Josh claims that the theme of pleasing the gods was present in the mind of the authors of Gilgamesh, but I say the exact opposite can be seen. I believe the authors were trying to down-playing the gods. These gods are anything but perfect, and NONE of them are all powerful. Each god has their own little realm of power; none of them has complete power over everything. Also, they act as petty as the humans do, fighting amongst themselves and acting for selfish game. I mean, there was no reason why they would create Gilgamesh in the first place if not for some selfish entertainment.
Another thing that is in the book that takes away from the gods’ persona is the actions of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. They are constantly doing things that incur the gods’ wrath. But if the god’s were so all powerful why wouldn’t they just create Gilgamesh the way they wanted him in the first place? It just shows that they have the inability to make things exactly the way they want them. It was said that human’s fate is up to the gods, but with all the misbehavior of Enkidu and Gilgamesh it seems that the gods are unable to completely control the world they create.
This being said, I believe the authors were attempting to show that the gods were losing their ‘all powerful’ image as man gained more knowledge, and thusly every move you make didn’t need to be totally devoted to pleasing the gods.
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