SOURCE: Bailey, John A. “Initiation and the Primal Woman in Gilgamesh and Genesis 2-3.” Journal of Biblical Literature 89, no. 2 (June 1970): 137-50.

In the following essay, Bailey asserts that Genesis 2-3 diverges from the Epic of Gilgamesh in setting forth a non-sexual presentation of initiation.

The most obvious contact between the Gilgamesh epic and the J source in Genesis, which proves that the J writer was familiar with the epic, is the account of the primeval flood. Yet there are a number of other elements in Gilgamesh and J which are worth comparing. It is my purpose in this paper to describe and compare the initiation of Enkidu and the rôle of the harlot in Gilgamesh with the initiation of the man and the rôle of the woman in Gen 2-3.¹

In the epic the harlot is introduced to serve a specific purpose. Enkidu, the creature of...