The Bible begins with the Book of Genesis, which literally means the book of “birth.” What came before Genesis though, were ancient texts such as Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish, which pre date the stories of Genesis and have many similarities to stories in the Bible. The first ancient near eastern epics is Enuma Elish, which is the polytheistic story about how the world was created. Enuma Elish is sometimes referred to as the “Babylonian creation epic,” which reflects the creation story in Genesis 1-3. Both Genesis and Enuma Elish begin with description of reality before the creation of anything. In the second verse of Genesis, it alludes to a battle being fought between two parts of the created world, which reflects the same battle in Enuma Elish…show more content… These facts are found in both stories and are the driving point of both as well. In both stories, man and women are “in harmony” (Coogan 16) with nature. Also, in the stories one of the two people in the garden are seduced by an outside source, in Gilgamesh it is a prostitute, and in the Bible it is a snake, but they are both still seduced. After Enkidu has sex with the prostitute he becomes more humanized, the same as Adam and Eve after they eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. His reaction is also the same as Adam and Eve, he realized he is naked and decides to clothe himself. “Knowledge of Good and Evil” is also a major theme in both stories. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God they became like God and omniscient, and after Enkidu had sex with the prostitute he realized almost immediately the fault he had made and after that realized many more facts of life. It was as if having sex with her made him wiser as the fruit of the tree of knowledge did for Adam and Eve. Both stories, Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish, have similarities to the first 3 chapters of the Bible and the creation stories, their themes, and their morals for