The biblical account of Noah was derived from the Babylonian myth of Utanapishtim — your mythical God didn't “inspire” it.

The parallels are real, and a Christian who denies them looks uninformed. The question is what the parallels prove, and that is the step the argument usually skips.

1. Name the parallels honestly. In Gilgamesh tablet XI, in Atrahasis, and in the Sumerian story of Ziusudra you find a divine warning, a boat, the seed of living things taken aboard, birds released to find dry land, a landing on a mountain, and a sacrifice afterward. Genesis has all of those. Pretending otherwise costs credibility and gains nothing.

2. Resemblance is not the same as descent. Peoples in the same region with the same memory tell similar stories. Similarity is equally explained by a shared event, a shared older tradition, or literary borrowing in either direction. The objection selects one explanation and presents it as the conclusion.

3. The direction of influence is genuinely disputed. Some scholars argue Israel borrowed from Mesopotamia; some argue the Mesopotamian versions depend on an older West Semitic tradition; others posit a common source behind both. The Gilgamesh tablets we possess are seventh-century BC copies from Ashurbanipal's library, later than the traditional date of Moses — so the manuscripts do not settle priority in either direction.

4. The theology is inverted, not copied. In Gilgamesh the gods flood the earth because human noise annoys them, and they cower like dogs when the water rises. In Genesis God floods the earth because “the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11–13), and he grieves over what he is about to do (Genesis 6:6). One story is about petty gods; the other is about a holy judge.

5. The endings teach opposite things. Utnapishtim is granted immortality, and the gods swarm the sacrifice “like flies.” Noah receives no immortality, no secret, and no privileges — he receives a covenant that binds God to patience, sealed with a sign in the sky (Genesis 9:12–13). The Genesis writer is arguing against the Mesopotamian picture, not reproducing it.

6. Borrowing a form would not disprove inspiration. God speaks in the idiom of the people he addresses. The New Testament quotes Greek poets (Acts 17:28) and uses Greek letter forms. If God can use Athenian poetry to make a point, he can use ancient Near Eastern narrative conventions to say something the neighbours never said.

7. Genre matters more than source. Genesis 6–9 is theological narrative, compressed and patterned: seven-day cycles, clean and unclean animals, repeated refrains. John Walton's point is that ancient texts should be read by their own conventions rather than as modern reports. That is a claim about reading, not an escape hatch.

8. Turn it around: similarity would falsify the monotheism too. On the objection's logic, Israel's claim that God is one would also be “borrowed” and therefore untrue. But Israel's monotheism is precisely what no Mesopotamian text contains. If Israel took the boat and rejected the pantheon, that is not plagiarism; it is polemic.

9. The New Testament treats Noah as historical. Jesus compares the days of Noah to his own return (Luke 17:26–27), Hebrews calls Noah's obedience real faith (Hebrews 11:7), and Peter calls him a herald of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5). That does not settle the literary question, but it rules out reading the flood as a fable the apostles knew was fiction.

10. Be clear about what cannot be proved. No one can demonstrate from the text alone that Genesis predates Gilgamesh or depends on it. What can be shown is that the borrowing hypothesis is asserted more strongly than the evidence supports, and that the distance between the two accounts is a difference of kind, not of detail.

The objection is right that the parallels exist and wrong that they settle the case. A text can share a culture's furniture and still contradict its religion, and Genesis does exactly that. The interesting question is why a borrowed story would reverse every theological point it borrowed.

Sources: Kenneth Kitchen; On the Reliability of the Old Testament; John Walton; The Lost World of Genesis One; Richard Hess; Wesley Huff.

Related challenges:
• Sorry Christians, but the creation account in Genesis is borrowed -- it is based on the Enuma Elish.
• Christian claims are not credible! Wouldn’t we expect SOME evidence of the exodus from Egypt, if it took place? 2.5 million people wandering around for 40 years in a specific geographic location...and NOTHING!
• So Adam and Eve lived for 900+ years and Methuselah celebrated 930 years. Is it just me, or do these claims not strain credulity beyond its limits?