John F. Kennedy died reminding us of internal corruption and trying to do something about it. Martin Luther King died reminding us that we should all enjoy equal rights

Why do you think Jesus did not save himself from the cross?

The way to freedom is through the truth

Will you now condemn me for believing so?

Or do you ignore the voices of faith

so that you can live the style of life you want to live without any conviction of error on your part.

a freedom that is a bondage in disguise if we unintelligent christians are correct.

Nice try... If you lack any idea that you yourself may be wrong, you are missing something.

The Composite List

Now let's put it all together:
Hebrew English
Adam Man
Seth Appointed
Enosh Mortal
Kenan Sorrow;
Mahalalel The Blessed God
Jared Shall come down
Enoch Teaching
Methuselah His death shall bring
Lamech The Despairing
Noah Rest, or comfort.

That's rather remarkable:

1. Eastman, Mark, and Missler, Chuck, The Creator Beyond Time and Space, The Word for Today, Costa Mesa CA, 1995.
2. Jones, Alfred, Dictionary of Old Testament Proper Names, Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids MI, 1990.
3. Kaplan, Rabbi Aryeh, The Living Torah, Maznaim Publishing Corporation, Jerusalem, 1981.
4. Pink, Arthur W., Gleanings in Genesis, Moody Bible Institute, Chicago IL, 1922.
5. Missler, Chuck, Beyond Coincidence (audio book with notes), Koinonia House, Coeur d Alene ID, 83816, 1994.
6. Rosenbaum, M., and Silbermann, A., Pentateuch with Onkelos's Translation (into Aramaic) and Rashi s Commentary, Silbermann Family Publishers, Jerusalem, 1973.
7. Stedman, Ray C., The Beginnings, Word Books, Waco TX, 1978.

A Study of Original Roots

The meaning of proper names can be a difficult pursuit since a direct translation is often not readily available. Even a conventional Hebrew lexicon can prove disappointing. A study of the original roots, however, can yield some fascinating insights.

(A caveat: many study aids, such as a conventional lexicon, can prove rather superficial when dealing with proper nouns. Furthermore, views concerning the meanings of original roots are not free of controversy and variant readings.)

Methuselah Man of the javelin

Interpretations

Aside from Cain, and Lamech, his descendant, two other names in the lists are traditionally given significance. Firstly, Methuselah has the oldest age appearing in the bible, and so the name of Methuselah has become a general reference to longevity. Most traditional translations interpret the name as man of the dart or man of the javelin; however, some critical scholars have proposed it should simply be read as man of Selah, since Selah is the title of the Mesopotamian moon god Sin (also known as Nanna). The question of the correct interpretation of his name is further complicated, as the Septuagint renders Methuselah and Methusael with exactly the same name, the latter meaning champion of God, and by the fact that Methuselah is a very northern (Kingdom of Israel), or Babylonian, style name for an otherwise southern (kingdom of Judah) set of names. The ages given in the Lucianic Septuagint for Methusaleh implies that he died 14 years after the year of the Great Flood. Some scholars allege that later Septuagint manuscripts were altered by giving Methuselah an extra 20 years before his son's birth so that he would die before the flood.[1] The Bible as currently translated lines up Methuselah's death in the year of the flood, because most modern editions of Genesis are translated from the Masoretic (Hebrew) text.[2]

The enigmatic description given to Enoch in one of the lines, that he ...walked with God, and was not, has led to the extensive esoteric mythology surrounding him, particularly dating from the 2nd century BC, such as the Book of Enoch, which is canonical in Coptic Christianity. The age of Enoch that is given in the Masoretic text, 365 years, is noticeably similar to the number of days in the solar year, and so some critical scholars have suggested Enoch originally represented the deified sun.

Other interpretations of the names of the Sethite line from the traditional English renderings may better convey the words meaning from their etymological derivations.

Methuselah - His Death Shall Bring - This translation disagrees with the traditional in taking the first root from "mûth"="death" rather than "m@th"="man" neither is definitive since vowels are implied in ancient Hebrew, "shelach" comes from a root meaning "to send forth" which came to refer to ballistic weapons in later Hebrew but more basically referred to any sending forth. Notably, the Masoretic text gives his year of death as the same as the Flood came.

The similarity seen in the lines has been noted since ancient times. Traditionally, this is explained by intermarriage between the lines, such as by the daughter of the Cainite Lamech marrying Methuselah, and naming her child after her father. The names of the Sethite line are traditionally interpreted as being more positive than those of the Cainite line, reflecting a negative attitude towards Cain, for example Jared being ruler compared with Irad being dragon, and Mehalaleel being praise of God compared to Mehujael being smitten by God.

In modern critical scholarship, it is explained more simply as the lines being copies of one another, the Cainite line being ascribed to the Yahwist, and the Sethite line being ascribed to the Book of Generations, the only differences being corruption of a few names, and the reversal of the position of Enoch and Mehujael/Mehalaleel. A moderate proportion of critical scholars also believe that the Sethite line was inserted into the torah in such a way as to deliberately attempt to distance Noah, traditionally seen as a hero, from Cain, traditionally seen as a villain, and consequently separating Lamech into two different people.

Some biblical critics have drawn the conclusion that, since Seth appears in the same place that Yahweh takes in the Cainite line, Seth must originally have been a god, with the biblical etymology given for his name (substitute) being a later folk etymology. Taking into account the Sumerian king list, the a prominent candidate is identifying the name Seth as a transliteration of Shitti (more obvious in the Hebrew alphabet), which was an epithet of Marduk, the Babylonian chief deity (c.f. the Elamite prince Shitti-Marduk who fought with Nebuchadnezzar).

Comparison with the Sumerian king list

While, in the story of Cain and Abel, Cain is presented as being forever condemned to being a nomad, in the Cainite line, he is described as being a city builder. This has led biblical critics to suggest the two accounts of Cain derive from different sources, and even though the documentary hypothesis still places them both as the Jahwist source, it is nevertheless believed that the Jahwist inserted the list into his work from another source.

Upon the discovery of the antediluvian portion of the Sumerian king list, its striking similarities with the Sethite line have been noted by critical scholarship. Several surviving inscriptions of this list predate the biblical text by at least a millennium. On the Sumerian king list, identical to the biblical manner, the kings have significantly larger reigns before the deluge than after it, roughly by a factor of 20. The Sumerian list in fact measures the reigns of the kings in sars, units of 3,600 years (the Sumerians primarily used base 60, so this is merely the next unit up - 60x60).

There are several different copies of the list, each mostly listing the same antediluvian kings, in the same order, but with differing amounts of sars for their reigns. Over time the names became more corrupted, resembling the originals only vaguely by the time of Berossus' 3rd Century BC copy of the list. The significant feature of the list, as far as the biblical Sethite genealogy goes, is in the translation of the names and attributes of the kings it lists

Many of the connections are readily apparent, but two require non-traditional etymologies for the two corresponding Sethite names. The first is Methuselah, which as mentioned before can be interpreted as Man of Selah, a reference to the moon god, Sin. The second is Lamech, which specialists in the ancient Akkadian language have proposed is derived from the Akkadian Lamaga, meaning priest. This would accord with the greater likelihood of association with the Akkadian version of the king list, which mostly used 10 names, than an association with the original Sumerian list of 8.

(You will never convince me that a group of Jewish rabbis conspired to hide the Christian Gospel right here in a genealogy within their venerated Torah!)

Rather than sticking to ancient text that was written in a different age. Should'nt the bible evolve as well to encompass all what we know now, rather than what was known then?