This is the book of the generations of Adam.
Genesis 5:1
"The line of Adam is ten generations...to the flood....
Regarding the ten generations from Adam to Noah, it is also curious how the number ten prevails independently of the Bible concerning the first generations of men.
*...the Iranians wrote of the ten kings of ancient times who preserved the purity of the Laws.
*The Hindus spoke of ten fathers, the children of Brahma.
*In the sagas of the Germans and Scandinavians ten ancestors of Odin are mentioned.
*Among the Chinese there were ten emperors before the dawn of history.
*The Arabs spoke of ten fabled kings who lived between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
*Berossus, the Babylonian historian, who lived about 300 B.C., copied old inscriptions which told of ten kings who lived before the Flood and who reigned 432,000 years (Custance, 1957. p. 29-33).
This huge number deserves some comment.
The total has often been used to demonstrate the mythical nature of the story and to emphasize the fact that such accounts have no connection with true history. The original reads 120 saros. The sari was a Babylonian measure which could mean 3600 of anything. It is a natural conclusion that in this context one thinks in terms of years, and indeed 120 x 3600 equals 432,000 years.
It is seldom noted, however, that the sari also has a meaning of 18 1/2 years, which results in an entirely different conclusion.
Suidas, a Greek lexicographer of the 12th century A.D. is quoted as saying that the sari among the Chaldeans is 222 lunar months, that is, 18 years and six months, and that the Chaldean year on which the sari is based consisted of twelve months of thirty days each, or 360 days.
If we take the more logical figure of 18 1/2 years, we secure a total length of time for the ten kings of 2220 years. This figure compares astonishingly well with the Septuagint total of 2242 years for the ten Pre-Flood patriarchs, and places the Sumerian myth into an entirely new light (Custance, 1957, p. 29-33). Gordon observes that many preposterous myths have turned out to be correct."
SPADING UP ANCIENT WORDS
