Can Catholics read books like "Epic of Gilgamesh"?

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edjlopez23 said:
Can catholics read books like “Epic of Gilgamesh” for example? I don’t think there’s explicit depiction or anything romantic, but it seems to contain homosexual friendship. I wonder if reading that book be bad or sinful because of what it entails.
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Yes, it’s fine. Depending on a person’s profession they might end up reading a large amount of that kind of material, but it’s fine for anybody.
 
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edjlopez23 said:
Can catholics read books like “Epic of Gilgamesh” for example? I don’t think there’s explicit depiction or anything romantic, but it seems to contain homosexual friendship. I wonder if reading that book be bad or sinful because of what it entails.
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First of all, friendship between men is just fine and should be more encouraged rather than shied away from for fear of homosexual overtones.

Second, while there certainly are overtones in Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s friendship, nothing but very strong friendship is ever described. Contrast that with the lengthy and explicit description of Enkidu’s civilizing-via-sex by the priestess Shamhat.
 
The only books Catholics can’t read are on the Index of Forbidden Books, and I doubt that Gilgamesh made that list. Why would it? It’s our oldest epic poem.
 
Meh

That’s how our society nowadays insist on reading every relationship as sexual.

The friendship between Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings is now seen as homosexual.
 
Usagi said:
First of all, friendship between men is just fine and should be more encouraged rather than shied away from for fear of homosexual overtones.
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Is friendship so out of favor these days that it is now considered sinful?

So a man and a woman can’t be friends because of the temptation of fornication and friendship between two men or two women is also forbidden because of homosexuality.

We’re not supposed to be friends?
 
tomarin said:
The only books Catholics can’t read are on the Index of Forbidden Books, and I doubt that Gilgamesh made that list. Why would it? It’s our oldest epic poem.
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The Index of Forbidden Books was abolished in 1966. While it is claimed that the list retains some level of “moral force,” honestly, the often centuries-old works that were on the old index (including works by Voltaire, Erasmus, Francis Bacon, Rousseau, Descartes etc.) pose a lot less risk to the Faith than the zillion anti-Catholic websites that are a few clicks away from every home. To put the criteria for being on the Index into perspective, at one time “Les Miserables” was on the Index, though I suspect those who saw the movie didn’t experience a crisis of faith.
 
I hope so, I listened to an audiobook of it many years ago. I was fascinated by the similarities of the Flood story and the fact that it is “one of” the oldest pieces of literature in the world.
 
This is interesting. My 10th grade son just read it for English class. I sort of helped him a little come up with ideas for an essay on it.
 
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