obscure, and is complicated by the double genealogy of ch. 4; but that a connexion exists it seems unreasonable to deny.
III. Relation of the Sethite and Cainite Genealogies.—The substantial identity of the names in Gn. 41. 17. 18 with Nos. 3-9 of ch. 5 seems to have been first pointed out by Buttmann (Mythologus, i. 170 ff.) in 1828, and is now universally recognised by scholars. A glance at the following table shows that each name in the Cainite series corresponds to a name in the other, which is either absolutely the same, or is the same in meaning, or varies but slightly in form:
Sethite. Cainite.
1. 'Ādām
2. Šēth
3. 'Ěnôš (Man) 'Ādām (Man)
4. Ḳênān Ḳáyin
5. Mahălal'ēl Ḥănôkh
6. Yéred 'Îrād
7. Ḥănôkh Mĕḥûyā'ēl
8. Mĕthû-šelaḥ Mĕthû-šā-'ēl
9. Lémekh Lémekh
10. Nōăḥ |
| |
| | | | | |
Šēm Ḥām Yépheth Yābāl Yûbāl Tûbal-Ḳáyin.
While these resemblances undoubtedly point to some common original,
the variations are not such as can be naturally accounted for by direct
borrowing of the one list from the other. The facts that each list is
composed of a perfect number, and that with the last member the
single stem divides into three branches, rather imply that both forms
were firmly established in tradition before being incorporated in the
biblical documents. If we had to do merely with the Hebrew tradition,
the easiest supposition would perhaps be that the Cainite genealogy
and the kernel of the Sethite are variants of a single original which
might have reached Israel through different channels;[1] that the latter
had been expanded by the addition of two names at the beginning and
one at the end, so as to bring it into line with the story of the Flood,
and the Babylonian genealogy with which it was linked. The difficulty
of this hypothesis arises from the curious circumstance that in the
Berossian list of kings, just as in the Sethite list of patriarchs, the
name for 'Man' occupies the third place. It is extremely unlikely
- ↑ A Hommel's view (AOD, 29 f.) is that the primary list was Chaldean, that the Sethite list most nearly represents this original, and that the Cainite springs from a modification of it under Babylonian influence. It would be quite as plausible to suggest that the Cainite form came through Phœnicia (see the notes on Jabal, Tubal, and Na'amah), and the Sethite from Arabia (Enos, Kenan, Hanokh [?], Methuselah).
