Ancient Stories Of The Flood :: essays research papers

Stories of a primeval flood exist in all parts of the world, virtually every branch of the human race has traditions of a Great Flood that destroyed all of mankind, except one family.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The closest parallel to the Biblical story of the flood occurs in the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, our fullest version of which is furnished by an Akkadian recension prepared, in the seventh century B.C. for the great library of King Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. The story itself is far older. We have fragments of versions dating as much as a thousand years earlier, and we possess also portions of a Summerian archetype.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the Mesopotamian version: the gods apparently displeased with the evils of mankind decided to destroy it by means of a great flood. Ea, the god of wisdom and subtlety, was privy to their council and warned Utnapishtim, the Babylonian Noah, of the coming disaster. Utnapishtim was told to build a ship thirty cubits long and thirty cubits wide. Provision it and put in it specimens of every living thing. Then to board it with his family and possessions and launch it on the waters.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  For six days and nights the wind and flood raged. On the seventh day the flood abated. Everything, including mankind, had turned to mud and clay.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Utnapishtim sent out a dove on the seventh day but it came back. He then sent out a swallow, but it came back. Finally he sent out a raven. The raven, however, saw that the waters had receded; it found food, and started to caw and wallow in the mud; it never came back. Eventually the ship grounded on Mount Nisir. Utnapishtim, seeing that the flood had receded, disembarked and set out an offering for the gods.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Enil, “Lord of the underworld,'; was very angry when he saw that Utnapishtim had been spared. He was soon calmed by the other gods and gave his blessing to Utnapishtim and his wife by granting them the gift of immortality and transferring them to a remote island.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Older versions, of which only fragments survive, tell virtually the same story, though the hero is sometimes called Atrahasis, or “Superwise,'; rather than Utnapishtim. In Western Asia the legend of the flood is of Summerian origin, and is now known from the excavations at Kish and Ur to have been based upon an historical catastrophe. In the Summerian version the hero is named Ziusudra, “the long lived.