od and Noah is a man. However, there are numerous similarities between the two accounts of a great flood in these respective works. The Old Testament account of the great flood is Hebrew, while the story of the great flood in Gilgamesh is Babylonian and derives from the Chaldean Flood Tablets of the city of Ur in the Ancient Near East, which is modern day Southern Iraq. The Epic of Gilgamesh is written on twelve large tablets, dating to around 650 B.C. but original fragments of tablets with the flood story on them have been found that date to 2,000 B.C., (Lorey, p. 1). The depictions of the great floods in each of these stories is quite similar however. They are so similar, in fact, that many scholars believe that the Genesis account may derive from Babylonian accounts of the flood or that both were from a source written earlier than either. This analysis will compare and contrast the flood stories in the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Gilgamesh in addition to flood mythology and stories from other Ancient Near East civilizations.
Genesis (Hebrew) and Gilgamesh (Babylonian)
In comparing the texts of the flood story in Genesis and Gilgamesh, one can see the enormous similarities between these two stories. Though Gilgamesh represents paganism and Genesis represent monotheism, the text of the stories are very similar. We see that in both accounts of the flood all of the people and animals of the earth are destroyed in a great flood that covers the earth, leaving only a handful of humans and animals behind. In Genesis we are told, ôAnd the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the high heaven, were coveredàand the mountains were coveredàand all flesh died that moved upon the earthàand every man,ö (McInnis, p. 52).
When we compare this depiction to the account provided in Gilgamesh, we can see they are nearly identical: ôFor one day the south-storm blew, / Gathering ...