yosef the heretic said:
Yet, some seem to deny there's any connection between the Bible and ancient mythologies. Another one I call to mind is the flood story, which appears in the epic of Gilgamesh in an entirely different way.
Older than the standard version of Gilgamesh (
Epic of Gilgamesh), is the Old Babylonian story of
Atrahasis, where Utnapishtim is called Atrahasis. The story of Atrahasis was derived from an even older source, from the Sumerian poem, known as
Eridu Genesis, where Ziusudra is the same person as Atrashasis and Utnapishtim. And the name of Ziusudra are found in few other sources, written about the same period of the Eridu Genesis, in the Sumerian poems of Gilgamesh.
So Noah was derived from Utnapishtim, Atrahasis and Ziusudra. The Eridu Genesis is over a thousand years older than the Genesis, if not more. Atrahasis is at least 800 years older than the Genesis, if not more.
yosef said:
Read the part about Lord Anu offering Adapa the food of his table to make him immortal, but Tammuz tricks him out of it. Is that not almost exactly like the tree of life and the serpent in the Genesis story?
In the translation I have read, it was Ea (or Enki) who tricked Adapa, instead of Tammuz.