An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic — John Shaqi
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh EpicJastrow, Morris
General
An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic
Jastrow, Morris
Epic poetry, Assyro-Babylonian
We now obtain, thanks to the new section revealed by the Pennsylvania
tablet, a further analogy [107] with the story of Adam and Eve,
but with this striking difference, that whereas in the Babylonian
tale the woman is the medium leading man to the higher life, in the
Biblical story the woman is the tempter who brings misfortune to
man. This contrast is, however, not inherent in the Biblical story,
but due to the point of view of the Biblical writer, who is somewhat
pessimistically inclined and looks upon primitive life, when man went
naked and lived in a garden, eating of fruits that grew of themselves,
as the blessed life in contrast to advanced culture which leads
to agriculture and necessitates hard work as the means of securing
one's substance. Hence the woman through whom Adam eats of the tree
of knowledge and becomes conscious of being naked is looked upon as
an evil tempter, entailing the loss of the primeval life of bliss in
a gorgeous Paradise. The Babylonian point of view is optimistic. The
change to civilized life--involving the wearing of clothes and the
eating of food that is cultivated (bread and wine) is looked upon as an
advance. Hence the woman is viewed as the medium of raising man to a
higher level. The feature common to the Biblical and Babylonian tales
is the attachment of a lesson to early folk-tales. The story of Adam
and Eve, [108] as the story of Enkidu and the woman, is told _with
a purpose_. Starting with early traditions of men's primitive life
on earth, that may have arisen independently, Hebrew and Babylonian
writers diverged, each group going its own way, each reflecting the
particular point of view from which the evolution of human society
was viewed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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