Old Testament’s Table of Nations

Genesis 10 states that every race upon the earth originated with the three sons of Noah; Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Genesis 10 lists a total of 70 original founders of the nations of the world or racial groups. They are all divided into 3 primary classifications: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Although the subject of the classification of the nations and the origin of languages is highly controversial, ethnologists agree on one key point: that all of mankind can be divided into three basic groups.

The Biblical Nations of Genesis X

The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch is “an ancient composition known from two sets of versions, an Ethiopic one that scholars identify as ‘1 Enoch’, and a Slavonic version that is identified as ‘2 Enoch’, and which is also known as The Book of the Secrets of Enoch. Both versions, of which copied manuscripts have been found mostly in Greek and Latin translations, are based on early sources that enlarged on the short biblical mention that Enoch, the seventh Patriarch after Adam, did not die because, at age 365, ‘he walked with God’ – taken heavenward to join the deity.”
— Zecharia Sitchin, When Time Began

Fragment of 1 Enoch (Scrolls of the Dead Sea)

Genesis 5:18-24 [18] Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and begot Enoch. [19] After he begot Enoch, Jared lived eight hundred years, and had sons and daughters. [20] So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty-two years; and he died. [21] Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. [22] After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. [23] So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. [24] And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.

Several authors offer their insight into the Book of Enoch and the nature of the Angels (the Anunnaki?) who descended to Earth and married the daughters of Men and begat a race of giants.

“2 Enoch” – The Book of the Secrets of Enoch

An entirely different Enoch manuscript has survived in the Slavonic language. This text, dubbed “2 Enoch” and commonly called “the Slavonic Enoch,” was discovered in 1886 by a professor Sokolov in the archives of the Belgrade Public Library. It appears that just as the Ethiopic Enoch (“1 Enoch”) had escaped the sixth-century Church suppression of Enoch texts in the Mediterranean area, so a Slavonic Enoch had survived far away, long after the originals from which it was copied were destroyed or hidden away.

Specialists in the Enochian texts surmise that the missing original from which the Slavonic was copied was probably a Greek manuscript. This may have been, in turn, based on a Hebrew or Aramaic manuscript.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

“1 Enoch” – The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

1912 edition of R.H. Charles’ translation of the Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch, a title given to several works that attribute themselves to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah; that is, Enoch son of Jared (Genesis 5:18). (There are also three other characters named Enoch in the Bible: the son of Cain (Gen. 4:17), the son of Midian (Gen. 25:4), and the son of Reuben (Gen. 46:9; Ex. 6:14). The last two are transcribed “Hanoch” in the modern translations). Most commonly, the phrase Book of Enoch refers to 1 Enoch, which is wholly extant only in the Ethiopic language. There are also other books called Enoch, 2 Enoch (surviving only in Old Slavonic, c. 1st century; Eng. trans. by R. H. Charles (1896)) and 3 Enoch (surviving in Hebrew, c. 5th-6th century) The numbering of these texts has been applied by scholars to distinguish the texts from one another.

— R.H. Charles: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Oxford: The Clarendon Press (1917)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

“1 Enoch” – The Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic

The Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic, Dr. Richard Laurence (1821)

About the Book of Enoch (also referred to as “Ethiopic Enoch” or “1 Enoch”). The Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch) was once cherished by Jews and Christians alike, this book later fell into disfavor with powerful theologians – precisely because of its controversial statements on the nature and deeds of the fallen angels. The Enochian writings, in addition to many other writings that were excluded (or lost) from the Bible (i.e., the Book of Tobit, Esdras, etc.) were widely recognized by many of the early church fathers as “apocryphal” writings.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Atrahasis: Mesopotamian account of the Great Flood

The Epic of Atrahasis on a tablet from the British Museum, London (Britain). © British Museum

The Epic of Atrahasis is the fullest Mesopotamian account of the Great Flood, but it offers more.

• The conditions immediately after the Creation, when the Lower Gods have to work very hard, and complain
• Revolt of the Lower Gods
• Negotiations
• Proposal to create Man, to relieve the Lower Gods from their labor
• Creation of Man
• Man’s noisy behavior; new complaints (this section is now lost)
• The supreme god Enlil’s decision to extinguish mankind by a Great Flood
• Enki’s betrayal of the plan to Atrahasis
• Construction of the Ark
• Boarding of the Ark
• Departure
• The Great Flood
• The gods are hungry (there are no farmers left to bring sacrifices), decide to spare Atrahasis (lost)
• Regulations to cut down the noise: childbirth, infant mortality, and celibacy

The text is known from several versions: two were written by Assyrian scribes (one in the Assyrian, one in the Babylonian dialect), a third one (on three tablets) was written during the reign of king Ammi-saduqa of Babylonia (1647-1626 BCE). Parts are quoted in Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh; other influences are in the Babylonian History by Berossus.

The Atrahasis Epic

The Epic of Atrahasis on a tablet from the British Museum, London (Britain). © British Museum

The Atrahasis Epic, named after its human hero, is a story from Mesopotamia that includes both a creation and a flood account. It was composed as early as the nineteenth century B.C.E. In its cosmology, heaven is ruled by the god Anu, earth by Enlil, and the freshwater ocean by Enki. Enlil set the lesser gods to work farming the land and maintaining the irrigation canals. After forty years they refused to work any longer. Enki, also the wise counselor to the gods, proposed that humans be created to assume the work. The goddess Mami made humans by shaping clay mixed with saliva and the blood of the under-god We, who was slain for this purpose.

The human population worked and grew, but so did the noise they made. Because it disturbed Enlil’s sleep, he decided to destroy the human race. First he sent a plague, then a famine followed by a drought, and lastly a flood. Each time Enki forewarned Atrahasis, enabling him to survive the disaster. He gave Atrahasis seven days warning of the flood and told him to build a boat. Atrahasis loaded it with animals and birds and his own possessions. Though the rest of humanity perished, he survived. When the gods realized they had destroyed the labor force that had produced food for their offerings they regretted their actions. The story breaks off at this point, so we learn nothing of the boat’s landing or the later Atrahasis.

The account has similarities to the Primeval History, including the creation of humans out of clay (see Genesis 2:7), a flood, and boat-building hero. For the text of the Atrahasis Epic see Pritchard (1969: 104-106). For a detailed study see W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard, Atrahasis (Oxford: Clarendon Lambert, 1969).

---

Atrahasis & Human Creation
When the Gods did the work they grew weary and decided to create human beings.

This later Akkadian version of the flood story and the creation of humanity and fits between the Sumerian version and the Babylonian version in the Epic of Gilgamesh. The following excerpt is taken from Myths From Mesopotamia: Gilgamesh, The Flood, and Others, translated by Stephanie Dalley. It is related here for educational purposes only.

Epic of Gilgamesh – Sha naqba īmuru

The Epic of Gilgamesh (Sha naqba īmuru) was written on 12 clay tablets in cuneiform script. It is about the adventures of the historical King of Uruk (somewhere between 2750 and 2500 BCE). This later 12-tablet verse version was found in the library of the 7th-century BCE Assyrian King Ashurbanipal.

The Flood Tablet, the eleventh tablet of the Epic, describes the meeting of Gilgamesh with Utnapishtim (British Museum).

The Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (reigned 669-631 BC) collected a library of thousands of cuneiform tablets in his palace at Nineveh. It included letters, legal texts, lists of people, animals and goods, and a wealth of scientific information, as well as myths and legends.

The best known of these was the story of Gilgamesh, a legendary ruler of Uruk, and his search for immortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh is a huge work, the longest piece of literature in Akkadian (the language of Babylonia and Assyria). It was known across the ancient Near East, with versions also found at Hattusas (capital of the Hittites), Emar in Syria and Megiddo in the Levant.

This, the eleventh tablet of the Epic (pictured above), describes the meeting of Gilgamesh with Utnapishtim. Like Noah in the Hebrew Bible, Utnapishtim had been forewarned of a plan by the gods to send a great flood. He built a boat and loaded it with all his precious possessions, his kith and kin, domesticated and wild animals and skilled craftsmen of every kind.

Utnapishtim survived the flood for six days while mankind was destroyed, before landing on a mountain called Nimush. He released a dove and a swallow but they did not find dry land to rest on, and returned. Finally a raven that he released did not return, showing that the waters must have receded.

This Assyrian version of the Old Testament flood story was identified in 1872 by George Smith, an assistant in The British Museum. On reading the text he… ‘jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself.’

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12