Gilgamesh And Gods

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I will argue that humankind and the gods are intricately interwoven in a way that can be either positive or negative in relation to the circumstances on both sides.
Ancient Mesopotamia viewed death and the afterlife as an unpleasant experience where there is no point of return at all for those who enter it. From reading the epic, it was thought of as a baron place where the dead were scattered and hardly anything was there. Individuals who were previously rulers or religious leaders were now, ironically, servants for the gods, which is the fundamental relationship between the gods and mortal humans in the cultural ideology of the epic. This reality, as well as the thought of encountering death, troubles Gilgamesh, and left the leader of Uruk …show more content…

The relationship between mortals and gods, therefore, is often antagonistic, and those who have not been subject to favoritism by the gods are fated to suffer. Furthermore, the gods are linked with actual places and people, for whom they act as patrons. Enkidu, who had been created by Aruru, was sent by the gods as an entity of impact for Gilgamesh, which would later turn out to be of deep influence while Gilgamesh searches for means of avoiding the death which had befallen Enkidu. Additionally, the Flood itself, noted for its comparison to the Noahic story from the Old Testament, is the product of angry gods, essentially because humanity was too vulgar and disgraceful. Only Utnapishtim, warned ahead of time by the goddess Ea to "[take] aboard the boat the seed of all living things" (Page 143, Tablet XI, line 27), endures the disaster alongside the family. Utnapishtim is praised with immortality for surviving. However, for Utanapishtim, it was a reward that was agonizing. While narrating the experience of the flood, the resulting answer for witnessing the whole human race wiped out was one of almost endless influence, based on the gravity of the event; “I opened the hatch, sunlight fell upon my face. Falling to my knees, I sat down weeping, Tears running down my face” (Page 146, Tablet XI, lines 139-141). Utanapishtim’s reaction utters the very difference between

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