03_Samet_375_375_390 04/11/15 15:09 Pagina 385 385 THE GILGAMESH EPIC AND THE BOOK OF QOHELET: A NEW LOOK 385 this epic into his own composition. In each of the three cases discussed above, specific identical features indicate that the similarity between the sources is too distinctive to be a mere coincidence. This may lead to the conclusion that the author of Qohelet read, and made use of, the canonical recension of the Gilgamesh epic. On the surface, this assumption may seem plausible. At the same time period when the book of Qohelet was authored in Jerusalem, sometime between the fifth and third centuries BCE, Mesopotamian scribes continued to copy and transmit the Standard Babylonian Gilgamesh epic, whose last datable copy was inscribed around 130 BCE 32. The only problem which is seemingly still in need of solution is establishing the routes of transmission which allegedly introduced scribes in Persian or Hellenistic Judah to this Mesopotamian masterpiece. Nevertheless, a second glance at the data reveals a much more complicated picture. The scholarly discussions of this issue have often overlooked the heterogeneity of the sources involved 33. As we have seen, not all the parallels to Qohelet appear in the same version of Gilgamesh, and not all of them originate from the same time period. The wisdom passage which refers to the three-ply cord appears in the Standard Babylonian version of Gilgamesh, and, as shown above, the similarity between this first millennium version and Qohelet is more significant than the similarity between the biblical passage and the Sumerian version from the early second millen- nium. However, two other parallels, that is, the alewife’s counsel and Gilgamesh’s speech about light as a symbol of life, are extant solely in one Old Babylonian manuscript of the epic which origi- nates from Sippar. Another parallel goes back to an Old Babylonian tablet that is currently housed in the Yale collection. These data reflect an especially complicated textual history. On the one hand, we have several striking cases of significant literary links between Qohelet and Gilgamesh which are most likely to in- dicate that the biblical author used the Mesopotamian epic as a lit- erary source. On the other hand, it turns out that the version used by the author of Qohelet is not identical with any version known to us today. It included one passage which belongs to the Standard 32 GEORGE, Gilgamesh I, 138. 33 Oswald Loretz’s work is an exception, but his conclusions as to the general nature of the connection between Gilgamesh and Qohelet are difficult to accept. See LORETZ, Qohelet, 118-119.