03_Samet_375_375_390 30/10/15 13:05 Pagina 379 379 THE GILGAMESH EPIC AND THE BOOK OF QOHELET: A NEW LOOK 379 The accumulation of six consecutive components which appear in the exact same order in both texts, and include specific themes such as washed hair, cannot be a coincidence. To this we should add the simple fact that both speeches also present the same philo- sophical message, that is, enjoying everyday life as an answer for the problem of mortality. These peculiarities seem to be significant enough to indicate that we are not dealing here with a general ty- pological similarity resulting from a similar theme or from a com- mon cultural background. Rather, the parallel under discussion most probably reflects an actual literary dependence 13. Forty years after the publication of this discovery, Samuel Noah Kramer pointed to another parallel between the Gilgamesh tradition and the Book of Qohelet 14. The parallel was identified by Kramer in the Sumerian text later known as Gilgamesh and Huwawa A, which is dated to the beginning of the second millennium BCE. As part of his arguments to Enkidu in favor of fighting together against the monster Huwawa, Gilgamesh describes the power of mutual help as follows 15: 13 The methodological aspects of establishing a direct literary link between two texts, and the elusive component of “uniqueness” involved, have been widely discussed. See especially J.H. TIGAY, “On Evaluating Claims of Lit- erary Borrowing”, The Tablet and the Scroll. Near Eastern Studies in Honor of W.W. Hallo (eds. M.E. COHEN et al.) (Bethesda, MD 1993) 250-255, who refers to the current case study. For a general methodological discussion see: S. TALMON, “The Comparative Method in Biblical Interpretation: Principles and Problems”, Göttingen Congress Volume (ed. J.A. EMERTON) (VTS 29; Leiden 1978) 320-356; W.W. HALLO, “Biblical History in its Near Eastern Setting: The Contextual Approach”, Scripture in Context I (eds. C. EVANS et al.) (Pittsburgh, PA 1980) 1-26; J.J.M. ROBERTS, “The Ancient Near Eastern Environment”, The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (eds. D.A. KNIGHT et al.) (The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters 1; Philadelphia, PA 1985) 75-121; M. MALUL, The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies (AOAT 227; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1990) esp. 13- 19; W.W. HALLO, “Compare and Contrast: the Contextual Approach to Bib- lical Literature”, The Bible in the Light of Cuneiform Literature (eds. W.W. HALLO et al.) (Lewiston, NY 1990) 1-16. 14 S.N. KRAMER, “Gilgamesh and the Land of Living”, JCS 1 (1947) 3-46, here 40. 15 Text reconstruction is based on D.O. EDZARD, “Gilgameš und Huwawa A. II. Teil”, ZA 81 (1991) 165-233, here 202-204, with the revised readings by M. CIVIL, “Reading Gilgameš II: Gilgamesh and Huwawa”, Literatur, Politik und Recht in Mesopotamien. Festschrift für Claus Wilcke (eds. W. SALLABERGER et al.) (OBC 14; Wiesbaden 2003) 77-86, here 81.