Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

Page 117 of 368

Page 117 of 368
Wars of Gods and Men - Zecharia Sitchin-pages

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114 A second source indicating Mesopotamian chronicles for the biblical tale of Adam and his son Cain are Assyrian texts. We find, for example, that an archaic Assyrian King List states that in the earliest times, when their forefathers were tent-dwellers—a term duplicated in the Bible regarding the line of Cain—the patriarch of their people was named Adamu, the biblical Adam. We also find among traditional Assyrian eponyms of royal names the combination Ashur-bel-Ka'ini ("Ashur, lord of the Ka'- inites"); and the Assyrian scribes paralleled this with the Sumerian ASHUR-EN.DUNI ("Ashur is lord of Duni"), implying that the Ka'ini ("The people of Kain") and the Duni ("The people of Dun") were one and the same; and thus reaffirming the biblical Cain and Land of Nud or Dun. Having dealt briefly with the line of Cain, the Old Testament turned its full attention to a new line descended of Adam: "And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and called his name Seth, for [she said] the Lord hath granted me another offspring in- stead of Abel, whom Cain had slain." The Book of Genesis then adds: "One hundred and thirty years did Adam live when he begot a son in his likeness and after his image, and called his name Seth. "And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years, and he begot [other) sons and daughters; and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. And Seth lived a hundred and five years and begot Enosh; and after he begot Enosh Seth lived eight hundred and seven years, and he begot [other] sons and daughters; and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died." The name of Seth's son and the next pre-Diluvial patriarch in which the Bible was interested was Enosh; it has come to mean in Hebrew "Human, Mortal," and it is clear that the Old Testament considered him the progenitor of the human lineage at the core of the ancient chronicles. It states in respect to him, that "It was then that the name of Yahweh began to be called," that worship and priesthood began. There are a number of Sumerian texts that shed more light on this intriguing aspect. The available portions of the Adapa text state that he was "perfected" and treated as a son by Enki in Enki's city Eridu. It is likely then, as William Hallo (Antediluvian Cities) had suggested, that the great-grandson of Enosh was named Yared to mean "He of Eridu." Here, then, is the answer: While the Bible loses interest in the banished descendants of Adam, it fo- THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN