Violence In Gilgamesh

Violent incidents occurred in both Gilgamesh and the Old Testament and were used several times throughout the texts. Both of these books illustrate violence, and this violence is in the story for a reason. Violence in both of the books have meaning, or a point behind why the violence was happening. Even pointless violence, which happened in both books, at the end had a point or a lesson to be learned from the violence. Also, in both Gilgamesh and the Old Testament the violence can be justified at times for good and for bad reasons. Some of these violent actions can be connected to more modern day violent actions in our country. Recently, in the United States there has been a lot of violence; some of which has been justified and other violence …show more content…
One of the fights in Gilgamesh which seemed to have no meaning behind it to me was the fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu versus Humbaba. Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel a long distance to find Humbaba just to try and kill him. Gilgamesh states, “I will cut down the tree, will kill Humbaba, I will make a lasting name for myself, I will stamp my fame on men’s minds forever”(Mitchell 27). This shows Gilgamesh does not want to kill Humbaba for any good reason, he just wants to kill him so he can look glorious. Gilgamesh and Enkidu travel to see Humbaba and fight him. Gilgamesh and Enkidu defeat Humbaba and after he is defeated Humbaba begs for his life. Humbaba tells them if they let him live he will become Gilgamesh’s servant, but if they kill him the God’s will curse them. Gilgamesh and Enkidu decide to kill Humbaba and cut down all of his trees. This will come back to bite both Gilgamesh and Enkidu later in the story. When Gilgamesh returns home the goddess Ishtar comes and speaks with him. Ishtar wants to marry Gilgamesh and she promises him many riches. Gilgamesh tells Ishtar he will not marry her because of the cruel things she has done to her past lovers. Ishtar was very upset with this and got very mad at Gilgamesh, so she wanted to take his life. Ishtar goes to her father Anu, who is also a God, and asks to release the Bull of Heaven to kill …show more content…
In both of the books, God and Gilgamesh both use violence to show their power. Similarly, God uses violence against the Pharaoh with the ten plagues to show his power and to show the Pharaoh is a false God, while Gilgamesh uses violence to defeat and kill Humbaba to show his power. The difference between these two would be that God used his violence to prove a point and show that he was the real God and the Pharaoh was powerless. While, Gilgamesh used his violence to gain fame and did not really have a good point for fighting Humbaba. God wanted the best for his people and for his people to believe in him. While, Gilgamesh was being very selfish and wanted the fame from killing Humbaba which did not serve a good purpose. Gilgamesh wanted to be very much like God from the Old Testament. Gilgamesh wanted to be a God with more power and wanted to have immorality, much of like how the God in the Old Testament was. Gilgamesh even goes on a long journey to try and gain immortality, but he fails terribly with his human characteristics holding him back. The God of the old testament seemed to have immortality, not in the human form but as he is always watching over the people. Gilgamesh is very one minded and selfish throughout the book, while in the Old Testament God is very unselfish and uses violence to help his people for the better. All in