The Epic of Gilgamesh

1). How and to what extent can the various versions of the Mesopotamian Epic help us to understand the history and cultures which produced them?

With most stories, they are generally not rewritten in various versions, mainly because that would be plagiarism, but also because it is just one story. Apparently not for the Mesopotamians, The Epic of Gilgamesh is obviously more than just a story, we may not know exactly what it stood for, but we do know that stories like this one are more important than just normal stories. Also these stories were passed down from generation to generation, meaning that the people had to memorize these tales. So we know that stories like this one were upheld, and that the Mesopotamian culture was one that would rely on memory.

4). How does studying these ancient texts challenge our contemporary understanding of authorship, authenticity and originality.

When we think about a book, there is one author or at most two, but in the ancient texts there are many "authors", and with the stories they tell, some come from other stories, while others are practically the same just with different deities. So that gets rid of the modern idea of originality.And as for authenticity, the myths are very similar, and some are even similar to the Bible. Some of these ancient texts are contradictions to our ideas of authorship, authenticity, and originality.