184-98). Nonetheless, the reason for the flood is never ultimately elucidated, and even the gods themselves admit that whatever the original reason, flooding the entire world was probably an overreaction. Thus, Enlil's granting of immortality to Utanapishtim may be seen as the recompense he must pay for having caused so much destruction; having taken the lives of most of humanity, Enlil must now give the remaining representatives of humanity, Utanapishtim and his wife, eternal life. At the same time that the story is lowering the status of the gods by including the scene of Enlil's humiliation, the narrative uses Gilgamesh's inability to attain immortality, either through divine intervention or the plant recommended by Utanapishtim, as a means of actually highlighting human's ability to remain nonetheless. Though Gilgamesh is thwarted in his attempts to live forever, he is ultimately comforted by the city of Uruk, instructing Ur-Shanabi to walk through the city and appreciate its grandeur (11.328-34).
In stark contrast to Gilgamesh, the Genesis account of the flood includes clear reasons for the destruction, a single vengeful god (without any equals to challenge him), and ends with a confusing moral that only serves to condemn humanity. The gods' conversation in Gilgamesh seems to suggest that a single offense caused Enlil's fury, but in Genesis, Yahweh simply "saw that the evil of the human creature was great on the earth" and decided to kill them all, without specifically mentioning precisely what was so terrible (Genesis 6:5). Where Gilgamesh contains an ambiguous yet presumably specific cause for the flood, Genesis only includes a general condemnation of all humanity. This further helps to explain why there is no scene similar to that of Enlil's condemnation, because there is quite simply no one to tell Yahweh that he has overreacted. In the story, no other gods exist, and the only people remaining alive are especially deferent to Yahweh, for good reason. Although Yahweh's...
Finally, where the conclusion of Gilgamesh's search for immorality ends with a celebration of human ability and cultural longevity, the Genesis flood account concludes with a confusing story about Noah passing out naked and drunk before cursing his son for seeing his naked form (Genesis 9:20-27). The concluding story is jarring, and only serves to humiliate and scorn the humans in the tale, first with Noah's drunkenness and then with Ham's curse.
By comparing the flood account in Gilgamesh with that of Genesis, it becomes clear that both stories, while structurally similar, portray vastly different themes, especially in regards to the relationship between deities and humanity. In Gilgamesh, the story concludes by pointing out the foolishness of gods and the cultural power of humans, whereas Genesis concludes by supporting the omnipotent dominance of a single god and the disgraceful, altogether meaningless behavior of humans. In short, the flood story if Gilgamesh serves to celebrate humanity, where the version in Genesis is a kind of thematic inversion, working only to shame humanity and elevate Yahweh above reproach or dissent.
Works Cited
Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI. trans. Benjamin Foster. Lawall, Sarah N., ed. Norton
Anthology of Western Literature. 8. 1. New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.
Print. pp. 18-25
Genesis 6-9. trans. Robert Alter. Lawall, Sarah N., ed. Norton Anthology of Western Literature.
8. 1. New York, NY W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Print. pp. 43-45
