Epic Of Gilgamesh And Book Of Job Comparison Essay

The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Job Compare and Contrast Paper

Part 1:

In Southwest Asia there is a region that was called Mesopotamia where pessimism was not uncommon, in this region originated two works of literature of which will be compared and contrasted throughout this essay. The literary work that came first was the Epic of Gilgamesh which is also recognized as the oldest know epic poem whose author is unknown. This epic introduces the theme of immortality, or eternal life, and tells of a hero who sets off on a journey to search for everlasting life but comes to the secondary theme that death is inevitable. The Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible, which came second, creates a different theme which introduces the idea of theodicy which Fiero phrases as “Why do bad things happen to good people?” (34). In these two works, both of the main characters are blessed by their Gods and both characters eventually have their blessings taken away. However, the two characters have different types of blessings and there is also a difference in the reasons why their blessings are taken away. In each story even though Gilgamesh is two-thirds man while Job is just human, the Gods still hold the power and the role of the humans is the same, to obey and worship the Gods. Later on in these stories both the main characters undergo large amounts of suffering but for two different reasons. Gilgamesh’s suffering is self-inflicting due to a result of decisions he made which resulted in his sorrow. Job’s suffering is only a test to test his faith towards God and is not self-inflicted. The Book of Job and The Epic of Gilgamesh were written in different time periods and are very diverse but also have many similarities as well.

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...ss of love, became affectionate towards Gilgamesh, he rejected her love. Ishtar became angry and seized revenge towards him by taking Enkidu’s life. Gilgamesh’s sorrow was self-inflicted because he made the decision to chose friendship over sexual pleasure and this decision was what inflicted his sorrow when Ishtar took his best friend’s life.

In conclusion, the Book of Job and the Epic of Gilgamesh have many similarities and differences as including theme, origin, plot, characters, and all the other fragments that were discussed throughout this essay. In the Book of Job, the main theme is theodicy which presents the idea that good things happen to good people and that humans have to accept that and move on without logical explanation. The Epic of Gilgamesh deals with the theme of immortality and permanence where nothing lasts forever and where death is unavoidable.