The two accounts of the great flood as they appear in Gilgamesh and later in the Bible show two different versions of what appear to be the same story, and at the same time speak very differently about each culture's respective values. The first difference mentioned is the reason each story's God or gods decided to flood the earth. In Gilgamesh, the god Enlil was "aroused by the clamour" of the people of Earth, and decided to end the existence of mankind, simply because of their nuisance (41). This paints a picture of a system of gods that is very arbitrary in their punishments, but this does not make their punishments less harsh. …
