Epic of Gilgamesh vs. the Bible

I wrote this well over 10 years ago and just found it recently.  The article I was referencing no longer exists so I can't finish responding to it.  Here is as far as I got:

In my last online act of 2008, I posted my rendering of the Epic of Gilgamesh set to the tune of American Pie. (I later made another version set to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" for this documentary.)  I did one last online check to make sure there was nothing else I wanted to add. While checking, I came across this website professing to be an Unsucky English Lecture on Gilgamesh. At first, I was rather excited! I agreed with much of what the educator had to say about the state of literature in public schools. But the more I read, the more depressed I became. The author had both an incredibly negative and/or biased (and seemingly ignorant) view of the Bible, Christianity and Gilgamesh. Unfortunately, I think his view was largely influenced Christians and their view of the Bible and Gilgamesh. So I can't really blame him. But I had to address it all the same. The arguments in his five issue series on Gilgamesh seemed to center around five themes:

1. How civilization is good
2. How sex is good
3. How beer, food and other physical pleasures are good
4. How the Bible is A) derivative and B) substandard
5. How Christians are kind of morons

On the first page, he states:

• And boy, I just opened the floodgates to a million evangelists to explain how Jesus marked a change in God’s law, a new covenant, with mercy replacing wrath, et cetera. But I’m going to side with the Jewish people on this one, for the sake of argument, and stick only to their original, non-Christian texts. The Torah above all. I’m talking about that God as the literary character we read about in Jewish religious literature.
  

This is hard, as he so often attacks Christianity directly, but I will try to restrict my responses (for the most part) to Old Testament and, if possible, Torah source material. I guess I'll just address his assertions one at a time. So, let's start at the very beginning. It is, I understand, a very good place to start.

• It (The Epic of Gilgamesh) is one of the coolest books you’ll ever read. It comes from one of the earliest cities, literally, on Earth - but it’s so alien to everything we Judeo-Christian types have been conditioned to think of as “good and evil,” “right and wrong,” that it seems a work of science fiction or fantasy more than anything else.

Agreed. It's very cool. It does come from one of, if not the, earliest cities on Earth. And it's totally different in worldview to what we know today. For the most part, at least.

• It presents a religion that sees sex as a good and holy thing.

Not necessarily agreed. Yes, there were temple prostitutes. Yes, all of the gods engaged in rampant copulation. Yes, most humans did as well. Good? That's a weighted word. Holy? Need to define it. More on this later.

• The Bible is only half that old, with the “Old Testament” reaching its final form around 400 BCE, and the “New Testament” not being slapped together until around 330 CE (or A.D., if you’re out of touch with proper scholarly conventions). So Gilgamesh is more than twice as old as the Bible. The Bible’s a pup compared to this story, and as I’ll argue, the Bible is less wise, in many deep and fundamental ways, than this Sumerian book as well.

Here's where he starts denigrating the Bible. Yes, in it's written form, Gilgamesh is much older. But wiser? That's a huge leap, and one I'm not sure he'd agree with if he really considered Gilgamesh objectively. More on that later.

• It’s a story, then, of humanity basically crowing its pride over creating civilization by creating that Most Needful Thing for civilization to exist at all: a city.

Let's take a moment to address this one. When I use Gilgamesh, I use it as a way to teach man moving from hunter-gatherer to agricultural civilization with all the stability and urbanity that offers. I had not before considered, and must agree with the author of the lectures, that Gilgamesh presents this in a largely postive light. (He offers one caveat later.) In fact, I think I could prove it using the Bible and another Mesopotamian myth (which is referenced in Gilgamesh). Before Ishtar (Inanna/Aphrodite/Venus) marries Dumuzi (Tammuz) and sends him to the underworld in her place, there is a contest between Dumuzi (the shepherd) and Enkimdu (the farmer, not to be confused with Enkidu) over who will mary Ishtar. At first, Ishtar favors Enkimdu because he can give her more. Dumuzi jumps up and says:

The farmer more than I, the farmer more than I, The farmer what has he more than I? If he gives me his black garment, I give him, the farmer, my black ewe, If be gives me his white garment, I give him, the farmer, my white ewe, If he pours me his first date-wine, I pour him, the farmer, my yellow milk, If he pours me his good date-wine, I pour him, the farmer, my kisim-milk If he pours me his 'heart-turning' date-wine, I pour him, the farmer, my bubbling milk, If he pours me his water-mixed date-wine, I pour him, the farmer, my plant-milk, If he gives me his good portions, I give him, the farmer, my nitirda-milk, If he gives me his good bread, I give him, the farmer, my honey-cheese, If he gives me his small beans, I give him my small cheeses; More than he can eat, more than he can drink, I pour out for him much oil, I pour out for him much milk; More than I, the farmer, what has be more than I?

So Enkimdu gives up and leaves. Ishtar, also pressured by her brother Shamash (Utu, the sun god), decides to marry Dumuzi. That is, the deity chooses the shepherd over the farmer although initially choosing the farmer. Skip to Genesis 4, certainly put to papyrus much later than the story I've just told. In this story, Abel (the shepherd) and Cain (the farmer) both offer gifts to God. God chooses the gifts of Abel. Cain, in jealousy, kills Abel. Thus, in this story, the Deity chooses the shepherd first, but through violence the farmer is triumphant. Here's the important part. Cain goes out and makes a city. It's the first city in the Bible and it's built by a farmer who is also a fratricide. So I tend to agree with the author that the Bible holds a somewhat negative view of man-made civilization. Later, Abram is called OUT of Ur (which is in Mesopotamia, so out of civilization) and starts a somewhat nomadic life. Then, the Israelites are called OUT of Egypt. They are counseled NOT to get a king, like everyone else. And so forth. Moving on, here's another claim the author makes:

• We’re so blind today to the seeming magic through which sexual intercourse leads to pregnancy, and pregnancy to the creation of life from the womb of woman, that it takes a bit of imagination-work for us to appreciate how much sense it would make to pre-civilized and first-civilized humans to consider sex, pregnancy and birth, and above all women, as magical, sacred things.

First, there are many kinds of feminist. For example, there are the Maya Angelou types that would agree with this statement. Then there are the Gloria Steinem types who would chafe at it. But let me leave modern interpretations of women to you, and speak of the pre-civilized and first-civilized humans he talks about. This is a half-baked idea, but I noticed something recently. Before cities, the only religious relic that occurs in any regularity is what archaeologists often call Venus figurines. The Venus of Willendorf is an excellent example. They're all breasts and belly and hips, a teenage boy's view of a woman in which everything reproductive is enlarged and enhanced. These are the totems that hunter-gatherer tribes carried. Further, it is my understanding that many of these early tribes were believed to be matriarchal and moon-worshippers. Why? Because fertility was so important to the tribe? Because the moon, which is connected with the tribe, is so important to telling the time of year? I don't know. Here's what I do know. With the advent of agriculture and civilization, the sun became more important. And men. And male gods. In fact, since it's January 1st, let's recall what the ancient Babylonians did to celebrate the New Year. They had a reading of the Enuma Elish from the temple of Marduk. What's the Enuma Elish about? Why, it's the story of how the oldest of the gods, Aspu and Tiamat, were offed by their progeny, specifically Marduk, who killed Tiamat. Marduk is a male, sun god. Tiamat is a female, water goddess. In other words, civilization meant that the male supplanted the female. This is as true in Gilgamesh as in the Enuma Elish. More on that later. The author makes twin assumptions about Biblical vs. Gilgamesh...ian views on sex. Of the Bible he says:

• Ishtar and the Sumerians influenced the Jewish priests who wrote the Bible’s Genesis to make Eve such a bad character in the story, and sex ... such a bad, guilty act.

My problem here is that, although he wants our responses to stay within the OT, he does not himself. He is clearly influenced by Medieval ideas of woman and Eve in particular. In the Genesis account, I find it interesting that Adam and Eve were not aware of any sin until Adam ate of the fruit. "THEN, their eyes were opened." This means one of two things. Either A) Adam bears the responsibility or B) they equally bear the responsibility. Also, I find few places where the OT says sex is bad. Certainly, there are a billion restrictions placed on it in Leviticus. The Brick Testament has some fun, Lego representations of some of these restrictions. But there's also Song of Songs, which is as erotic as the best that Gilgamesh has to offer. So, it seems to me, that the Bible does not say sex is bad. Rather, it is very good, within it's proper boundaries. In fact, the author says Gilgamesh agrees that there is such a thing as bad sex:

• But on the other hand, there was such a thing as “bad sex” in this story - and it’s what gets the plot rolling.

Namely, Gilgamesh is engaging in Prima Nocte with all the local virgins about to get married. But let me address another point the author makes. He asserts that the existence of temple prostitution proves that sex was considered both good and holy and, oh, if only we could be as enlightened.

• So in Uruk, it may have been your duty as a good, gods-fearing citizen, to go to “church” occasionally to have sex with a temple prostitute ... Think of how different it must have been, as a young person entering puberty, not to be shamed for suddenly discovering sexuality, but to instead, I imagine, be congratulated by family and society, maybe brought to “church” - the temple - to have that sexual awakening honored and instructed through some religious initiation.
  

 I'm genuinely shocked that someone who, I assume, considers himself enlightened finds what had to be an exploitative practice to be somehow indicative of a wise and good society with a healthy view of sex.  Let's see what the 5th century BC/BCE historian Herodotus has to say about the practice of temple prostitution in Babylonia:

• The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger at least once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, "I invite you in the name of Mylitta". It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfil the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.

EVERY woman was FORCED to do it.  This seems pretty horrendous.  And how enlightened, using the author's standards, was the Gilgamesh test?  Let's see how Enkidu (best bud of Gilgamesh) himself views the ministrations of Shamat, the temple prostitute sent to him, later. For now, here is the blessing, blessing mind you, that Enkidu gives to Shamat as he is dying:

May the wife, the mother of seven children, be abandoned because of you!

That is the good in Gilgamesh. If that is one of the "good and holy" things that is so alien to this culture, then thank God for that! Moving on, the author continues his attack on the validity of Judaism:

• Second, the Hebrews who first settled Israel over a thousand years after the Gilgamesh story knew this dominant culture, and included many Sumerian myths in the Bible; two well-known examples are the Six-Days’ Creation and Noah and the Flood in Genesis (the Sumerian Noah, Utnapishtim, will be a major character by this story’s end, by the way - and will tell the original and much older Sumerian version of the Flood later adapted in Genesis).

The point being, I assume, that they borrowed all of these things from the Mesopotamians. First, let me argue this from my dad's perspective. He believes in a literal Bible. His argument, and it's plenty valid, is that the existence of multiple flood myths helps to prove the validity of the Bible. Just because the Bible wasn't written first doesn't mean that it's account isn't the true one. While I don't share my dad's viewpoint, I certainly can agree with C.S. Lewis. He spoke of myths which might be factually in error, but which express a greater Truth. It does not make God a liar. He (Lewis) did not believe in a 6 day creation or a literal flood exactly as presented in Genesis. I have somwhat complicated views on the issue. But I do believe that part of the genius of the (YHWH inspired) Jews was that they took the best from every culture and tweaked it to present Truth. In the afore-mentioned Enuma Elish, the elements of the world always existed and the creative process was basically a struggle between the gods. The world isn't good, it's all death and destruction from the get-go. (Compare to Norse mythology where the world is the decomposing corpse of a giant.)  Further, humans are created as slaves for the lazy gods. In the Enuma Elish Marduk says:

I will take blood and fashion bone. I will establish a savage, ‘man’ shall be his name. truly, savage-man I will create. He shall be charged with the service of the gods That they might be at ease!

Compare this with Genesis, where the world was proclaimed good when it was created, and mankind was loved by God. And if that is not enough to say that the God of Genesis is MUCH better than the Mesopotamian gods, let us consider the author's opposing argument:

• The most interesting difference to me is that the Sumerian religion had male and female gods and, more importantly, that the main Sumerian “god the father” type was, like most fathers, married. It’s always seemed weird to me that the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god is alone, unmarried. ... You have to wonder why the Hebrews took the female from heaven, who did it, when, and how.

I have already discussed how, in the Mesopotamian pantheon, the male supplanted the female (often quite violently) as lead god. First, the Jews didn't arbitrarily decide to remove the female from heaven, or to reduce the number of gods to One. This, at least as presented in the Bible, is an ongoing revelation. For a time, the Jews believed there were many gods, but they were just to worship the One. Henotheism. And when they realized (as many Greeks did, all by their lonesome) that there was only the One, He wasn't exactly "male." He was beyond gender. He wasn't a giant beard, or penis, in the sky. In fact, He couldn't even be drawn because He is so beyond our comprehension. The author's argument that the Mesopotamian gods are "better" than the Jewish One is supported by a thought experiment. What if Gilgamesh had been doing what he was doing in the Bible and not on a clay tablet?

• People will argue with me here, but I don’t see how they can win: that God deals with sinners, rebels, and others who disobey him with this “leadership decision”: punishment. He’s an “angry God,” as he says himself. It’s hard to see that God doing much but using angry force to punish Gilgamesh and make him change his ways. Human obedience is what matters to that God, as I read him; human wisdom comes a distant second. You want evidence? God’s instructions for dealing with people who disobey his laws, over and over (in Deuteronomy especially), is to simply kill them. And Adam and Eve received one hell of a punishment because of their disobedience, too.

This is unfortunate in the extreme, and again shows how the author is as influenced by certain Christians today as he is by the text. First, I have to agree about the Levitical laws being pretty harsh. But let's set those aside for a moment and look at some other examples. Cain was not killed after killing Abel, but banished. Further, he was specially protected from harm. In the prophetic books, much of the judgment of God is because the people of God do not treat the widow, orphan and alien with love. In Hosea, God describes his relationship with His people by telling Hosea, "Take unto thee a wife of whoredom." As many times as she leaves him, He is there when she returns. He is faithful while the Mesopotamian gods could only stop philandering long enough to get drunk. But the greatest misunderstanding is shown by the line, " Adam and Eve received one hell of a punishment because of their disobedience, too." Sadly, most Catholic and Protestant Christians hold this same view. Fortunately, not all Christians do. Without going into a huge sermon tangent, God did not curse Adam and Eve with death, nor did He cast them out of the garden just out of spite. He did it so they would not be locked forever in their broken, diseased state. And death ... well, if God is life and your relationship with Him is broken, then where are you? In death, of course. We did this to ourselves, He just kept it from being permanent. As a juxtaposition with the Judaic God, the author uses the example of the solution to Gilgamesh's virgin escapades. Anu tells Aruru to create:

a double for Gilgamesh, his second self,
a man who equals his strength and courage,
a man who equals his stormy heart.
Create a new hero, let them balance each other
perfectly, so that Uruk has peace.

Where Gilgamesh is 2/3 god and 1/3 man, Enkidu is 2/3 animal and 1/3 man. It is very interesting, to be sure. But consider this: Enkidu, a male, is created as the match for Gilgamesh. Who is created as the match for Adam? Eve. A woman. Further, are the Mesopotamian gods really that wise and understanding? When Gilgamesh refuses Ishtar's advances, she whines to her daddy to send down the Bull of Heaven and, if he doesn't, she'll let all the souls out of hell. Basically, she throws a little temper tantrum 'cause she was offended. And, when the Bull doesn't work, she just kills Enkidu. Yup, that's the beloved goddess of love, fertility and war. How enlightened she was! In the third installment, the author creates a fictional student to say all the things he wishes students would say. In the story, Shamat (a temple prostitute) is sent to Enkidu. He has a seven day erection which they take advantage of for the entire time. The fictional student and teacher have a wonderful discussion on the holiness and goodness of this, how good it was for Enkidu, and how unlike the Bible it is. And I must wonder, did either the student or the teacher read the book? Here's what imaginary Gary says:

• “It’s obvious,” he said. “Eve seduced Adam and the result was God’s curse. Shamhat seduced Enkidu and the result was Ishtar’s blessings of godliness and civilization for Enkidu.”

Hmmmm, let's see what the text says:

But when he turned his attention to his animals,
the gazelles saw Enkidu and darted off,
the wild animals distanced themselves from his body.
Enkidu ... his utterly depleted body,
his knees that wanted to go off with his animals went rigid;
Enkidu was diminished, his running was not as before.
But then he drew himself up, for his understanding had broadened.

He has been diminished. He has been robbed of his power and his innocence. The innocent animals will no longer commune with him, for he has changed. Whatever blessings this might carry, it carries a curse as well. Further, "his understanding had broadened." This sounds a lot to me like Genesis where, after eating of the fruit, their "eyes were opened." But with that came a lose of innocence. They were no longer what they were, and in a negative way. Further, when he is dying, Enkidu curses Shamat for corrupting him:

May you never acquire anything of bright alabaster,
may shining silver, man's delight, not be cast into your house,
may a gateway be where you rake your pleasure,'
may a crossroad be your home
may a wasteland be your sleeping place,
may the shadow of the city wall be your place to stand,
may the thorns and briars skin your feet,
may both the drunk and the dry slap you on the cheek,
may owls nest in the cracks of your walls!

He later repents of it and blesses her, but it is clear that this movement from the wild to civilization by means of a one week copulation was not a good thing. (This is where I stopped writing.  Perhaps I shall finish it some day.)