To: Solon who wrote (62267 ) 11/9/2014 11:19:03 AM From: Solon Respond to Gilgamesh is an Assyrian work dating from around 2500 BC, almost 2,000 years before the biblical account was written. The story from Gilgamesh is the more complete version. In fact the biblical account appears to be an amalgamation of two derivative versions of the Gilgamesh story. Odd details are lost in the biblical account: for example where in Gilgamesh a raven, a dove and a swallow are sent to find dry land, in the biblical version only a raven and a dove are sent. Both stories appear to explain rainbows. In the biblical version Jahveh places his bow in the sky as a reminder of his covenant not to cause such a flood again. In the older version the goddess Ishtar dedicates her spectacular necklace with the "jewels of Heaven" made by the sky god. The Jews would certainly have known this epic. It was to be found in many Eastern libraries — fragments have been found in Turkey, Syria, Israel and Egypt 15 A Babylonian version of the story is also known, again older than the biblical version, and again more complete. There is also a well-known Greek version of the story .
