Is Noach the same person as Utnapishtim?

Why does the flood story in Bereishis look so similar to earlier Mesopotamian stories?

Here's a tale we're all familiar with. A flood comes to wipe out humanity. One man is told by the divine voice to build a boat and save himself and his family. When the flood finally ceases, our hero sends out birds to see if the land is dry enough to leave his ark:

“The seventh day when it came, I brought out a dove, I let it loose: off went the dove but then it returned, there was no place to land, so back it came to me. I brought out a swallow, I let it loose: off went the swallow but then it returned, there was no place to land, so it came back to me. I brought out a raven, I let it loose: off went the raven, it saw the waters receding, finding food, bowing and bobbing, it did not come back to me”

That may sound like the story of Noach in Bereishis, but it's not. Instead, it’s a quote from the Epic of Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian poem.

The Epic of Gilgamesh tells a story of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. At one point in the tale, Gilgamesh meets Utnapishtim, the survivor of a worldwide flood, who tells him his story. Utnapishtim’s account parallels not only the Torah's general plot line— Utnapishtim surviving a flood with his family and animals—but also the Torah’s details, such as the construction of a boat that ultimately lands on a mountain, the use of birds to determine the flood’s end (as seen above), and the offering of sacrifices upon survival. 

Another important, even more ancient, text is the Epic of Atra-Hasis. This story begins “when the gods, instead of men, bore the loads,” and describes the creation of lesser gods to do the work. The lesser gods don’t want to work though, so humans are created to bear the load of working on the earth. Humans end up being loud and annoying, so the gods try to wipe them out with a flood. Atrahasis is told by a god who favors him, Enki, to build a boat in order to escape the flood. He builds the boat, survives, and then offers sacrifices to the gods for his survival. Again, this older flood story is suspiciously similar to the Noach story.

Was the Torah aware of these older stories, or is this all just a coincidence? Well, there are some very specific parallels between them:

1. The flood story is the only place where Hashem is actually described as smelling the sweet smell (rei’ach nicho’ach) of a sacrifice (Bereishis 8:21). This has a striking parallel in both Atrahasis (3.5.31–35) and Gilgamesh (11.157–163), where after the flood, the gods gather round like flies to smell the sweet savour of Utnapishtim/Atrahasis’s sacrifice.

2. Hashem announces to Noach that the flood will take place after seven days (Bereishis 7:4). This is exactly like the Atrahasis epic (3.1.37), where we read that ‘He [Enki] announced to him [Atrahasis] the coming of the flood for the seventh night’. 

3. In the Torah, after the flood, Hashem promises never to flood the world again. Towards the end of the Atrahasis epic, Ea (the chief god) too promises that there will never be another worldwide flood. 

4. Linguistic evidence provides the strongest proof here: To caulk his ark, Noach is told to use pitch (Bereishis 6:14), kofer, cognate to the Akkadian word kupru which is specifically used in Mesopotamian accounts of the building of the ark (Atrahasis 3.2.51; Gilgamesh 11.55, 66). This is the only time that the word kofer means “pitch” in the entire Tanach; the native Hebrew word for “pitch” is zefes, which is what Moshe’s mother uses to waterproof the vessel she builds for her son (Shemos 2:3). The word kofer, then, is borrowed directly from Akkadian, and points to the Mesopotamian origin of the entire biblical account. 

There are many other similarities and I invite you to read both the Atrahasis story and the Utnapishtim story yourself. I’m sure you can come up with some more parallels.

What’s the big deal? You may ask. The flood of Noach was a historical event that happened exactly as the Torah described. The Mesopotamians have their own version of how the event occurred, but the real way it happened is how it was recorded in the Torah. The issue with this is that a historical worldwide flood goes against all the evidence we have.

All evidence points to the fact that there was never a mass flooding of the world. No archeology or study of the world shows that it happened. There are 3 fundamental issues with assuming there was an actual flooding of the entire world:

1. Geological evidence: If there had been a worldwide flood, it would have left behind clear and distinct evidence of its occurrence, such as layers of sedimentary rock formed by rapidly deposited and then rapidly eroded material. However, there is no such evidence.

2. Fossil evidence: A worldwide flood of the magnitude described in these flood myths would have caused a catastrophic extinction event, wiping out almost all of the world's plant and animal species. However, there is no evidence in the fossil record of such an event occurring.

3. Insufficient water supply: To cover the entire Earth with water, enough water would need to be present to raise the sea level to a height of 5.5 miles. There is simply not enough water on Earth to achieve this, even if all the polar ice caps and glaciers melted. Additionally, the amount of water needed to submerge the Earth's mountains would have to be significantly higher.

However, there is evidence that the Mesopotamian area flooded often. This would explain why flood myths developed there. Israel was not a place that flooded often. It therefore seems obvious that the Torah is borrowing these flood myths for its own use and messaging. 

Some apologists argue that Hashem wrote this story using known tales of the time period. They see this story as a sort of divine “counter-myth.” But why would an all-powerful deity write a story indistinguishable from human-crafted fictions, rather than articulating his own original revelation?

Suppose I claimed Hashem shared a tale of Harry Potter with me, where instead of Hogwarts and Voldemort, the boy attends “Torah School” and defeats “Amalek.” Would this seem like an authentic divine revelation, or plagiarism of a human work? I think the latter is far more likely.

In short, the Torah’s flood story bears the unmistakable imprint of human origins, not divine authorship. It adapted earlier myths to serve religious purposes, not record historical events. By acknowledging this we can see the Torah anew, as a cultural and spiritual landmark born of humanity's timeless search for meaning, not unique divine revelation.