There are many strange similarities between ancient texts from different cultures. Within these narratives there are different symbols, but many stories remain eerily similar across cultural boundaries; within the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament of the Bible, for example, there are a number of different stories that are remarkably similar. The story of Gilgamesh and the plant of eternal life is very similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. However, perhaps the most similar of the stories contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament of the Bible are the shared stories of a flood. The Quran, another ancient text from the same region, also shares the great flood story with Gilgamesh and the Old Testament, however, this discussion will focus on Gilgamesh and the Old Testament, and the various similarities and subtle differences between the texts . To discuss the similarities and differences between the Old Testament (sometimes called the Hebrew Bible) and The Epic of Gilgamesh, it is important to first understand the separate stories as they are written in their respective texts. For the purposes of discussion here, the King James Version of the Bible has been used. However, the text and translation are relatively similar in all major Bible translations. When talking about the Flood, God says to Noah: “And God said to Noah, 'The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is full of violence because of them; and behold, I will destroy them together with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and cover it with pitch inside and out... And behold, I myself will send the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which it is... middle of paper... . ...i).There are very real similarities between the stories of the flood and the Great Flood in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament book of Genesis. Although differences exist, these differences can be attributed to different cultural interpretations of events, or even to changes that occurred as stories were passed down from generation to generation, before they were written down. It seems likely that the Abrahamic stories of the Great Flood were derived from the stories contained in the Epic of Gilgamesh, although it is certainly difficult to find definitive evidence in the case of these ancient texts. There may well have been a great flood that occurred in Mesopotamia many, many centuries ago; a flood so great that it remains ingrained in cultural memory and passed down as legend in a variety of different cultural traditions (Njozi).