The Story Of Utnapishtim And The Great Flood

It is only natural for one to be struck with curiosity about life; particularly, past life events that simply have no way of being proved. It is easy to recognize the existence of some things due to items such as artifacts, bones, etc., being preserved—but how could one possibly manifest the truth of a story? Where do you draw the line between a tall tale that was created to teach a lesson and a factual event? For example, the great flood. Civilizations and cultures all around the world have some story dealing with a great flood sent down by a deity that ended all of humanity (usually with the exception of a few survivors). If this flood did not actually happen, then how could so many different civilizations create a story with not only the …show more content…
The most obvious similarity, the flood, is probably the least important; anyone could make up a story about a flood, right? If you read these two stories deeper you will find similarities that are just too indistinguishable to ignore. For one, the floods took place on the Mesopotamian plain. Perhaps this is because both stories originated from one place, and therefore from one story. Secondly, the main character in each story is warned to build a boat (sealed with tar) in order to save himself, his family, and a sampling of the vast species of animals that roam the earth. This shows that both of these civilizations were advanced enough to know the use of boats and how to use their resources (tar, in this case) to make certain things more durable. Maybe they both valued family and a flourished world full of animals and all that they had to offer mankind—which is why it was these that survived. Thirdly, the boat comes to rest on a mountain, where birds were released to check for the receding of the water. Lastly, a sacrifice was offered, showing that both civilizations gave offerings to their …show more content…
I feel that this reason for destroying mankind fits in more with the story of Noah than with the story of Utnapishtim. Unlike the story of Noah though, the gods in the story of Deucalion resemble the gods in the story of Utnapishtim. They also seem to possess human-like traits—arguing amongst one another, deceiving each other, etc. Unlike Noah and Utnapishtim, Deucalion and Pyrrha are not warned about the flood and survived due to their boat landing on top of a mountain. Deucalion and his wife were not chosen; they were saved by chance, and they just so happened to be “good”. Jupiter saw that the two survivors were good and the floods were diminished (Ovid 1.15). The two survivors asked the gods for help and were able to repopulate the earth. However, their repopulation of the earth is much different than the ways told in the first two stories: They were told to cover their heads, loosen their clothes, and throw stones behind them—which turned into humans (Ovid 1.17). In this story, no animals were saved; the earth spontaneously created animal life forms, and eventually nature, when heat and moisture mixed and conceived (Ovid