Is Christianity just a copycat religion? Many critics answer, “Yes,” and argue that much of the Old Testament is nothing more than rewritings of Ancient Near Eastern myth. One particular reason they answer yes is that the biblical story of the Great Flood in Genesis is not the original story, they say, but is, in fact, a copy of the much older flood tale from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. Sure enough, The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in about 1800 BC, predates the Genesis account by some 1,000 years! Not only that, the similarities between the Genesis flood story and the Gilgamesh flood story are striking: in both stories, there is a divine commitment to destroy almost all of mankind; there is a focus on one wise and righteous man destined to survive the flood; both stories involve the building of an ark which is described in detail; animals are brought on board to preserve the species; the hero of the story sends out birds to see if they can find dry land; after the floodwater subsides sacrifices are made by the hero to mend mankind’s relationship with the divine; and finally, the survivors repopulate the earth. Sound familiar?
To further their argument, skeptics point to Mesopotamian scholars like Louise Pryke, who claim, “We actually have the smoking gun. . . Archeologists have found bits of The Epic of Gilgamesh all over ancient Israel. It looks like Gilgamesh was in broad circulation at the time.” Do you suppose Moses knew this? Could it be that the Christian story of the Flood in Genesis is actually the ancient Babylonian flood story copied by Moses into the Pentateuch and incorporated into the Hebrew Bible? That is what the critics say. But the Gilgamesh story is not really the beginning of the story either. In 1985, Irving Finkel, at the British Museum, discovered a very similar ancient flood story written in Sumerian on a clay tablet fragment that had been recovered from the same region. Similar to the Gilgamesh and Genesis flood stories, a hero named Atrahasis is commanded to build an ark and to prepare for a devastating flood. It turns out this flood story is even older than Gilgamesh! That makes at least three ancient flood stories, all originating out of Mesopotamia. All are relaying very similar details. What are we to make of this? Is one of the ancient pillars of Christian belief just a widely told myth? And if so, is Christianity just a copycat religion after all? These are powerful questions, and they certainly warrant our consideration.
