The Hebrew Record
“The days of Seth were 912 years” (Genesis 5:6).
The book of Genesis provides numbers for the lifespans of the 10 patriarchs from Adam through Noah, inclusively. Another record, the Sumerian King List, also supplies year numbers for a list of pre-flood leaders.[1] However, their list omits the first man, Adapa (Adam), and also the last patriarch, the Sumerian flood hero, Ziusudra (Noah of Genesis). Therefore, the Sumerian list connects to the eight patriarchs from Seth through Lamech.
The Sumerian tablet record refers to these as “kings,” and the years assigned to each of them as “reigns.” In both ways the Sumerian record is imprecise, as compared with the Hebrew list. However, there is an interesting connection between the numbers given in Genesis, and those given in the Sumerian list.
Here are the Sumerian numbers for each of these eight persons, in sequence — 28,800, 36,000, 43,200, 28,800, 36,000, 28,800, 21,000, 18,600.[2] These numbers are orders of magnitude too large to be realistic. But as everyone following the flood would have the same pre-flood history, one might ask whether there is any connection between these fabulous numbers reported by the Sumerians, and the corresponding numbers reported in Genesis.
Sumeria, as ancient Babylon, used a base 60 counting system. This lingers in our culture with 60 seconds to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, and 360 degrees to a circle. The Sumerians had units called sars (3600 years each), and ners (600 years each). Reducing the Sumerian years to those terms, we have the following, in sars (and ners) — 8, 10, 12, 8, 10, 8, 5 (and 5 ners), 5 (and 1 ner). These numbers were apparently rounded into sars and ners by dropping smaller amounts of years for each person. The total sum of these is 66 sars, and 6 ners.
Suppose we do the same to the Hebrew lifespans, from Seth to Lamech — drop the digits column, and count only the 100s and 10s. Those lifespans from Genesis would then become — 910, 900, 910, 890, 960, 360, 960, 770. The sum of these happens to be 66 hundreds, and 6 tens.
It appears that the Sumerian list began with the Hebrew numbers, dropped the last digits, remembered that the sum of these is 66 large units and 6 smaller units, and took that to be 66 sars and 6 ners, to fit their base 60 system. The fact that the number six is involved in each amount made that sum specially memorable to the base six-ty Sumerians.
When some Sumerian scribe wished to reconstruct the list, but recalled only the memorable sum, he did the following. (a) He allocated a convenient 10 sars for each person. (b) To avoid identical numbers, he modified that to 8, 10, 12 sars for the first three, and repeated 8, 10, 12 sars for the next three — so far totalling 60 sars. (c) He had two more persons to add, and the sum would be too great. So he reduced the last one from 12 to 8. He now had 56 sars. (d) He applied 5 each for the next two persons — now he was at 66 sars. (e) He had only to add 6 ners more, so he added 5 and 1 respectively to the last two on the list. This achieved the desired result — 66 sars, 6 ners.
In other words, the Sumerian record, distorted as it is, preserves the memory of the more precise record that we have in Genesis.[3]
[1] The Sumerian King List, Thorkild Jacobsen, 1939, pages 71-77.
[2] The Sumerian record reports the sum of these accurately, 241,200, and along the way gives subtotals. So we know the Sumerian record accurately reflects their intention, without any miswriting or misreading of the figures.
[3] This comparison between the Sumerian list, and the more original Hebrew list, also reflects on the question whether the Hebrew record, or the Septuagint record, gives the original numbers. For the Septuagint gives the years of Lamech as 753, which does not accord with the Sumerian adjustments.
The Samaritan text is even more discounted, for it reports the years of Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech as 847, 720, and 653 years, respectively (McClintock and Strong, “Chronology,” page 298). Collectively, this is even more incompatible with the ancient Sumerian adjustments.