Is God Perfect or is He just a Jerk?

While the authors of the Epic of Gilgamesh and the authors of Genesis had a couple of views in common, one of the big things that they differed in was the relationship between humans and Gods. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is put on the level of close to God and he does not really fear the Gods. In fact he mocks them for weaknesses that they have. This is very different from the view in Genesis. Humans are made to seem a lot weaker than Gods, almost like servants with no free will of their own. Also the God in Genesis is seen as almighty and perfect. While he may change his mind on certain things, such as destroying towns and people, he still has the overall final decision and everybody looks at him as being in the right. The Gods in Gilgamesh are often shown as being cruel and in the wrong and the authors do not try to hide that fact. God in Genesis is a very cruel person when looking from certain points of view but the authors always have him pictured as doing something good even if it means wiping out the entire Earth, such as what he does in the Noah's Arc story. The authors do not look at God as being an evil tyrant for killing everything. They look at him as a good person for "ridding the world of evil" or at least what was evil in his point of view. Had the authors of Gilgamesh written about a God doing that it would be seen as the Gods fighting or doing something unfair. They also probably would have had Gilgamesh fight or challenge the Gods. The overall message in The Epic of Gilgamesh seems to be to respect the Gods when they deserve it but don't let them get out of control and keep them in check. The message in Genesis, however, is God is always right, obey or you will die, and don't question God too much because he is better.