The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible

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Sometimes people annoy me when they seem to call anyone who wasn’t Jewish or Christian a Pagan. And a lot of people do. Paganism is not anything besides Christian. Onetime I was reading an article on how Cyrus was a Pagan and allowed the Jews freedom and he was called a messiah in Isaiah.
Cyrus most likely was Not, and Darius definitely was not a Pagan. They were Zoroastrians. Which taught a dualistic religion somewhat like Manichaeism did in the 4th-7th centuries as a rival to Christianity . But Zoroastrianism definitely was not pagan. Pagan is like ancestor and nature worship. Zoroastrianism is sometimes noted as the first Monotheistic religion and magi were Zoroastrian astrologers who knew of the Jewish messiah awaited probably from the assimilation of Jews and Zoroastrians in Babylon. Some actually have wondered if this changed the Jewish people. Notice how before the Babylonian exile the Jews referred to their God as the superior God yet also believed other gods existed and worshipped them when they went astray? Following the exile Jews believed their God was the only God and all others were false.

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing: "Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Ezra 1:1‭-‬2

Ahura Mazda was in Zoroastrianism the good God of wisdom.
Angra Mainyu was the evil opposite God. Thus when he said “The God of heaven” he doesn’t refer to just God but God in heaven because he is referring to the God of heaven Ahura Mazdu.
 
I think one might need to remember that when people were becoming the first Christians according to who we call pagans believed and thought Christians we pagans according to their beliefs. As time went on and Christians became the domoment religion all other religions excluding the hebrew religion were considered pagan religions .

For a long time till maybe after the Jewish exile Jews thought that there were other gods but thought that their God was the superior God. it took the Jews a long time before they came to know that there were no other gods just God.
 
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True actually Justin Martyr defended in his apologies the fact people said Christians were athiests…
 
twf said:
Catholic Biblical scholars DO accept the possibility that the Epic influenced the Biblical tradition. The Holy Spirit inspired those who compiled the Old Testament as we know it, but it is clear that they drew from many sources and many traditions - both written and oral. God works through natural processes… its actually very incarnational when you think of it. The Bible, like Christ Himself, and like the Church, is both divine and human in its origins.
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The Hebrews had the oral tradition first, but the Epic of Gilgamesh was written before the written account of Noah’s Ark. The Biblical account of the Ark was very detailed and precise. I doubt that the craft described in the Epic of G would have been seaworthy.
 
Hi jas84173, I agree as i had read Justin Martyr what writings that have survived.
 
Is there any reason to believe it’s possible this work influenced the Bible writers?
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We could say that both are mostly independent, referencing the same events from different points of view. In other words, these events really happened, and the Jews remember them in their mythology differently than the Mesopotamians.

We could also say that the Hebrews were taking the mythology that pre-ancient people lived by and reinterpreted it into their own mythology in the light of the Holy Spirit. After all, mythology is an art form, and art is not opposed to history. Washington Crossing the Delaware River, for example, is not how the event actually looked like in fact, but it captures what the event looks like in symbolically, in the historical perspective of the nation, etc.

Christi pax.
 
Oh i know. I had to read the Epic of Gilgamesh in college and the professor wasn’t very much a fan of religion and I think he used it as a way to try to make us skeptical , i remember the next class him asking what it reminded us of…

It actually makes me feel even more convinced the events are historical when other writings have the similar narrative.
 
I’d say they were both influenced by a proceeding oral tradition. One was corrupt and the other pure.
 
Carmel said:
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twf:
Catholic Biblical scholars DO accept the possibility that the Epic influenced the Biblical tradition. The Holy Spirit inspired those who compiled the Old Testament as we know it, but it is clear that they drew from many sources and many traditions - both written and oral. God works through natural processes… its actually very incarnational when you think of it. The Bible, like Christ Himself, and like the Church, is both divine and human in its origins.
Click to expand...
The Hebrews had the oral tradition first, but the Epic of Gilgamesh was written before the written account of Noah’s Ark. The Biblical account of the Ark was very detailed and precise. I doubt that the craft described in the Epic of G would have been seaworthy.
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Neither is the craft described in Genesis
 
Tell that to the Answers In Genesis people ;).
Honestly though I personally don’t know whether it would be seaworthy. Do you have a link to an objective analysis of the design as described in Genesis?
 
niceatheist said:
Neither is the craft described in Genesis
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All it has to do is float. Recently a 188 ton concrete and steel dock floated all the way across the Pacific from Japan and landed on the shore of Oregon.
 
No it’s going to have to do more than float. It’s going to have to stay in one piece. If Genesis is correct, then that’s forty days in ocean currents. It’s about more than displacment
 
I agree with this and would add that Gilgamesh may be an oral heresy of the tradition that was handed down from Adam
 
Read the major points side by side. You will quickly realize Giglamesh is a corruption of the Hebrew account.
 
The problem being the Gilgamesh epic predates the Hebrew Noah story by well over a thousand years.
 
I don’t even get why people get so offended. Just because Gilgamesh may be older doesn’t mean the Genesis story is made up or something. I think it shows more merit when a story from a different culture has a similar take.
The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest compete writing we have. Yes it predates Genesis. It’s very possible the Hebrews talked about it orally, then again it’s just as probable the Epic was written before Abraham was even called to leave Mesopotamia.
 
One thing is certain, there werent any Hebrews when Gilgamesh was written,
 
There was perhaps a people who held to a tradition handed down from Adam?
 
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We do not know that. Recent findings show the Hebrew language is older than we thought.
 
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