Tag: Gilgamesh

Does the Epic of Gilgamesh Undermine Our Trust in the Bible?

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In my previous post on Gilgamesh, Richard Dawkins and the “new atheism”, I mentioned how some people have made the claim that the Bible borrowed, copied, or stole certain stories from other Ancient Near East mythology. This argument essentially says that the Bible should therefore not be taken as an accurate historical account, but merely as “Jewish mythology.”

What is the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Considered one of the earliest works of literature, the Epic of Gilgamesh is a Sumerian epic poem which tells the story of a cataclysmic flood, and the salvation of a righteous man on a boat. Portions of the story have been found, which archaeologists date back to 2100 BC. A full version of the poem was unearthed in the mid-19th century, dating back to 650 BC.

Similarities between the two stories

There are many similarities between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the story of Noah and the flood in the Old Testament. The story goes that the god Ea, the creator of the Earth, decided to end all life on Earth with a great flood. Ea selected Ut-Napishtim (or Utnapishtim) to construct a six-story square ark and save himself and a few others.

Further similarities:

  • God, or several gods, decided to destroy humankind because of wickedness.
  • A righteous man was chosen to build a boat in order to be saved, along with some animals.
  • Both end with a divine promise not to destroy the Earth again by a flood.

Differences between the stories

  • In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the flood only lasts 6 days and 7 nights, whereas in the Bible it lasts 40 days and 40 nights.
  • The Bible says that water didn’t only fall from the sky, but came up from beneath the surface of the Earth.
  • In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the boat come to rest on a mountain called Nisir, whereas in the Bible the ark came to rest on Mount Ararat. The two are about 300 miles apart.
  • In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim received eternal life, whereas Noah died.

Other Flood Accounts

Hundreds of flood traditions have been preserved all over the world, with examples being found in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, as well as both of the Americas, and most share similarities with the Genesis account.

About 95% describe a global cataclysmic flood, 88% tell of a family of humans saved from drowning to reestablish the human race after the flood, 66% say the family was forewarned, 66% blame the wickedness of man for the flood, and 70% record a boat as being the means by which the family (and animals) survived the flood. More than one third of these traditions mention birds being sent out from the boat. [1]

Who Copied Whom?

If, as ALL these stories purport, we all descended from the one family that survived this world-wide cataclysmic flood, then it would make sense that this story would be passed on and re-told in people groups around the world. Thus, accounts like the Epic of Gilgamesh and others which tell the story of a flood only serve to reenforce the idea that such a flood did take place. Interpretation of why it took place, it could also be expected, would differ as each culture would run it through the framework of their particular religious beliefs.

The biggest question is: which account should be considered the authoritative one, which correctly conveys the facts and meaning of the flood?

For the answer, we would do well to consider the nature of the different texts, and this historicity of other Old Testament writings.

On my trip to Israel earlier this year, I was able to witness firsthand how archaeology is consistently proving that the Bible accurately portrays history. (See: Why Should Christians Visit Israel?)  In other words: the Bible purports to tell history (not mythology), and it has a proven track record of doing so accurately.

Given the Jews’ reputation for passing down information scrupulously from one generation to another and maintaining a consistent reporting of events, Genesis is considered by historians and archaeologists to be far more historical than the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is regarded as mythological because of its numerous gods and their interrelationships and intrigues in deciding the fate of humankind. [2]

Thus, we can be confident of two things: that a flood did happen, and that the Bible not only purports to tell history, but has been proven to do so accurately.

Does the Epic of Gilgamesh undermine our trust in the Bible? No. If anything it bolsters our trust in the historicity of the flood.

Gilgamesh, Richard Dawkins, & the Problem of Facts

Published on by nickcady1 Comment

Earlier this year I added a page on this site where readers can submit questions or suggest topics. Recently I’ve received some questions both on that page and on Calvary Live regarding the Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient Near East text which contains a flood narrative.

Some people claim that this text proves that the biblical story of Noah and the flood is just borrowed, or stolen, from other ancient Near Eastern mythology, and is not to be taken literally. This is part of a larger conspiracy theory which claims that much of Christianity is actually borrowed, or stolen, from other ancient Near Eastern mythologies, e.g. that Jesus was just borrowed from the Egyptian story of Horus and Isis.

Over the course of the next several posts, I will address various aspects of this conspiracy, and show why no real scholars believe this is true. The reason? Because it is simply not factual. It requires building a narrative which only sounds plausible until its claims are checked, at which time it becomes clear that they are not based on actual facts, research, or history.

Richard Dawkins & the Folk Religion of the New Atheism

Richard Dawkins is what you might call an “evangelical atheist”, which means that he isn’t content with just being an atheist himself, he is on a mission to convert the world to his views.

In his recent book, which is aimed specifically at converting children and young people to his brand of atheism, he claims that the Old Testament story of Noah comes from a Babylonian myth, the legend of Utnapishtim, which in turn was taken from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.

This claim caught the attention of George Heath-Whyte, a researcher at Cambridge who specializes in Assyriology and Near East history. Heath-Whyte then took to Twitter and wrote a scathing thread of tweets exposing the slew of factual errors in Dawkins’ book.

This was recently covered in an article on The Spectator titled, “If Richard Dawkins loves facts so much, why can’t he get them right?” The article summarizes the inaccuracies identified by Heath-Whyte in his chain of tweets.

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Here are a few highlights:

‘Well let’s start with “The Utnapishtim story … comes from the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.” WHAT. The version of the Gilgamesh story that contains the flood narrative of Utnapishtim is NOT written in Sumerian, but Babylonian (Akkadian).

‘There are older Sumerian stories about the character Gilgamesh, none of which contain a flood story. There is even a Sumerian flood story too, but it’s not the flood story he’s talking about.

‘It seems he’s talking about a weird mix of one Babylonian flood story about a guy called Atrahasis and another Babylonian flood story about Utnapishtim (the latter being a part of the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh)…

‘… but come on Dawkins, even Wikipedia could have told you that neither of these were written in Sumerian.’

That’s pretty embarrassing for a man who had just told Krishnan Guru-Murthy that he wants ‘to rid the world of all claims that are not evidence-based’. But Heath-Whyte was just getting into his stride.

‘Problem no. 2: “Arguably the world’s oldest work of literature, [Gilgamesh] was written two thousand years earlier than the Noah story.”

‘So he’s just stated that Genesis was written “during the Babylonian captivity” (sixth century BC), and now he’s stated that (what we assume he means to be) the epic of Atrahasis, or the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, was written 2,000 years earlier – so roughly 2600-2500 BC.

‘Most likely Atrahasis was written less than 1,300 years before the Babylonian captivity, and the version of Gilgamesh that included a flood story was probably finished less than 1,000 years before the Babylonian captivity, and likely quite a few centuries less than a thousand.

From the above-linked article:

Other mistakes identified by Heath-Whyte: Dawkins mixes up the animals in the Gilgamash and Genesis flood stories, and claims that the Sumerian flood legend, like the story of Noah’s Ark, ends with a rainbow. 

‘There’s no rainbow mentioned in any Mesopotamian flood story. Anywhere. There just isn’t,’ says Heath-Whyte, adding that in any case the former Oxford professor for the Public Understanding of Science has misidentified a Sumerian god. 

I think we can take Heath-Whyte’s word for it. Not only can he read the cuneiform in which Gilgamesh is written, but he can also write it.

If These Claims Are Not Historically Accurate, Where Do They Come From?

Continuing from the above-mentioned article:

Just when Dawkins must be wishing that a non-existent God would send a flood to cover his embarrassment, he delivers the killer blow. As he says, even Wikipedia would have put the professor right on these matters. So what was his source? ‘A quick Google search suggests that Dawkins’ source for a lot of this stuff may be a cute little website called HistoryWiz.’

I checked, and he’s right: this is the version of the Gilgamesh as mangled by HistoryWiz, which invites you to ‘step into the past… Let the wizard take you to a different time’. 

Alas, it looks as if you really do have to step into the past in order to consult the wizard. The site is ‘copyright 1998-2008’, there are loads of broken links and the design, c. 2000, is quaintly rudimentary. 

It seems clear that Richard Dawkins and others who make these claims about Gilgamesh are so committed to the conclusion they already religiously believe, that they are not concerned with real scholarship when it comes to creating their narrative.

The “New Atheism,” we might say, is a kind of folk religion which has its own shared beliefs, stories, and mythos, which are not actually based on fact or history.

In my next article I will explain what the Epic of Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim character are, and how we should understand them in relation to the Bible.

Following that, I will discuss the “Jesus Myth” and the theory that what the New Testament says about Jesus is borrowed from ancient Egyptian and Near East mythology. What I hope to show in the end, is that these theories do not hold up to even the most basic fact-checking scrutiny, and are part of a mythos created by New Atheists and other who would try to discredit the Bible and erode faith in it.

A further question which follows from this is: Why are some people opposed to Christianity and the Bible? – a question which I plan to address as well.