. . . and all the days of Kenan were nine hundred and ten
     years:  and he died. . . . and all the days of Mahalalel were
     eight hundred ninety and five years:  and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Jared were nine hundred sixty and
     two years:  and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and
     five years:  and Enoch walked with God:  and he was not; for
     God took him.

     . . . and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty
     and nine years:  and he died.

     . . . and all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy
     and seven years:  and he died.

     And Noah was five hundred years old:  and Noah begat Shem,
     Ham, and Japheth.

Throughout these extracts from “the book of the generations of Adam",(1) Galumum’s nine hundred years(2) seem to run almost like a refrain; and Methuselah’s great age, the recognized symbol for longevity, is even exceeded by two of the Sumerian patriarchs.  The names in the two lists are not the same,(3) but in both we are moving in the same atmosphere and along similar lines of thought.  Though each list adheres to its own set formulae, it estimates the length of human life in the early ages of the world on much the same gigantic scale as the other.  Our Sumerian records are not quite so formal in their structure as the Hebrew narrative, but the short notes which here and there relieve their stiff monotony may be paralleled in the Cainite genealogy of the preceding chapter in Genesis.(4) There Cain’s city-building, for example, may pair with that of Enmerkar; and though our new records may afford no precise equivalents to Jabal’s patronage of nomad life, or to the invention of music and metal-working ascribed to Jubal and Tubal-cain, these too are quite in the spirit of Sumerian and Babylonian tradition, in their attempt to picture the beginnings of civilization.  Thus Enmeduranki, the prototype of the seventh Antediluvian patriarch of Berossus, was traditionally revered as the first exponent of divination.(5) It is in the chronological and general setting, rather than in the Hebrew names and details, that an echo seems here to reach us from Sumer through Babylon.

     (1) Gen. v. 1 ff. (P).

     (2) The same length of reign is credited to Melamkish and to
     one and perhaps two other rulers of that first Sumerian
     “kingdom”.

(3) The possibility of the Babylonian origin of some of the Hebrew names in this geneaology and its Cainite parallel has long been canvassed; and considerable ingenuity has been expended in obtaining equations between Hebrew names and those of the Antediluvian kings of Berossus by tracing a common meaning for each suggested pair.  It is unfortunate that our new identification of {’Ammenon} with the Sumerian Enmenunna should dispose of one of the best parallels obtained,