Talk:Utnapishtim

message: I corrected an inaccuracy in the Role section. According to standard english language translations of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh does not set out to ask Utnapishtim about the plant of youth renewal but to gain the secret of eternal life. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh about the plant as a separate boon.
Also, there is dispute among Assyrologists whether the story of the flood in that part of the Epic is of Sumerian or even pre-Sumerian origin or is part of subsequent Arkaddian mythology, added to the epic by Arkaddian scribes. Someone who knows Assyrology should write a section on that. 69.158.84.190 (talk) 18:26, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Correction of Inaccuracy and Call for Further Edits

message: I would like to edit the sentence which claims that the Gilgamesh story inspired the biblical story of Noah's Ark. There is no evidence for this, and the biblical story could as much inspire the story on Gilgamesh and Utnapishtim. An interesting matter is that apart from preserving life both Noah and Utnapishtim were given a different form of eternal life; Utnapishtim an earthly lengthened life while Noah a spiritual eternal life in the form of 'salvation' as opposed to the rest of 'evil' mankind who were unceremoniously destroyed.  -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.22.190.81 (talk) 13:48, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The Bible influencing Mesopotamian mythology would go against chronology and the common direction of cultural influences during that era.  The Biblical account of Noah may not have been specifically influenced by Utnapishtim, but it was almost certainly influenced by common Flood narratives, of which Utnapishtim is one of the earliest attested examples... AnonMoos (talk) 17:00, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

text: Impossible for the Biblical account to have influenced Gilgamesh, the flood account in Genesis can't be much older than 700 BCE (probably composed from two earlier sources), whereas Gilgamesh is ~2100 BCE. It'd be like saying Lord of the Rings influenced Norse mythology. --2.216.81.183 (talk) 00:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

text: Utnapishtim is attested in written form earlier than the Bible, so influence from the Bible on Utnapishtim is very implausible.  It's likely that both were influenced by ancient middle-east Flood legends circulating orally in various forms among various peoples. AnonMoos (talk) 09:42, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Bible

message: There appears to be an edit war on the inclusion/attribution/relationship between this story and the Christian/Jewish Noah's ark. I don't think anyone is going to "prove" that one inspired the other, and such a claim is going to be perceived as pushing either a Christian or anti-Christian agenda, so I agree with previous editors below. However, at the current time, the article makes very little mention of Noah (only in See Also)... which is a disservice to the English Wikipedia reader, for which the Christian/Jewish bible forms a large part of our cultural basis, no matter the personal creed. For this reason, I've edited the initial paragraph only to make the connection a little more obvious. I would like to find an attribution for this, but frankly, I don't know if that's possible because it's obvious. Bryanfw (talk) 13:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Utnapishtim is attested in written form earlier than the Bible, so influence from the Bible on Utnapishtim is very implausible.  It's likely that both were influenced by ancient middle-east Flood legends circulating orally in various forms among various peoples. AnonMoos (talk) 09:42, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 2023