Comparing The Flood Stories

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The Epic of Gilgamesh and the flood story of Noah, both have their similarities and their differences. In both stories a great flood takes place, you could call it God’s or the gods’ great purge. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the gods wanted to wipe out mankind because they were too noisy and the gods were not able to sleep. I then thought to myself that this wasn’t a good enough reason to kill off mankind. If they were all powerful gods couldn’t they have somehow blocked out all the sounds of mankind or even send some kind of warning to the people? In the Book of Genesis God decided that mankind was becoming too wicked, and God was sorry he created them. (Gen. 6:6). I thought that God’s reason made more sense to me; he saw his creation become something he had not intended it to be corrupted and full of evil and he could not stand it. In The Epic of Gilgamesh the gods planned to wipe out everyone, but the god Ea decides to warn Utnapishtim because he was a worshiper of him. So Ea finds favor in Utnapishtim. He delivers his warning to Ut when he is asleep and dreaming. Ea tells him to tear down his house and build a boat. Ea also tells him to lie to his neighbors so that they could help him build the boat. In all the boat took seven days to be built. Ut’s boat was two hundred feet tall and had six stories. What I found to be interesting is that Ut’s boat was very cube like; that’s terrible craftsmanship if you ask me. Ut took himself, his family, and craftsmen from the city, animals, food, jewels and gold. In Genesis Noah was chosen by God because he was the only man who found grace in His eyes (Gen. 6:8). God warned Noah directly and told him what was coming. Noah tried to preach of the impending doom but he was ignored. So Noah and his family built the ark. It took Noah and his family a hundred years to build the ark; it was thirty cubits high and it had three
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