Maybe the Epic of Gilgamesh was a modified retelling of the actual account of the flood
In particular, the seven days just prior to the flood are mentioned twice within a short space:
Gen. 7:4 "For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights;...These were seven days of intense light, generated by some major cosmic event within our system. The Old Testament contains one other reference to these seven days, i.e. Isaiah 30:26:Gen. 7:10 "And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth."
"...Moreover, the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days..."
Most interpret this as meaning cramming seven days worth of light into one day. That is wrong; the reference is to the seven days prior to the flood. The reference apparently got translated out of a language which doesn't use articles. It should read "as the light of THE seven days".
It turns out, that the bible claims that Methuselah died in the year of the flood. It may not say so directly, but the ages given in Genesis 5 along with the note that the flood began in the 600'th year of Noah's life (Genesis 7:11) add up that way:
Gen. 5:25 ->"And Methuselah lived an hundred eighty and seven years and begat Lamech. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech seven hundred eighty and two years, and begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years.
<i.e. he lived 969 - 187 = 782 years after Lamech's birth>
And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah...
<182 + 600 = 782 also...>
Thus we have Methusaleh dying in the year of the flood; seven days prior to the flood...
Louis Ginzburg's seven-volume "Legends of the Jews", the largest body of Midrashim ever translated into German and English to my knowledge, expands upon the laconic tales of the OT.
From Ginzburg's Legends of the Jews, Vol V, page 175:
...however, Lekah, Gen. 7.4) BR 3.6 (in the week of mourning for Methuselah, God caused the primordial light to shine).... God did not wish Methuselah to die at the same time as the sinners...
The reference is, again, to Gen. 7.4, which reads:
"For yet seven days, and I shall cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights..."
The note that "God did not wish Methusaleh to die at the same time as the sinners" indicates that Methusaleh died at pretty nearly precisely the beginning of the week prior to the flood. The week of "God causing the primordial lights to shine" was the week of intense light before the flood.
What the old books are actually telling us is that there was a stellar blowout of some sort either close to or within our own system at the time of the flood. The blowout was followed by seven days of intense light and radiation, and then the flood itself. Moreover, the signs of the impending disaster were obvious enough for at least one guy, Noah, to take extraordinary precautions.
The ancient (but historical) world knew a number of seven-day light festivals, Hanukkah, the Roman Saturnalia etc. Velikovsky claimed that all were ultimately derived from the memory of the seven days prior to the flood.
If this entire deal is a made-up story, then here is a case of the storyteller (isaiah) making extra work for himself with no possible benefit, the detail of the seven days of light being supposedly known amongst the population, and never included in the OT story directly.
Greek and Roman authors, particularly Hesiod and ovid, Chinese authors and others, note that small groups of men and animals survived the flood on high places and on anything which could float for a year. I do not see an essential contradiction between this and the biblical account. Noah's descendants were probably unaware of anybody else surviving and wrote the story that way.
About 4,800 years ago, a large asteroid or comet impacted in the Indian Ocean, producing a tsunami at least 600 feet high. This may be the origin of the stories of both Gilgamesh and Noah.
Now we await trial by fire.
Genesis and Gilgamesh provide accounts of the same event. That there are similarities should be expected when describing the same event. Just because Gilgamesh predates Genesis doesn’t mean the Genesis account was copied from Gilgamesh.
It’s the other way around.
Or is the Epic of Gilgamesh a bad rewrite of the biblical account?
bookmark
nonsense.
Abraham was from Ur, and Gilgamesh was a pre historic king in the Sumerian region of what is now Iraq (same area of the world).
If the flood happened, it was probably about the time of the global warming/glacial melt about 10000 BC when there was lots of floods, and climate change.
So there is an oral tradition for 7000 years before they wrote down Gilgamesh, and 8500 years before they wrote the bible down. Both probably tell of the same flood and the same survivors.
Most Christians (e.g. most Catholics, orthodox, and main line Christian) don’t think the Bible is dictated by God: (that is the Koran) and agree it was probably a local flood, not the whole world (there was a catastrophe that wiped out humanity, but that story goes back 50000 years to where most of mankind was wiped out by a super volcanic eruption, if the DNA studies are correct).
The story is how God communicated with his people, and the realization that there was a good God who ruled over all things, not made up gods who were petty and destroyed men for the fun of it.
The Sumerian Gods were evil and disliked men; the God of Abraham loved man and promised that he would never destroy man again.
“Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” (Genesis 8:20)
Typical of much in the Bible is things that the human mind cannot comprehend. If Noah took two of every kind of clean animal and clean bird into the Ark, and now sacrificed one of each, the human mind does not comprehend how the animals and birds would have repopulated the earth. Or the existence of pigs and carrion birds.
God is Infinite and Can do all things. It is not for us to question.
There....fixed it.
You can thank me later.
If the Biblical flood account is true (and it is) wouldn’t one expect other cultures to have handed down accounts of it which became mythic over the centuries? I think the fact the Gilgamesh epic exists enhances the credibility of the Bible epic.
The basic question I’ve asked myself is this:
If there were a really, really big flood a long time ago and it left only one family, wouldn’t various accounts, even incorrect ones stem from it?
Sorry, Gilgamesh hopefuls.
It is quiet long, but an eye opener never the less. Digest it at your leisure and draw your own conclusions.
IMHO IT, has its own legs,and it is very challenging, a lot of "what ifs" and "Hm-mm" moments. Have at it!
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My 9 years of research on the first 11 chapters of Genesis leads me to believe that the Flood account was written by Noah and Shem, and handed down in the form of cunieform tablets...eventually to Moses.