Various themes, plot elements, and characters in the Hebrew Bible correlate with the Epic of Gilgamesh such as the accounts of the Garden of Eden, advice from Ecclesiastes, and the Genesis flood narrative.
Garden of Eden
The parallels between the stories of Enkidu/Shamhat and Adam/Eve have been long recognized by scholars. In both, a man is created from the soil by a god, and lives in a natural setting amongst the animals. He is introduced to a woman who tempts him. In both stories the man accepts food from the woman, covers his nakedness, and must leave his former realm, unable to return. The presence of a snake that steals a plant of immortality from the hero later in the epic is another point of similarity. However, a major difference between the two stories is that while Enkidu experiences regret regarding his seduction away from nature, this is only temporary: After being confronted by the god Shamash for being ungrateful, Enkidu recants and decides to give the woman who seduced him his final blessing before he dies. This is in contrast to Adam, whose fall from grace is largely portrayed purely as a punishment for disobeying God.
Noah’s flood
The Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that “few doubt” that it derives from a Mesopotamian account. What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale “point by point and in the same order”, even when the story permits other alternatives. In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: “The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling.” Ziusudra, Utnapishtim, and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian, and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.
Additional biblical parallels
It is suggested that Nebuchadnezzar’s madness in the biblical Book of Daniel draws on the Epic of Gilgamesh. He claims that the author uses elements from the description of Enkidu to paint a sarcastic and mocking portrait of the king of Babylon. Many characters in the Epic have mythical biblical parallels, most notably Ninti, the Sumerian goddess of life, was created from Enki’s rib to heal him after he had eaten forbidden flowers. It is suggested that this story served as the basis for the story of Eve created from Adam’s rib in the Book of Genesis. In Echoes of Gilgamesh and in the Jacob Story, the myth of Jacob and Esau is paralleled with the wrestling match between Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Gilgamesh is mentioned in one version of The Book of Giants which is related to the Book of Enoch. The Book of Giants version found at Qumran mentions the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh and the monster Humbaba with the Watchers and giants.
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