Week 7: The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Dhammapada

Merry Christmas! I barely know what day it is, to be honest, and I think this post is a little later than I intended. Those are signs of a fun holiday. I hope you are having the same. We have one more week with travel coming up and then life will return to its regular pace. And of course the reading will continue.

This week I tackled the not-at-all-Christmasy Epic of Gilgamesh and also The Dhammapada. Gilgamesh was written in approximately 2000 BC, the oldest known story in the world, and is about 1500 years older than anything I’ve read to date. The Dhammapada is the oldest writings of the Buddha, from approximately 450 BC, which is a lot more in line with some of the other things I’ve been reading. I think it’s important to note the relative ages of these works and know how they fit together. I homeschooled one of my children for her second grade year, and we made a timeline as we studied history that year. I think it’s time for me to put one of those together for this project…

Gilgamesh was an actual, historical king of a Mesopotamian city called Uruk, around 2750 BC. The poem tells the story of how he angers the gods and then makes a best friend from a former wild man, Enkidu. They go rampaging, killing beasts for the sport of it, and that angers the gods. Enkidu is cursed and falls ill. When he dies, Gilgamesh is heartbroken and goes in search of a cure for his own mortality. He fails in that quest. Here are a few of my take-aways:

• The style of writing feels extraordinarily primitive to me. There is something very, very basic about the story, and many times it feels like it’s written with the mindset of a sixth grade boy: lots of graphic talk about sex and body parts, and lots of bloody killing. Until the last part, there wasn’t much nuance and there wasn’t a lot of reflection on anyone’s part.

• The Flood story is well-described here, lending credence to an actual, world-changing flood taking place at some point in history. The narrative of it is very interesting, especially the description of a square “boat” constructed and filled with pairs of animals.

• Book X is much more thoughtful than earlier sections. Gilgamesh is mourning his dead friend, searching for ways that he himself might become immortal. But the only immortal human tells him:

Humans are born, they live, then they die, this is the order that the gods have decreed. But until the end comes, enjoy your life, spend it in happiness, not despair. Savor your food, make each of your days a delight, bathe and anoint yourself, wear bright clothes that are sparkling clean, let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace. This is the best way for a man to live.

• And that’s what it comes down to. Man will always and forever struggle with his mortality. We have and we will. The oldest and most enduring story is about the oldest and most enduring question.

• There is just not a lot of man-woman romance in these old stories. Only Penelope and Odysseus come to mind in the last few weeks. Here, Enkidu is seduced by the temple prostitute but there’s not much more mention of women than that. I was actually surprised to see a wife mentioned in the quote above!

The Dhammapada reminded me very, very much of The Analects of Confucius (Week 4). Books of aphorisms are very hard to read in big chunks, as I’ve already noted. It’s more a matter of scanning, trying to see how things fit together, if there are over-arching themes. I have a few thoughts here as well:

• Some of these sayings of Buddha are good sense, and we saw them in Confucius, and we see them in Proverbs. A wrongly-directed mind will do to you far worse than any enemy; a rightly-directed one will do you good.

• All the talk of “emptying” and forgetting the self is bleak to me. It’s a completely different mindset from the Greek philosophy I’ve read until now. It’s not Stoic; it’s a kind of blankness, a rejection of self but not an embrace of anything else as far as I can tell.

Reading the Dhammapada leaves me feeling very sad, to be honest. I’ve shared before that I’m a Christian, and I’ve read the Bible a pretty fair amount. There are painful parts to it, but there is also extreme joy. The goal of the Buddha seems to be an evenness to life, a flattening out. Maybe the beauty of the Advent season as it turns to the joy of Christmas was what I reacted to, but I don’t think Buddhism is for me at all. The Dhammapada goes in the “Okay, read that one, check” box, and it hasn’t inspired any further reading from me. Curiosity about the culture? Maybe. But in a world where there are so many things to read, at least I can say “no, thank you” to this.

I listened to Christmas carols this week, so no Stravinsky or Wagner. We are traveling this week so I may listen to some of that in the car! I also didn’t look at Mesopotamian art. I need to get better at this part of the project for sure.

As for next week, if you are following Ted’s list you know that Week 8 reading is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. My copy is very large, larger than a legal size pad of paper. Since I’ll be on some planes, I’m trading Week 8 for Week 9 and the Bible. I’ll be reading Genesis, Ecclesiastes, the four Gospels and Romans next week. (I’ll also be reading Revelation as I finish up my annual reading plan!) I am very, very excited to read the Bible in big chunks like this, especially in light of this week and The Analects. As always, the books I’m reading are on this Amazon list.

The music selections this week are varied and I’m excited about them, too: choral music from William Byrd, Handel’s Messiah (my fave), Tallis’ Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the Byrd’s Turn, Turn, Turn. For art, it’s all things Michelangelo. A big, juicy week ahead for sure.

I mentioned my Bible reading plan above, and I wanted to share a couple of resources since it’s the time of year when many people think about reading the Bible through. First, even considering it is awesome. I want to encourage you to “pick it up and read.” I am just finishing The Bible Recap this week, my first time with this program. It is a roughly chronological reading plan. You read the assigned passage, and then you can listen to the accompanying commentary that is released every day as a podcast. I have absolutely loved this program and highly, highly recommend it.

If you prefer an audio-only approach, I have done both the Daily Audio Bible and Father Mike Schmitz’ Bible in a Year podcasts. They are both excellent, with good (undistracting) production values and interesting commentaries. I only switched between them because I like a change. Between these two programs I’ve probably been through the Bible eight or ten times.

This year I’m trying something a little different. Alabaster Publishing came out with a really beautiful study guide for the entire Bible in a year, but in a more topically-driven schedule. I’m excited to mix it up a little this year, for example reading Ruth in the same week as Isaiah. I think it will help me with the principle of letting Scripture interpret Scripture.

If you’ve read this far, thank you! I hope you have a wonderful New Year and that this week is filled with good books, good food and good friends. What is on your reading plan for 2025?