The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the oldest surviving works of literature in the world, believed to have been written between 2700 B.C in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) however Gilgamesh was not written by one specific author but evolved gradually over a long span of time. The epic of Gilgamesh was passed on from generations to generations verbally before it was written and preserve in a total of 12 tablets. The tablets were written in “Cuneiform” script-wedge-shape characters incised in clay or stone (The Norton Anthology 34). These tablets were lost and found in the early 1800s by a group of archeologists in the city of Nineveh amidst the ruins of the great royal library of king …show more content…
Some of the similarities are very striking and comments need to be made about the comparisons between the two. The command for the character Utnapishtim to build a boat in order to survive a devastating flood approaching to wipe out the city is remarkable. Also the cause of the flood is very similar, the flood was sent in judgment on man or the people due to the spread of sin. “Lay upon the sinner his sin; lay upon the transgressor his transgression “ (Tablet 11). In the book of Genesis God says to Noah the following “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:13). There is no coincidence of these similarities, the wording is just simply fraise differently but the message is in the same manner. In both of the stories the “God” character contact the chosen man and told him that what has caused this flood is the disrespect, weakness, and sin of man, and the upcoming punishment must happen in order to have a better purified world, sin free and that he (chosen character) was elected to do this duty because of his righteousness and faithful …show more content…
Both stories have a flood in common and so do thousands of legendary stories worldwide. In all of these stories the flood affected everyone, and what cause the flood to happened which was the weakness of man. The only factual thing we do know is that there was some kind of devastating flood that affected the earth and all civilizations and each civilization have simply modified the event differently and has passed it verbally for generations and later wrote it down. Since the beginning of times humans believed that there was some kind of greater force that cause natural events to happened until humans started to use reason as for why certain natural devastations happened such as