When I came to this class the only flood that I had ever heard of was the flood from the bible, the one with Noah. All I knew was that he built a boat and took his family, as well as a female and a male of every living creature with him. So when I read Gilgamesh I was surprised when I reached the fifth chapter that was titled the story of the flood. It was very interesting to read since I only knew of one flood. The two accounts of the great flood as they appear in "Gilgamesh" and later in the Bible show two different versions of what appear to be the same story. I found that there was some likeness as well as some differences between the two different versions of the same flood.
I noticed the biggest difference between the two tales of the flood occurs early on in the story.
English: "The Deluge", Frontispiece to Doré's ill...
"The Flood Tablet. This is perhaps the most famous...
GilgameshWhile in the Bible, God makes his sole decision about bringing down the flood when he said, "...and the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth." While in Gilgamesh the God's (more than one god) are part god and part human, and they held a council to decide if "the gods agreed to exterminate mankind." The first indication for the reasons of the flood in the bible was when God "saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." In Gilgamesh "the great gods were aroused by clamour...the uproar of mankind is intolerable and sleep is no longer possible by reason of the babel." So we see here that they are similar because they both had a...