I just finished reading the Epic not too long ago. No real reason is not given for the Deluge although perhaps an interpretation can be made (see below). The Bible says it’s because of the wickedness of man, but the Epic of Gilgamesh is not so clear on exactly why. Gilgamesh is wandering the world after the death of his beloved friend Enkidu. He decides he wants to be immortal so he finds an man named Uta-napishti aka Utnapishtim (The Epic’s “Noah” character) who was granted immortality by the gods after surviving the Deluge. Keep in mind that there are different versions to some sections of the Epic known from different tablets, but in the version I read by Penguin Classics there was only one variant of the Deluge section. Perhaps though, there was another version known in antiquity where a reason for the Deluge is given.
The summary of the story strongly parallels the Biblical account. The chief gods, encouraged by Enlil (who had some previous encounters with Gilgamesh in the Epic), gather in secret and decide to send the Deluge to wipe man from the Earth. One of the gods who had been sworn to secrecy decides he wants to save one man, Utnapishtim and his family. This god, Ea, whispers to Utnapishtim through a reed and gives him instructions on building a great boat and tells him to save every living thing on the Earth. The Deluge comes, it kills everyone on the planet and turns them into clay, but Utnapistim and his family survive. After 7 days the Deluge ends and the story continues to strongly parallel the Bible. A dove is sent from the boat, a sparrow is sent forth and then a raven is sent forth. None of the birds can find land so Utnapishtim makes a sacrifice to the gods of sweet smelling wood (cedar, myrtle, etc). This attracts their attention like flies to the sweet smell. Enlil is enraged to discover someone survived the Deluge, but Ea defends Utnapishtim by saying:
“On him who transgresses, inflict the crime”
I can only assume that Ea is saying that man has transgressed because it doesn’t make sense to say that Enlil has transgressed (he’s a god!). This interpretation is not given in book I have, but maybe this is what it means.
and then a couple of lines later Ea says:
“Instead of your causing the Deluge, a lion could have risen and diminished the people!”
3 other ways of killing SOME of mankind are listed next. The Epic is written in the style where a statement is repeated multiple times kind of like how the Bible will make a statement and then say the same thing worded a little differently.
To me this echoes the passage in the Bible where God says he’ll never destroy the Earth by flood again because it was so destructive. In the Epic Ea tells Enlil that he could have destroyed SOME of the people on the Earth to punish them, but in a less destructive way.
This part of the Epic ends with Utnapishtim and his wife being given immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh sought out Utnapishtim because he too wants immortality. This is a central theme to the Epic. Gilgamesh (and Enkidu earlier in the Epic) does grand things. He’s like a proto-hercules. A Herculean character in the ancient world would, I guess, want to be immortal. In the end though, immortality eludes Gilgamesh and it is implied that he comes to the realization that his name will live on forever through his accomplishments and the things he creates (the great city of Uruk for example).
There is one difference I find striking. The number of days that it rained. 7 days in the Epic, if I remember correctly. 40 days in the Bible story.
Why was 40 important? In the Bible, we have Moses wandering the wilderness for 40 years, the lifespan of a wicked generation. Again, Jesus was in the desert for 40 days before being tempted by the devil.
Was 40 important in purification in Middle Eastern culture?
I figure it must mean something because 7 is a very important number as well. So there would be no reason to change it from one sacred number (7) to another (40) unless there was an underlying message.
Oh Wow.
From the source of all sources, Wikipedia.
- ** you do not have permission to see this link **). Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number.”
A large number of myths about Enki have been collected from many sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He figures in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times.
The exact meaning of his name is uncertain: the common translation is “Lord of the Earth”: the Sumerian en is translated as a title equivalent to “lord”; it was originally a title given to the High Priest; ki means “earth”; but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning “mound”. The name Ea is allegedly Hurrian in origin while others claim that it is possibly of Semitic origin and may be a derivation from the West-Semitic root *hyy meaning “life” in this case used for “spring”, “running water.” In Sumerian E-A means “the house of water”, and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to the God at Eridu.
In the “The Atrahasis epic” The humans multiply, and the people begin to make too much noise as the population increases. The god of Earth, Enlil, can’t bear the racket and decides to eliminate the source of the noise by destroying all humanity.
If memory serves the theory was that the flood story was used from “The Atrahasis epic” when creating “The Gilgamesh Epic”.
Am a bit rusty in this area as it’s been a while since I studied them.
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