Biblical Admiration

I admire Abraham more than Gilgamesh because Abraham is generous, compassionate towards people he doesn’t know, because he listens to God but has enough courage to question him sometimes. I don’t admire Gilgamesh as much because he is extremely self-centered, has poor judgment that has drastic consequences, abuses the gifts and powers that he has, and attacks creatures when they are defenseless.

In my opinion being admirable is respecting other people especially your superiors, but when you disagree with them you’re not afraid to ask why. This is why I believe Abraham is an admirable person. He listens to and has faith in God that God will not lead him astray. This was shown when God said to Abraham leave Haran because God promised to build him a great nation and “make his name great” (Genesis 12:3) Abraham also shows respect for God by building Him alters (Genesis 12:7, 13:18) This shows me that Abraham is not just going along for the ride, but is willing to work and show respect to God Another example of Abraham trusting God was when God ordered Abraham to circumcise all males in the household. This included Abraham at his old age of 99. As a result God promised him a son with his wife being 90 years old. (Genesis 17:26) This is also admirable because being circumcised at an old age would probably hurt a great deal.

I also admired Abraham when he tried to convince God not to destroy the town of Sodom. I believe that took a tremendous amount of courage because God promised Abraham a lot of great things in his future, but was willing to give some of it up to help people he didn’t know. Another reason why Abraham is admirable is because he is generous. When the king of Sodom wanted to give Abraham a lot of valuable items, Abraham refused to take them, but instead told the king to give the goods to his friends and the people that helped him.

My last reason why Abraham is admirable is when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son. Since Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son to God (Genesis 22:2-11) because he believed that God had a decent reason for this. I believe this is admirable because Abraham has so much faith that God is omniscient, and goodwill. When God told him to give up the thing he treasures most he was willing to do it

Gilgamesh is not admirable because he is extremely self-centered, immature, abuses the gifts and powers that he has, and has poor judgment with extreme consequences. Gilgamesh showed his self centeredness when he attacked Humbaba so that he could have eternal glory. Gilgamesh didn’t kill Humbaba all by himself, but instead had a lot help from Shamash, who paralyzed Humbaba and making it incredibly easy for Gilgamesh to kill him. (Gilgamesh, 123-4) I didn’t find this admirable because Gilgamesh killed Humbaba for eternal glory, when Humbaba was defenseless, and didn’t do anything to hurt Gilgamesh or his people. Another example of Gilgamesh being self centered is when Enkidu died. Instead of mourning for his best friend,