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The ANE Desk
Old Testament passages beside the ancient Near Eastern texts they are compared with, and what Israel does with what it shares.
Never again
After the sacrifice, heaven turns away from wiping out humankind. In Gilgamesh one god talks another down. In Genesis the Lord resolves it himself and makes a covenant with every living creature.
Genesis 8:21-22, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: who decides there will not be another flood, and why? After the fire, the town council voted never to burn the field again. That could be a change of heart, or one member finally out-arguing the rest. You need to know who was in the room. Who is in the room in Genesis 8 and 9?
Lay upon the sinner his sin, / Lay upon the transgressor his transgression,
Both stories turn, right after the sacrifice, from total destruction to a limit on it. In Gilgamesh Ea tells Enlil to punish the guilty one, and would rather a lion, a wolf, famine or plague had wasted mankind than the flood. King says the subject matter of Ea's speech is reflected in both Hebrew versions: in one the Lord smells the offering and says he will never again destroy every living creature, in the other God makes his covenant and sets his bow in the clouds.
In Gilgamesh the god who sent the flood is angry anyone lived. Enlil asks, "Has any of these mortals escaped?" Another god has to argue him round, and in Atrahasis Enki says openly, "I did it, in defiance of you!" In Genesis no one argues with the Lord. He makes the promise in his own heart, then a covenant with Noah, his descendants and every living creature. Ut-napishtim is made immortal and taken away to live at the mouth of the rivers. Noah stays mortal and is sent to fill the earth.
The turn in the plot is shared, which is why King pairs the passages. The content of the two turns differs more than a summary shows. Ea does not promise mercy; he proposes other ways to kill fewer people. Reading his speech as the counterpart of the covenant is a pairing on subject matter, King's, and it should be held that loosely. King also found an echo of Ea's argument, that the sinner bears his own sin, in Ezekiel 18.
Not a claim that the rainbow comes from Gilgamesh. The bow in the clouds has no counterpart in the Gilgamesh passage read here.
- N. K. Sandars, trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh, ch. 5, The Story of the Flood
- L. W. King, Legends of Babylon and Egypt in Relation to Hebrew Tradition, Schweich Lectures 1916, Lecture II, section V, and Lecture III
- Stephanie Dalley, trans., Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford), Atrahasis, Tablet III, column vi
