Introduction : The Epic of Gilgamesh as a reflection on the human condition

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The epic of Gilgamesh is, in a way, the best introduction to the question of the human condition. Gilgamesh, whose name can be translated as "the ancestor (is) a (young) hero", was probably first a historical king who reigned over Uruk around the ^XXVIIth century BC. He is mentioned in several documents as early as the end of the^3rd millennium, and the ancient Mesopotamians considered him the most important man of all time. Gilgamesh was quickly deified or hero-ized. His name appears on a list of deities dating from around 2400 BC. The Sumerian King List attributes supernatural origins to him. As for the Epic, it says he was the son of Lugalbanda - Gilgamesh's deified predecessor in the Sumerian King List - and the goddess Ninsun, the Buffalonian Lady. Thus, "in him two thirds are divine, one third is human".

The story of the epic's formation is very interesting for the biblical scholar, as it unfolds in several stages.

Originally, there was no single epic, but several independent stories (written in Sumerian around 2000-1700) recounting the exploits and prodigies of Gilgamesh (Bilgames in Sumerian): (a) the exploit against Ḫuwawa, (b) against the Celestial Bull, (c) the descent of Gilgamesh's servant Enkidu into the underworld, (d) Gilgamesh's death, (e) Gilgamesh's victory over Agga of Kish. The earliest writings on Gilgamesh are short stories, usually contained on a single clay tablet. These various legends are not linked to each other, and there is no doubt that they did not constitute a literary unit.
Old-Babylonian tablets from the ^18th century B.C. onwards, albeit very fragmentary, suggest that there was already an epic with the title "Šûtur eli šarri ", "The greatest among kings"; the various fragments show that there was no canonical version, but that different versions coexisted.
Between the ^16th and ^11th centuries, the Gilgamesh epic was widely read. Fragments have been found in Emar, Megiddo and Ugarit. Fragments of a Hittite version condensing Gilgamesh's adventures into three tablets (known as the "Song of Gilgamesh") have been discovered in Bogazköy, and excavations in Nuzi have yielded fragments in Huronite recounting the battle with Ḫuwawa.
The first millennium saw the development of what is often referred to as a "standard version of the epic", also known as the Ninivite version, as the bulk of the known witnesses, dating from around 650 BC, were found in Nineveh in the library of the Assyrian king Assurbanipal. It dates back to the work of a scribe by the name of Sîn-lēqi-unninni, who in Babylonian memory is regarded as the author of the Gilgamesh epic. He may have lived at the end of the second millennium and taken over an older text (others consider him a legendary poet, like Homer). It is apparently he who organized and transformed the ancient poem from the beginning of the second millennium into 12 tablets.

The great popularity of the Epic has made it a classic text, undoubtedly recited and regularly used as an exercise in scribal schools, or even as an educational text to initiate young people from the wealthy classes into the great themes of the human condition: life, death and sexuality.

The epic opens with Gilgamesh, a powerful but lonely king, seeking a counterpart.

This is reminiscent of the reasons Yhwh gives in the Genesis account for the creation of woman. Gilgamesh, a king, remains imperfect and tyrannical until he encounters a counterpart.

The goddess Aruru creates Enkidu ("Enki's creature") from clay:

When Aruru heard this,
she created in her heart the image/idea of Anu.

Her opposite number Enkidu is introduced to civilization via sexuality, and it is the experience of sexuality that seems to distinguish man from the animals, a sexuality that is not limited to a quick act of procreation, but has a legitimacy in itself, that brings pleasure, that makes Enkidu acquire knowledge and language and become a man. He has thus separated himself from the animals. This separation concludes with Enkidu hunting and killing the animals to protect mankind. The relationship between the two friends is prepared by Gilgamesh's dreams, which give this relationship a clearly homoerotic connotation. After killing the guardian of the Cedar Forest, Gilgamesh rejects Ishtar's advances. This rejection is particularly interesting. Gilgamesh is a king and, according to the sacred marriage ritual, he should unite with the goddess to guarantee the fertility of the country. He therefore renounces royal, even divine, functions. This rejection can also be read as Gilgamesh's choice to remain in the human world and see his true place there.

The gods decide to punish Gilgamesh by killing Enkidu. Gilgamesh becomes aware of his own death: "I too will die and be like Enkidu" (IX, 4). He sets out to find a cure for death; he wants to meet Utnapishtim, who escaped the flood and lives behind the Twin Mountains. For this journey, he implores the protection of Sin and Ishtar. Has he realized that rebelling against the goddess is pointless?

He arrives in a garden with trees bearing rare stones, known from magical and medical texts, that are difficult to identify. A similar tradition is found in Ezekiel 28:13, where the primitive keroub is located in a garden, and is itself covered with precious stones. Here, at the end of the habitable world, Gilgamesh meets Siduri, perhaps a manifestation of Ishtar.

In a fragment of the Paleo-Babylonian version (edited by Meissner), Siduri gives Gilgamesh a piece of advice which, curiously, has not been included in the canonical version:

Gilgamesh, why do you wander?
You won't find the life you're looking for.
When the gods created mankind,
They attributed death to mankind, life they kept for themselves.
Rejoice day and night,
Every day celebrate, day and night, dance and play music,
Let your clothes be pure,
Let your head be washed, purified by water.
Look at the little one who holds your hand,
Let a woman [1] rejoice in your womb,
For such is [mankind's] destiny
(III, 1-13)

This advice, which is the precursor of " Carpe diem ", will reappear in the book of Qoheleth, with very similar wording.

Arriving at last at the home of Utnapishtim, the only survivor of the Flood to whom the gods have conferred immortality, he hears from Utnapishtim that death must be accepted.

But just as he's about to leave, Utnapishtim's wife has her husband reveal to him the existence of a possible cure for death:

Gilgamesh, I'm going to reveal a hidden thing to you, and tell you a secret of the gods. There is a plant, like lycium [2] whose thorns, like those of the rose, will prick your hands, but if your hands grasp this plant, [you will have found life] (X, 281-286).

Gilgamesh tries to take hold of this plant and dives, weighed down by stones, to the bottom of the ocean of fresh water.

While bathing in a lake, a snake arrives: "Then a snake caught the scent of the plant. Silently he climbed up and took the plant with him, but by the time he left he had already shed his skin". Here, the epic provides an etiology for the snake's moult, a phenomenon that the ancients considered to be a manifestation of immortality. As in Genesis, the snake is the cause of man's mortality.

The Epic of Gilgamesh thus addresses major issues of the human condition: life, death, happiness, sexuality, man's destiny during this life and after death. It also asks what makes man different from the gods (death), and from animals (sexuality, knowledge). But at the same time, the appearance of numerous hybrid beings shows that its boundaries are not absolute.

References

[1] Marhîtum, a rare term, meaning a fertilized woman (George, 284; Ziegler, 304, n. 60).

[2] The same word appears in Jdg 9:14 and Ps 58:10, where it is often translated as "thorn bush". In the contemporary imagination, and perhaps thanks to Gilgamesh, lycium is still associated with longevity, as shown by an advertisement available at http://aloemalick.skyrock.com/409769438-Lycium-Plus.html (consulted on 10.11.2011).