Flood Stories in Different Cultures

In many cultures, there seems to be a similarity in the subject of a myth: a great flood

As seen in the epic of Gilgamesh, the story of Utnapishtim describes to Gilgamesh is about how the gods decided to destroy humankind because the gods couldn't sleep. They said they would have a great flood that would wipe out everything in its path. One of the gods by the name of Eatold Utnapishtim to build a boat. On the boat, Utnapishtim was told to bring his family and the seed of every living creature on Earth so that the Earth would repopulate after the flood. 

A fairly similar story to Utnapishtim's is from the Romans. The God Jupiter was very upset by the evil ways of humanity. He decided he wanted to destroy mankind. At first he thought of setting the world of fire but realized heaven could be set on fire as well so ended up going with a flood. While everything was being destroyed by the flood, Jupiter noticed a man by the name of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha taking refuge on a boat high in the mountains. Jupiter saw their piety and let them survive the great flood but withdrew food. Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulated the Earth by "throwing your mother's stones" behind them, each stone then became a person.

Some similarities between the story of Utnapishtim and the Roman myth are that in both stories, the god(s) are mad at the way the humans were acting and wanted to kill them off. Both gods also decided to kill them off by having a great flood. Utnapishtim and Deucalion and Phyrra all used a boat to help them survive the flood that occurred, all these characters were also pure which is why the God allowed them to survive. In addition, the gods chose those people to repopulate Earth after the flood destroyed everything.

Some differences between the story of Utnapishtim and the Roman myth was that unlike the god's in Utnapishim's story, Jupiter initially wanted to burn the Earth. Utnapishtim also repopulated the earth by gathering the seed of every living created whereas Deucalion threw your mother's stones behind him. In the end Utnapishtim got the reward of not only surviving the flood, but also receiving eternal life when Deucalion was only granted survival of the flood.