Bible -- Antiquities; Bible. Old Testament -- Evidences, authority, etc.
Some of the gods joined in with this prayer and as a result a mythical
being, partly divine, partly human, and partly animal, was created and
dispatched to Erech for the destruction of Gilgamesh. This composite
hero bears a great many different names, but the earliest accepted form
in the Babylonian account was Enkedu. Gilgamesh, learning that an enemy
had been created for his destruction, exercised craft and lured Enkedu
to the city of Erech. The two became fast friends and set out finally to
do battle with a mighty giant named Khumbaba. When they arrived at his
castle, they besieged and captured the stronghold of the giant, whom
they slew. They carried off his head as a trophy and returned to Erech
to celebrate their victory.
The plan of the gods being thus frustrated, the goddess Ishtar besought
her father Anu to create a mighty bull to destroy Gilgamesh. The bull
being formed and dispatched upon its duty, also failed of its purpose
when Enkedu and Gilgamesh vanquished the animal after a tremendous
battle. And so on, the story goes with episode after episode,
culminating with a crisis in the account of the deluge.
In this climax, in a notable and fascinating manner, we see again the
coincidence of tradition with a record of the Scripture. In the
Babylonian account of the deluge, every major premise of the Mosaic
record is sustained in its entirety. The Gilgamesh account tells of the
heavenly warning, it depicts the gathering of material and the building
of an ark. In the ark was safely carried the hero, his wife and his
family with certain beasts of the earth for seed. The ark of the
Gilgamesh episode was made water tight with bitumen exactly as was the
ark of Noah in the record in the Book of Genesis. Entering this ark, the
Babylonian account tells how the boat came under the direct supervision
of the gods. On the same night a mighty torrent fell out of the skies.
The cloudburst continued for six days and nights, until the tops of the
mountains were covered. The sea arose out of its banks and helped to
overflow the land. After the seventh day, the storm abated and the sea
decreased. By that time, however, the whole human race had been
destroyed with the exception of the little company who had been within
the Babylonian ark.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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