Black Sea, which had been a fresh water lake, was innundated by salt water from the Medeterranean.
Russians and American scientists have proved this because all the freshwater shellfish at a certain depth in the sea bed died at the same time.The water flooded a lot of land around the Black Sea. This happened very fast.
This could have been the source of the flood story. On the other hand, massive flash flooding is a big problem is Mesopotamia. The rivers have changed their channels many times because of it. This caused cities to die and new cities to be born.
They had all these canals to keep water for agriculture.
The need to cooperate to build the irrigation ditches may have prompted the creation of cities.
The British Museum has the Gilgamesh clay tablets. The writing is cunieform. The Flood Story is on display just opposite the Rosetta Stone.