On ancient Sumerian tablets we find the epic poem about the adventures of Gilgamesh – parts of this tale correspond roughly to that of Noah’s Flood as described in the Hebrew Bible.

Hi guys welcome back to my channel. Today we’re discussing flood stories in ancient literature that would parallel that of Noah’s Flood story in Genesis and the Hebrew Bible. Okay, just suspend your disbelief for a minute. Everything I’m telling you is historically and archaeologically attested. All right…so let’s roll.

Now the fact remains that every so often a rare discovery occurs that changes our understanding of the world… okay, and today we are talking about such a story. In ancient Mesopotamia, now roughly modern-day Iraq and Kuwait. We have some of the world’s oldest known and surviving literature inscribed on clay tablets. These clay tablets in ancient Mesopotamia are possibly the earliest known writing forms to man. In 1872 when a guy called Smith deciphered the 11th of the twelve tablets the new information was simply mind-blowing. The Epic of Gilgamesh transcribed on the tablets tell us a tale of the Sumerian Gilgamesh’s search for immortality and of his adventures.

In this tale Gilgamesh seeks out the character Utnapishtim to learn the secrets of mortality. We later learn that this Utnapishtim was asked or tasked by Enki the Sumerian Creater God to abandon his earthly possessions and create a giant ship to be called the Preserver of Life. He was told to take his family and animals and grain on this ship, and the flood which would be caused by the Divine, would wipe out all animals and people not on this ship. And when they arrived at a mountain…where this ship… where this ship would rest, a dove and then a raven was sent out to see whether the floodwaters had receded and when it was safe the animals were set out on land again and freed and a sacrifice made to God. And Utnapishtim, and his wife, for their loyalty, were given a place in heaven with the gods and immortality.

All right…and if this whole story sounds familiar it is because to most of us it is…it is familiar because it roughly parallels that of Noah’s Flood story in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran…where God disillusioned with humans causes a flood and commands Noah to build an ark and save his family and a male and female of all living creatures from the waters.

Now it is important to note that the Sumerian version on the cuneiform tablets would predate the Bible by hundreds of years and what is even more interesting…well not more interesting, but what is also interesting…is that historians have pointed out that many cultures have similar type flood stories…like the Native Americans, Asians, the Indians, Chinese and so on. And these flood stories usually date back to a period perhaps before the Bronze Age maybe about 3000 years before Christ or earlier. So was there an actual flood of this magnitude submerging huge land masses thousands of years ago? Some archaeologists and scientists have put forward theories to that regard.

And why is all this important? This piece of history tells us that the ideas we think are modern are not really modern at all. Gilgamesh struggles with the same existential realities that we do as modern humans… what it is to live…what it means to die…and what it means to be immortal in an eternal world, and how human nature differs from that of divinity.

But what do you guys think about Noah’s Flood and the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh – let me know in the comments and hit subscribe for videos every month and thank you so much guys for tuning in, and I’ll be here with you soon again; bye. 🙂