Every culture has a flood narrative. If you think about it, flood was the greatest fear of ancient people. Floods wiped out their only source of food, devastated entire civilizations, and changed the landscape, often permanently. Civilizations were often built near major rivers, such as the city-state of Sumer between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq. We have two flood narratives from the Middle East. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the "Noah" character is Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh, half god and half man, is on a quest for immortality, and he seeks out the survivor of the flood. Utnapishtim gives his account of the flood. There are similarities when compared to the Old Testament account. Both Utnapishtim and Noah bring two of every animals onto the boat and save their families. Both send birds to find land. But in the Sumerian epic, a raven comes back with a sprig of vegetation, while in the Bible version a dove comes back with signs of life. The dove in the Old Testament symbolizes a return to peace between God and man. The Sumerians, like the Greeks and Egyptians, believed that when people died, they went to the Underworld. There was no reward or paradise waiting for them. The raven emphasizes grief and darkness of so many flood deaths while the dove illustrates the Hebrew belief in the relationship between man and God, restored after the flood.
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September 2019
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