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Gilgamesh Vs Genesis Essay Research Paper GILGAMESH

GILGAMESH Vs GENESIS: Essay, Research Paper


GILGAMESH Vs GENESIS:


In our society, which is overwhelmingly Judeo-Christian, students often


find it difficult to compare Bible stories with tales from other cultures,


because our own belief system is wrapped up in the prior, and it is hard for many


of us to go against our traditional faith to evaluate them objectively. But in a


comparison of the Biblical book of Genesis with the ancient Sumerian text, Epic


of Gilgamesh, many parallels suggest that the same type of spiritual searching


inspired the composition of both works. It would seem that both cultures shared


a concern for the nature of human life, and how its shortness affects the way life


should be lived. However, the conclusions each culture derived from their


observations are very different, and this led them to develop very different


philosophies of life.


Gilgamesh is an interesting story because it contains several


episodes in common with the Judeo-Christian Bible. For example, John Noss


notes that


?The original flood story was Sumerian and came out of grim


experiences of the overflowing of the two rivers [the Tigris and the


Euphrates]. Several of the later versions of the tale, mostly fragmentary,


have come down to us. The finest of these forms part of the Gilgamesh


epic, into which it was inserted as an interesting interpolation. According


to this narrative, the gods decided in anger to punish man?s sins by a


flood. Their secret decision was revealed to one man. The good god Ea


felt kindly toward Utnapishtim [Gilgamesh?s ancestor] and told him about


it. The man proceeded immediately to build an ark? (Noss 38).


Marietta Moskin agrees that many of the earliest Hebrew stories derived


from the Sumerian text. She writes that, ?The authors of Genesis surely must


have looked around to see what other people thought about creation. And there


was quite a lot. There were the Sumerian Seven Tablets of Creation; there was


the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. . . .? (Moskin 30).


The similarities should not surprise us, right down to the reason God was


supposed to have decided to destroy the earth by water. In the Biblical book of


Genesis, the author tells us that: ?The earth was corrupt in God?s sight, and the


earth was filled with violence? (Genesis 6:11). Part of this, the Genesis author


comments, was largely due to the fact that human beings on the earth had


become extremely sinful. ?The Lord saw that the wickedness of men was great in


the earth, and it grieved him to his heart? (Genesis 6:5). So He determined to kill


all the people of the earth, saving only one family which had steadfastly


maintained their righteousness. This, of course, was the family of Noah.


The parallels between this story and that of Gilgamesh are too obvious to


criticize. ?Of course the Hebrew iteration of the flood story is not coincidence.


For a time, the Hebrews lived in Sumer, home of Abraham?s people…, taking


with them ancient accounts of flood and righteous people whose obedience and


wisdom helped them to survive the consuming waters? (Near East 2).


However, several interesting points can be made here about the


characteristics of Sumerian religion. For one, it is clear that, like most primitive


peoples, the Sumerians took everyday happenings they observed occurring


around them, and elevated them into myth. The Hebrews did, too. Secondly,


the Sumerians believed that their behavior as a society directly impacted their


fate — in other words, if they behaved badly the gods would punish them.


Maureen Raymo, a marine geologist ?finds it very easy to believe this flood is the


origin of these myths…. You would invoke your god being angry if you didn?t


have the scientific basis to understand it ? (McInnis 3). Again, this belief


underlies Hebrew law as well. And finally, like the Hebrews, Sumerians believed


their gods had direct contact with man, in a manner specific enough to be able to


impart instructions for building an ark. Ea tells Utnapishtim, ?Tear down the


house. Build an ark? (Gardner 226).


This type of contact is made explicit in the passage where Gilgamesh


encounters the goddess ?Siduri the barmaid, who dwells at the lip of the sea?


(Gardner 209). Gilgamesh seeks entrance and is refused, but when he


explains the nature of his quest she lets him in, only to explain why he was being


foolish. In this passage she tells him to stop concentrating on death and to go


home and live. ?Thou, o Gilgamesh, let thy belly be filled! / Day and night be


merry, / Daily celebrate a feast, / Day and night dance and make merry! / Clean


be thy clothes, / Thy head be washed, bathe in water! / Look joyfully on the child


that grasps thy hand, / Be happy with the wife in thine arms!? (Gilgamesh,


quoted in Noss, 72). John Noss observes that ?Here breathes the spirit of the


people of Babylonia. They had no hopes such as the Egyptians had of


pleasantness in the world beyond. All joy was in this life? (Noss 39).


This cold fact becam

e painfully real for Gilgamesh as he had to confront


the death of his best friend, Enkidu. After Enkidu?s death, Gilgamesh is


confused, and terrified. ?We [Enkidu and I] overcame everything. . .Six days and


seven nights I weep over him…[not burying him] (Gardner 210).? He cannot


deal with the fact that someone so dear to him, so much a part of his life, should


be so utterly gone. Enkidu?s death has become as if it were Gilgamesh?s


own, not only because their friendship has been extinguished, but because


Gilgamesh has been brought face to face with his own mortality. When he dies,


he will indeed be like Enkidu.. Weeping, he cries out, ?Me, shall I not lie down


like him, never again to move ? (Gardner 221).


Surely there must be some antidote to this terrible fate! Gilgamesh


decides to embark on a long journey to seek out Utnapishtim and ask him how


he survived the great flood. Gilgamesh believes that this journey will be worth it


if immortality lies at the end. When Gilgamesh finds himself in the presence of


the ancient Utnapishtim and learns the story of the flood, however, it is clear to


him that Utnapishtim has no ?secret? that will award immortality after all; it was a


one-time gift of the gods, and not something available to mankind at large.


Gilgamesh said to Utnapishtim, ?I look at you. Your features are no different


than mine. I?m like you? (Gardner 226).


Gilgamesh has been so keyed up over Enkidu?s death and the hardship of


his journey that he is overcome with exhaustion. He sleeps at Utnapishtim?s


home for six days and seven nights, and wakes up complaining that he had


barely fallen asleep when Utnapishtim woke him up. Gilgamesh immediately


asks ?What can I do, Utnapishtim (Gardner 245). Unfortunately, despite


Utnapishtim?s efforts to help, human beings are only allowed so much time, and


when it?s up, it?s up. Where can I go…Death lives in the house where my bed is


and wherever I set my feet, there Death is? (Gardner 245).


The Hebrews shared this lack of belief in a paradise after death. This


may come as a shock to many people of our day, for whom the promise (or


threat) of eternal afterlife is their main reason for behaving themselves. There is


no evidence in Genesis that the Jews of those ancient times believed that death


brought them either punishment, or reward. Isaac Asimov notes that like many


ancient peoples, early Jews seemed to believe that the dead ?crossed over? into


a land of shades. He writes that this underworld, which the Bible calls Sheol,


?was thought of at first as a dim place where there was no particular torture, but


where there was an absence of joy. Nor was there any distinction between good


and evil; all human beings went there upon death . . . .? (Asimov 173). He adds


that ?The moralization of Sheol, its conversion into a place of torture for the


wicked, while the good go elsewhere, came later in history, toward the end of


Old Testament times? (Asimov 173).


For obvious reasons, the Hebrews were in no great hurry to get to Sheol,


any more than Gilgamesh had been in a hurry to ?become like? Enkidu. In


Genesis 44, Joseph?s brothers plead with him for return of their youngest brother


Benjamin, they tell him that if the youth is not returned safely and soon, their


father will die of grief, and ?[you] will bring down the gray hairs of . . .our father


to Sheol? (Genesis 44:31). Clearly the Hebrews dreaded death, not because


they feared the tortures of Hell, but because life was so much richer, and so


brief.


The wish to remain alive is one that human beings share with animals, but


only the human being recognizes what the alternative is. According to the


psychologist Ernest Becker, man recognizes instinctively that he is very different


from the lower animals, because he alone shows evidence of a consciousness.


According to Becker, ?Man has a symbolic identity that brings him sharply out of


nature. He is a symbolic self, a creature with a name, a life history. He is a


creator with a mind that soars out to speculate about atoms and infinity. . .Yet at


the same time, . . .man is a worm and food for worms. That is the paradox; man


is out of nature and yet hopelessly in it? (Becker 26).


In both the epics of Gilgamesh and Genesis, the reader can clearly see


an effort being made to come to terms with the complex issues and emotions


surrounding the transitions of life and death. However, the Sumerians and the


Hebrews seem to have taken different paths in terms of their response to this


dilemma. Sumerians seem to have dealt with the inevitability of death through a


glorification of being alive. The Hebrews, on the other hand, found their own


?salvation? in community and tradition, which insured a consistent expression of


faith despite the deaths of individual member and this still remains true today.


In this way the Jewish faith is able to truly bridge life and death in a way that the


Sumerians could not.


Asimov, Isaac. Asimov?s Guide to the Bible. New York:


Avenel, 1981.

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