Noah and the Flood; it’s a classic biblical story. What most people don’t know is that this story was appropriated from other stories of popular religions at the time the bible was composed. In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the title character meets Utnapishtim, a man who gained immortality after escaping a great flood intended to exterminate humans on earth. In the story of Atrahasis, the gods decide that there is too much noise coming from the overpopulated earth and send plague and famine to attempt to eliminate humans from the earth. After their attempts don’t work, the gods decide to send a huge flood to eliminate the humans. In the bible , God tells Noah that he will be sending a flood to eliminate all wickedness on the earth, and Noah and his What’s interesting, is that each of these differences between the Atrahasis and Gilgamesh stories and the biblical story serve to make very distinct separations. All of the differences between the stories serve very specific purposes. In regards to the justification of the flood, the God in the biblical story wishes to eliminate wickedness from the earth, a very selfless action. In the other stories, the gods act out of selfishness sending floods because they are unhappy with the noise from humans. In regards to the way that the stories are told, the biblical story is told portraying God as a compassionate and caring being rather than ambivalent to the future of humanity. This further strengthens the idea that God is an all powerful being with only the best in mind for humanity, unlike His pagan counterparts. Lastly, in regards to the reasons for survival of each protagonist, Noah survives because God chose only the most righteous to survive and spread his righteousness to his descendants after the flood. In the stories in Gilgamesh and Atrahasis, the protagonists survive because of a fluke. No humans were supposed to survive, yet Atrahasis and Utnapishtim are specifically chosen as the favorites of gods to survive. Neither Atrahasis nor Utnapishtim have any redeeming qualities like Noah. This strengthens the idea that in religions that believe in the Noah story that being righteous is the best way to live, because one day, it might save you from total human
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