Timeline for Which flood story was first: Genesis or The Epic of Gilgamesh?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Sep 12, 2023 at 18:53 | comment | added | cmw | @Tsundoku Yes, it's likely the Gilgamesh epic borrowed a separate myth and worked it into the main poems. But my remark (deleted for embarrassing, phone-induced typos--feel free to fix those two typos if you undelete it) was in response to the second comment stating that Gilgamesh dates to 1400 BCE. I was only point out (a few years too late, I guess!) that the Sumerian poems antedate that. I wasn't commenting on the flood narrative. | |
| Sep 12, 2023 at 17:28 | comment | added | Tsundoku | @cmw None of the Sumerian Gilgamesh texts that I am aware of is about a flood. There is a Sumerian creation myth that describes a flood, but that myth does not involve Gilgamesh. | |
| Apr 13, 2017 at 13:00 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://mythology.stackexchange.com/ with https://mythology.stackexchange.com/
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| Mar 22, 2017 at 15:03 | vote | accept | James Jenkins | ||
| Feb 9, 2017 at 15:01 | comment | added | LegendaryDude | Both written texts refer to the flood, but the flood is thought to have happened much earlier in human history, long before humans were writing anything. Very early ancient texts are notoriously inaccurate in regards to timing; for example, the Sumerian king lists tell us that the first Sumerian kings ruled for tens of thousands of years. There is a strong possibility that both texts refer to the same flood, as both regard the same region of the world and would have been affected similarly by the floods created by melt at the end of the last glacial period, ending roughly around 10000 BCE. | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 21:24 | history | edited | user8 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 22, 2017 at 21:12 | history | edited | user8 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
expanded some of the points, to address the comments
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| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:53 | comment | added | user8 | @Riker "In the intervening years, it is true, it had become clear that what Smith had discovered, the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, was derivative" - Moran, William L. “Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood.” Biblica, vol. 52, no. 1, 1971, pp. 51–61. www.jstor.org/stable/42609705. | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:33 | comment | added | user72 | @Yannis yes, I did before posting my answer. My point still stands though, you should probably provide a source (even if it is just "from showing many similarities"). | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:32 | comment | added | user8 | @Riker Have you ever read Gilgamesh? | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:30 | comment | added | user8 | @amaranth Our current understanding is that the books of the Pentateuch were created sometime in the 6th century BCE. With that authorship date for Genesis, there's no question to answer, Gilgamesh is clearly earlier by a few centuries. That said, some scholars may stick to the widely disputed 1400 BCE date. My intent was to show that even then, the flood story in Gilgamesh is older (by virtue of originating in Atra-Hasis), even if the earliest known copy of it might be around the same age or slightly younger than Genesis. | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:30 | comment | added | user72 | This isn't an answer to the question as it stands, which specifically asks "Which of the 2 is first", not "What is the earliest flood story". You may want to address that. Also, do you have a source for the "was seemingly adapted" claim? | |
| Jan 22, 2017 at 19:00 | history | edited | user8 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jan 22, 2017 at 16:15 | history | answered | user8 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |