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Dr. David Neiman

Genesis, Chapter 5 – The Learned One

When we now look at the seventh name in the biblical list, we find that his name is Hanokh, which in Hebrew means "The learned one." This can imply as much as the name of the Babylonian Enmen-dur-an-ki. Moreover, the figure of Hanokh also reveals a relationship with the Sun which is implied in the number of years that he lived on earth. When we review the ages of the pre-diluvian patrarchs as given in Genesis 5, we see the following:

Adam lived 930 years Jared - 962

Seth - 912 Hanokh - 365

Enosh - 905 Methushelah - 969

Kénan - 910 Lamech - 777

Mahalal-El - 895 Noah - 950

One thing is obvious in the biblical list of the ante-diluvian patriarchs. The biblical authors clearly did not accept the Sumerian-Babylonian mythology of the descent of humans from the immortals. The other feature they rejected was the excessive exaggeration of the ages. True, the biblical figures also indicate a tradition that the earliest ancestors of mankind lived for long periods of time before the universal Flood. But the biblical writers limited the ages to less than 1,000 years. Also in both traditions; the Sumerian-Babylonian and the Biblical and Hellenic, the Universal Deluge is the dividing line, the boundary between the lives of those who lived before and those who lived after. In the Sumerian King List, the ages before the flood are multiples of 10,000, in the Biblical list of Genesis 5, they are all close to but less that 1,000, except for Hanokh.

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