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111 ment informs us. Such a book, we can safely assume, had surely existed. The evidence strongly suggests that the person whom the Bible called Adam was the one whom the Sumerians called Adapa, an Earthling "perfected" by Enki and deemed to have been genet- ically related to him. "Wide understanding Enki perfected for him, to disclose the designs of the Earth; to him he gave Knowing; but immortality he did not give him." Portions of the "Tale of Adapa" have been found; the complete text might well have been the "Book of the Generations of Adam" to which the Old Testament refers. Assyrian kings probably had access to such a record, for many of them claimed to have retained one or another of Adapa's virtues. Sargon and Sennacherib held that they had inherited the wisdom that Enki had granted Adapa; Sinsharishkun and Esarhaddon boasted that they were bom "in the image of the wise Adapa"; according to an inscription of Esarhaddon. he had erected in the temple of Ashura statue with the image of Adapa; and Ashurbanipal asserted that he had learned "the secret of tablet-writing from before the Deluge" as Adapa Laat wise cultures—cultivation and shepherding—as well as urban settle- ments before the Deluge had swept all off the face of the Earth. The Book of Genesis relates that the first son of Adam and Eve, Cain, "was a tiller of the earth," and his brother Abel "was a herder of sheep." Then, after Cain was exiled "away from the presence of the Lord" for having killed Abel, urban settlements- Cities of Man—were established: in the land of Nud, east of Eden, Cain had a son whom he named Enoch and built a city called like- wise, the name meaning "Foundation." The Old Testament, hav- ing no particular interest in the line of Cain, skips quickly to the fourth generation after Enoch, when Lamech was born: The name of one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And his brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all such as play lyre and pipe. And Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain, Mankind Emerges "This is the Book of the Generations of Adam," the Old Testa- had known. The Sumerian sources hold that there had been both rural And Lamech took unto himself two wives: And Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle. an artificer of gold and copper and iron.