Romance of Enkidu and Gilgamesh Thesis

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But when Enkidu and Gilgamesh embark upon a quest to kill the demon of the Cedar Forest Humbaba, the gods side with Humbaba. And the gods punish Enkidu for his friend's crime. At first Enkidu does not want to kill the demon, because he has portents of a bad outcome. He only helps Gilgamesh because of his love for the king, and the gods turn against him for that reason. Unlike the omnipotent God of the Bible, the gods in Gilgamesh can be tricked -- for example, Enkidu urged Gilgamesh to kill Humababa even when Humbaba tempted Gilgamesh with dominion over the Cedar Forest because he sense the gods were coming to Humbaba's age. Enkidu is cursed for his loyalty to his fellow human and friend, because Humbaba knows that hurting Enkidu is the best way to hurt Gilgamesh. None of the male pairs of the Bible show such sympathetic concern for one another, even for their own brothers. The most intense relationships in the Bible are not between lovers or family members, but between God and one of God's most chosen young sons like Jacob and Joseph. In contrast, the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu is much more intense than the relationship between the gods and Gilgamesh.

Some might dispute the idea that the relationship between God and humans in the Bible are more intense than Gilgamesh, because the gods in Gilgamesh are depicted as desiring human beings sexually. When Gilgamesh rejects Ishtar he sets off a chain of events that will result in Enkidu's death. The theme of 'hell hath no fury like a woman spurned" is depicted in a human scenario in the Bible, when young Joseph is even sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph makes the best of his plight, but is nearly undone when his master Potiphar's wife attempts to commit adultery with him. Yet while feminine sexuality is also threatening to men in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Bible, a comparison of these two stories suggests that it is the desire of humans that is untrustworthy in the Bible, while in Gilgamesh the relationship the king has with Enkidu is fundamentally pure -- it is the gods that are capricious and overly sensual.

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Gilgamesh blames himself for Enkidu's death and is thrown into an existential crisis as a result. He wants to find the secret to immortality. No longer the 'might makes right' king of the earlier books, his love and loss of his friend precipitates him to seek great insight and although his quest for eternal life is not fruitful, he is a changed and better man at the end of his quest, as a result of knowing Enkidu. In contrast, the male brotherly relationships of the Bible do not spur the aggrieved party onto greatness -- in the case of Cain and Able and Jacob and Esau they only spur the other onto cruelty, and the 'hairy' and more primitive man must be vanquished, for the destiny of the younger son to triumph. In the Bible God shows favor to a certain man, and with the Lord's help he is victorious, but Gilgamesh must seek to outwit the cruel gods, sees his friend suffers, and his only reward is the knowledge that humankind must accept its fate and its powerlessness before the wrath and will of the gods. His love of Enkidu is what sustains him in an amoral life, while for the heroes of the Bible, their love and relationship with God is what sustains them.

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