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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A six page look at these two ancient stories in terms of their philosophy toward the continuity of life. The paper suggests that the Sumerians, in fact, felt that since death was the end of everything, humans’ responsibility is to live vigorously and well; the Hebrews, on the other hand, found their own “salvation” in community and tradition, which insured an ongoing and consistent expression of faith despite the deaths of individual members. Bibliography lists
seven sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KBgilga.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
enough distance from these stories to evaluate them objectively. Yet in a comparison of the Biblical book of Genesis with the ancient Sumerian text Gilgamesh, many parallels suggest that the
same type of spiritual searching inspired the composition of both works. In addition, it would seem that both cultures shared a concern for the nature of human life, and how
its brevity affects the way life should be lived. However, the conclusions each culture derived from their observations are very different, and this led them to develop very different philosophies
of life. Gilgamesh is an interesting document because it contains several episodes in common with the Judeo-Christian Bible. For example, John Noss notes that "The original flood story was Sumerian
and came out of grim experiences of the overflowing of the two rivers [the Tigris and the Euphrates]. Several of the later versions of the tale, mostly fragmentary, have come
down to us. The finest of these forms part of the Gilgamesh epic, into which it was inserted as an interesting interpolation. According to this narrative, the gods decided in
anger to punish mans sins by a flood. Their secret decision was revealed to one man. The good god Ea felt kindly toward Utnapishtim [Gilgameshs ancestor] and told him about
it. The man proceeded immediately to build an ark" (Noss, 38). Marietta Moskin agrees that many of the earliest Hebrew stories derived from the Sumerians. She writes that, "The
authors of Genesis surely must have looked around to see what other people thought about creation. And there was quite a lot. There were the Sumerian Seven Tablets of Creation;
there was the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic. . . ." (Moskin, 30). Thus the similarities should not surprise us -- right down to the reason God was supposed to have
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