2.1 Special Topic: The Gilgamesh Epic

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2.1 Special Topic The Gilgamesh Epic

• BOT612 Old Testament Backgrounds

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Introduction

• "A masterpiece of ANE literature, the Gilgamesh
  Epic (GE) is composed in Akkadian. It features
  the adventures of Gilgamesh, a king said to rule
  the S Mesopotamian city of Uruk around 2600
  b.c.e. Since Gilgamesh has left us no
  contemporaneous monuments, scholars debate
  whether he really existed. Gilgamesh's exploits
  in the GE, however, are mostly beyond historical
  evaluation. In other traditions and in omen
  literature, Gilgamesh is invoked as a mighty
  builder, but also as an infernal deity."

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Sources

• The GE is a long narrative with multiple
  episodes, allocated to at least 10, but no more
  than 12 tablets, each averaging about 300 lines
  (an afternoons listening). One native tradition
  simply refers to the series by its opening line,
  He who saw all. Sources for the epics various
  episodes may have circulated in Sumerian as early
  as the Ur III Dynasty (21002000 b.c.e.). Written
  or copied as much as half a millennium after the
  fall of Ur, these narratives may well be the
  products of learned Semitic scribes. Of the
  following self-contained Sumerian compositions,
  the first three have echoes within the GE
  Gilgamesh and the Land of the Living Gilgamesh
  and the Bull of Heaven Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the
  Netherworld

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Sources

• Gilgamesh and Agga The Death of Gilgamesh. A
  Sumerian flood story which does not feature
  Gilgamesh is eventually redrafted for inclusion
  in the GE."

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Versions

• "We do not yet know when and how the independent
  narratives about Gilgamesh were first woven into
  a whole a very late tradition, which is beyond
  present confirmation, has assigned the
  composition of the epic to a Gilgamesh
  contemporary, a diviner named Sin-leqi-unninni.
  By the LB Age, Gilgameshs adventures had come
  into full vogue in the Near East so that major
  Mesopotamian sites continue to yield GE copies
  and fragments (some as yet unpublished). Emar in
  Upper Syria and Megiddo in Canaan have
  contributed Akkadian fragments as has Hattusûasû,
  capital of the Hittite empire. Additionally,
  Hattusûasû has produced Hittite and Hurrian
  adaptations of Gilgameshs exploits."

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Versions

• "Because no complete edition of the epic has
  survived from a single site, scholarship has
  created a composite using tablets originally
  belonging to diverse renditions (or recensions)
  of two major versions of the GE one stemming
  from the latter half of the Old Babylonian (OB)
  period (17501600 b.c.e.), the other influenced
  by Neo-Assyrian (NA) scholarship (750612
  b.c.e.), but refined over the next four
  centuries. A third edition, of which we have but
  fragments, may have been completed during the
  Middle Babylonian (MB) period (around 1250
  b.c.e.). Some scholars attribute one of the later
  versions to the legendary Sin-leqi-unninni. The
  various versions of the GE share major characters
  as well as specific

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Sources

• episodes. They differ appreciably, however, in
  how they begin or end, and in the way they
  manipulate individual scenes. They also diverge
  in their perspectives on life, their controlling
  metaphors, and the themes which give integrity to
  the whole narrative. A comparison may be made
  with the various editions of the Tristan
  narratives which shared characters and episodes,
  but addressed differing audiences."

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Outline

• EPISODE 1. GILGAMESH and the Coming of ENKIDU
  Tablets 1-2
• Gilgamesh as Builder, Adventurer
• Creation of Enkidu, his Seduction
• Gilgamesh meets Enkidu Their Battle and
  Friendship

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Outline

• EPISODE 2. The Raid into the Land of HUMBABA
  (HUWAWA) Tabs 3-5
• Preparations Objections of Enkidu and the ELDERS
• At the Gate to the Forest The Dream of Gilgamesh
• The Death of Humbaba

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Outline

• EPISODE 3. The BULL OF HEAVEN Tablet 6
• ISHTAR INANNA offered herself to Gilgamesh. He
  insulted her with a catalog of her errors and
  references to her treatment of her previous
  consorts. Gilgamesh's refusal of the goddesses'
  offer may well have been motivated by a
  reluctance to challenge the authority of the
  current "King of Kish." Marriage to Inanna was
  the means by which one King asserted his claim to
  kingship of all Sumer.

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Outline

• Ishtar's Anger. She rose to Heaven and threatened
  to open the Gates of Hell unless the High God ANU
  AN did not send the Bull of Heaven to destroy
  Gilgamesh
• Death of the Bull of Heaven. Inanna demanded the
  death of Gilgamesh, but he was protected by Utu,
  so the Gods decided that Enkidu must die in his
  place.

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Outline

• EPISODE 4. The Death of Enkidu Tablets 7-8
• Enkidu Dreams of the Gods in Council
• The Vision of the UNDERWORLD
• Gilgamesh must face his own mortality
• A bio-theology of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh, we are
  told, was one-third man and two-thirds god. Such
  a division is incomprehensible in terms of modern
  biology, but seems not to have concerned the
  ancients. Gilgamesh's father, LUGALBANDA, was a
  God, "the divine Lugalbanda," who ruled Uruk for

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Outline

• more than a thousand years. His mother was a
  temple priestess. Priests and priestesses are
  human in origin, but in ritual situations they
  take on the aspect of the god or goddess they
  serve. The ESSENCE of the Goddess descended into
  Gilgamesh's mother and she became Her HIERODULE
  she became both Goddess and Woman. As such she
  augmented the divine portion of her son but also
  bequeathed to him the mortal one-third of his
  ancestry, thus assuring his eventual death.

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Outline

• EPISODE 5. The Search for IMMORTALITY Tablets
  9-10
• The Journey to the GARDEN OF DILMUN
• The Episode with the Barmaid and the Journey to
  sunrise
• Urshanabi, the ferryman, and UTNAPISHTIM

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Outline

• EPISODE 6. The Story of the FLOOD Tablet 11
• ENLIL Decides to Destroy Man
• ENKI Informs Utnapishtim, King of SHURRUPAK
• The Boat, the Storm, the FLOOD
• After the Flood The Chastisement of Enlil and
  his Promise not to send another Flood.
  Utnapishtim and his wife were immortalized for
  their role in saving mankind.

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Outline

• EPISODE 7. The Return to URUK End of Tablet 11
• The Plant of Rejuvenation the Serpent
• The Walls of Uruk the human route to immortality

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