The Epic of Gilgamesh Compared to Genesis

It has been argued by my atheist and New Age friends that the Bible writers copied its flood story and other Biblical stories from the Epic of Gilgamesh. Their reasoning is that the Gilgamesh account is much older than the Bible. For example, one friend argued this point: “If you insist on believing all that's written in the Old Testament it is incumbent on you to read the material it's based on. May I suggest the Story of Gilgamesh, on which the story of the biblical flood is based.” He sent me a web address a little later in our discussion on a copy of the Epic poem of Gilgamesh. This ancient text on Gilgamesh is supposedly dated around 2750-2500B.C., whereas the Bible is dated somewhere between 400-1600B.C., which of course seems to make the text of Gilgamesh to be much older than the Biblical text.

The question is—‘Is this true?’ Did the ancient Old Testament prophets borrow their information for the Bible extensively from the Epic poem of Gilgamesh?

Well, consider these facts and decide for yourself which ancient text should be trusted: the Bible or the Epic poem of Gilgamesh?

1. If the Epic of Gilgamesh was indeed written around 2750-2500B.C., then how could he have included the flood in his Epic poem? Since the flood happened around 2300-2400B.C. How could Gilgamesh write about the flood that wasn’t going to come until around 450 years later, unless he was a prophet from God. It makes much better sense to say another author had written the Epic poem of Gilgamesh after the flood. The name of that author was Shin-eqi-unninni.[1] So as you can see for yourself, the date of the epic poem of Gilgamesh was not written by Gilgamesh around 2750-2500B.C. as suggested by my friend’s website address on the ancient text of Gilgamesh. However, based on “Noah’s records found in the Genesis account, and astronomical computer analysis, we have determined that he began building the ark in 2465B.C., with the first rains falling in 2345B.C.”[2] This cannot be said of the flood in Gilgamesh’s Epic.

2. It is interesting to notice how eager skeptics of the Bible are so willing to believe the Biblical writers borrowed from the ancient text of Gilgamesh, instead of considering the strong possibility of the author of Gilgamesh borrowing from the Bible.

3. Another fact to consider is that the Bible records actual eye witness testimonies of God manifested in the flesh through the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ (see Matt. 28:9-10, 16-20; Mark 16:9-20; Luke 24:13-53; John 20:11-29; 21:1-25; Luke 1:2; John 15:27; 20:30-31; Acts 10:39-42; 1 Cor. 15:6-8; 1 Peter 5:1; 2 Peter 1:16; 1 John 1:1-4; 4:14, etc.). Now as for the Epic poem of Gilgamesh, it wasn’t written until much later after the flood. This of course rules out any eye witness account to the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh.

4. Consider the manuscript comparison between the Epic poem of Gilgamesh and the Bible. There are 70 known manuscripts of the ancient text of Gilgamesh. The oldest known copy of this text of Gilgamesh consists of 12 clay tablets. Many of these are fragmented and damaged and even in the most standard complete version of the poem the text has many gaps. A passage for example can look something like this: “He is not….., ………. The boatman….., the man who….., who…..” Now compare the number of manuscripts of the Bible. There are around 24, 000 Old and New Testament manuscripts to date. Over 5, 000 of those are New Testament. This is more than any other ancient manuscript available. “The reliability of the NT is established because the number, date, and accuracy of its manuscripts enable reconstruction of the original text with more precision than any other ancient text.”[3]

AUTHOR	BOOK		DATE	COPIES
Caesar	Gallic Wars		900A.D.	10
Plato	Tetralogies		900A.D.	7
Tacitus	Annals		1, 100A.D.	20
Pliny the Younger	History		850A.D.	7
Suetonius	De Vita Caesarum		950A.D.	8
Homer	Iliad		400B.C.	643
Shin-eqi-unninni	Gilgamesh Epic		2700B.C.?[4]	70
Various	New Testament	125A.D.		24, 000+

5. The fact that the Gilgamesh account of the flood so closely resembles that of the Genesis flood lends to the credibility of the Biblical account of the flood, as does the flood accounts of every single civilization around the world, whether by oral tradition or by written account.

6. In the chart below by Jonathan Safarti is a comparison of the two flood stories between Gilgamesh and the Genesis account from the Bible.

Comparison of Genesis and Gilgamesh8
	Genesis	Gilgamesh
Extent of flood	Global	Global
Cause	Man’s wickedness	Man’s sins
Intended for whom?	All mankind	One city & all mankind
Sender	Yahweh	Assembly of “gods”
Name of hero	Noah	Utnapishtim
Hero’s character	Righteous	Righteous
Means of announcement	Direct from God	In a dream
Ordered to build boat?	Yes	Yes
Did hero complain?	No	Yes
Height of boat	Three stories	Seven stories
Compartments inside?	Many	Many
Doors	One	One
Windows	At least one	At least one
Outside coating	Pitch	Pitch
Shape of boat	Oblong box	Cube
Human passengers	Family members only	Family and few others
Other passengers	All kinds of land animals (vertebrates)	All kinds of land animals
Means of flood	Underground water & heavy rain	Heavy rain
Duration of flood	Long (40 days & nights plus)	Short (6 days & nights)
Test to find land	Release of birds	Release of birds
Types of birds	Raven & three doves	Dove, swallow, raven
Ark landing spot	Mountains—of Ararat	Mountains—Mt Nisir
Sacrificed after flood?	Yes, by Noah	Yes, by Utnapishtim
Blessed after flood?	Yes	Yes

7. Grant R. Jeffreys during one of his study trips to London, England wrote this interesting observation between the names Nuh-napishtim and Gilgamesh. “This ancient Babylonian clay tablet was created more than four millennia ago and contains one of the most important inscriptions from the earliest days of humanity. The Deluge Tablet is the eleventh book of the Chaldean Epic of Gilgamesh (dated 2200 B.C.). The person known as Gilgamesh is called Nimrod, the builder of the original city of Babylon, as recorded in Genesis 11. The epic poem, Epic of Gilgamesh, recounts the story of the flood as given to Gilgamesh by an older relative, a man named Nuh-napishtim, (also called Atrahasis) known as “the very wise or pious.” This Nuh-napishtim is the Babylonian name for Noah.”[5]

8. It is important to note that the biblical account of the Flood stands alone as the true historical account of the flood, whereas all other accounts of the flood story around the world not only conflict with one another about the great flood, but are also mythological in nature compared to the Genesis account. Noted author, Dave Hunt makes this insightful comment about perverted mythologies verses the truth of the Bible. “The biblical account alone has the factual ring of history rather than myth. It fits the rest of the Bible and agrees with what we know of mankind’s history to the present time. Thus the biblical account stands on one side and all of the others, in spite of their similarities to the Genesis story, stand together in opposition to it. That distinction between the Bible and all other accounts is significant. It indicates that the biblical account was not borrowed from the others. Clearly, all non-biblical accounts originated from the same historical events, and their differences developed later. The pagan myths all vary from one another, so none can be trusted as authentic. They must have all become perverted in one way or another. Inasmuch as the biblical account is consistent with the rest of the Bible, it can claim the same infallibility of inspiration as all of God’s Word. The pagan accounts are similar enough to confirm the biblical account, but different enough so that the later stands alone as the only authentic record. The biblical account does not originate from oral tradition handed down from generation to generation (and thus it escapes the inevitable error inherent in such a process); but it was given by inspiration of God.”[6]

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[1] Here is an interesting short synopsis on this author, “Gilgamesh was an historical king of Uruk in Babylonia who lived c. 2700 B.C. Many stories were written about Gilgamesh, but the fullest surviving version of the story of Gilgamesh was written by Shin-eqi-unninni, in Akkadian, on twelve tablets and was found in the ruins of the library of Ashurbanipal of Assyria (669-633 B.C.). This is known as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Among other elements, the Epic of Gilgamesh contains a Babylonian flood story.” 

[2] David W. Balsiger and Charles E. Sellier, Miraculous Messages, (Bridge-Logos, Alachua, Florida, 2008), pg. 14.

[3] Norman L. Geisler, The Apologetics Study Bible [HCSB], (Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 2007), pg. 468.

[4] As already mentioned in my notes, this date 2750-2500B.C. is in error, since it was not written until much later after the flood by an author named Shin-eqi –unninni around 2200B.C.

[5] Grant R. Jeffreys, Unveiling Mysteries of the Bible, (Frontier Research Publications, Inc., Toronto, Can., 2002), pg. 47.

[6] Dave Hunt, In Defense of the Faith, (Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, Oregon, 1996), pg. 121-122.