Did the Bible plagiarize the Flood in Genesis from the Babylonian Tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh?
The book of Genesis tells the story of Noah and the ark, and God flooding the Earth. In case you dont know, they have discovered Babylonian tablets depicting the Epic of Gilgamesh. a king who survives a great flood and repopulates the Earth. And of course, the Atheists have latched onto these tablets as proof that not only is the story in the Bible false, but the writers had plagiarized the tale from the Epic of Gilgamesh. After all, since the tablets are dated to before the book of Genesis was written, this must be what happened right? Not exactly.
Once again, this is another account of the Atheists taking something that could be interpreted as "the Bible is false", and has made it out to be "proof" the Bible is false, rather than try to understand what else it could be. Is it possible the Bible is false and this story was plagiarized as the atheists say? I guess so, but there is also another more logical explanation.
There is a little experiment I have heard about many times, where a teacher would whisper a story into the ear of one student. That student would turn and whisper it to the next student. That student would share it with the next and so on. By the time it reaches the last student, the story is so different, it is hard to believe it was a retelling of the original story.
What does that have to do with the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Flood in Genesis?
Its quite simple. Just pretend for a moment that the Atheists are wrong. There really is a God and He at one time grew angry with the human race and wiped them all out in a great flood, only saving one family to repopulate the Earth. As they had children and their children had children and grand children. As they repopulated the Earth through thousands of years, and they spread out through the lands, they would be telling the story of what happened to their young. Each generation would hand that story down and with each telling it would change a little. As they spread away from each other and their languages changed the stories would continue to change as well. If the flood really did happen and this all went down just like I explain it. Just like the Bible says it did, what would we have today? We would have different people from different regions with different tales of the same great event in history. Just like what we have happening in real life today.
You see, the fact that there is a story of the great flood from a time predating the Bible does not mean the writers of the Bible must have plagiarized the story. That is nothing more than one possibility. It could also simply be that both cultures had their different telling of the same great event that happened thousands of years ago.
In truth, the simple fact that these are not the only renditions of a great flood, actually is evidence that the flood did happen. The Aztecs have a similar rendition about a flood where a man, Coxcox and his wife, were the lone survivors and repopulated the world. The Chinese on the other hand have a story of a messenger of God coming to warn three sons that the world would be flooded and only the eldest of the sons listens. There are many more similar stories from different cultures that have to do with a great flood. If the Bible had plagiarized the story, wouldn't one think there wouldn't be many other renditions of that same story? The fact that the same story is found in many, many other cultures, actually fits more in line with the theory that it was a great event in history that really did happen, and the story changed as it was handed down generation to generation through different cultures.
So the simple fact that they have found tablets that predate the Bible telling a similar story of the great flood, does not mean that one was stolen from the other. They could both be telling different renditions of the same true account. The fact there are so many other renditions of the same account does not prove any of them are fake, but actually is evidence that the event in the story did in fact happen.
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Once again, this is another account of the Atheists taking something that could be interpreted as "the Bible is false", and has made it out to be "proof" the Bible is false, rather than try to understand what else it could be. Is it possible the Bible is false and this story was plagiarized as the atheists say? I guess so, but there is also another more logical explanation.
There is a little experiment I have heard about many times, where a teacher would whisper a story into the ear of one student. That student would turn and whisper it to the next student. That student would share it with the next and so on. By the time it reaches the last student, the story is so different, it is hard to believe it was a retelling of the original story.
What does that have to do with the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Flood in Genesis?
Its quite simple. Just pretend for a moment that the Atheists are wrong. There really is a God and He at one time grew angry with the human race and wiped them all out in a great flood, only saving one family to repopulate the Earth. As they had children and their children had children and grand children. As they repopulated the Earth through thousands of years, and they spread out through the lands, they would be telling the story of what happened to their young. Each generation would hand that story down and with each telling it would change a little. As they spread away from each other and their languages changed the stories would continue to change as well. If the flood really did happen and this all went down just like I explain it. Just like the Bible says it did, what would we have today? We would have different people from different regions with different tales of the same great event in history. Just like what we have happening in real life today.
You see, the fact that there is a story of the great flood from a time predating the Bible does not mean the writers of the Bible must have plagiarized the story. That is nothing more than one possibility. It could also simply be that both cultures had their different telling of the same great event that happened thousands of years ago.
In truth, the simple fact that these are not the only renditions of a great flood, actually is evidence that the flood did happen. The Aztecs have a similar rendition about a flood where a man, Coxcox and his wife, were the lone survivors and repopulated the world. The Chinese on the other hand have a story of a messenger of God coming to warn three sons that the world would be flooded and only the eldest of the sons listens. There are many more similar stories from different cultures that have to do with a great flood. If the Bible had plagiarized the story, wouldn't one think there wouldn't be many other renditions of that same story? The fact that the same story is found in many, many other cultures, actually fits more in line with the theory that it was a great event in history that really did happen, and the story changed as it was handed down generation to generation through different cultures.
So the simple fact that they have found tablets that predate the Bible telling a similar story of the great flood, does not mean that one was stolen from the other. They could both be telling different renditions of the same true account. The fact there are so many other renditions of the same account does not prove any of them are fake, but actually is evidence that the event in the story did in fact happen.
Return to Christianity
Return to Religions and their Fatal Flaws
Return to One God Logic Articles