Names shared by the lines of Cain and Seth

Says Several names in Seth’s line resemble names in Cain’s: קֵינָן (qenan, Kenan, Gen 5:9) and קַיִן (qayin, Cain, 4:17), and מְתוּשָׁלַח (metushalach, Methuselah, 5:21) and מְתוּשָׁאֵל (metusha’el, Methushael, 4:18); Enoch and Lamech appear in both lines (4:17–18; 5:18–25).

The Genesis 4 note on Cain’s wife and the two lines sets out Skinner’s suggestion that the lists may be variants of one original, and Keil’s denial. Driver tabulates the lists and reports the view that they are “two divergent versions of the same original prehistoric tradition”. He also reports Hommel’s and Sayce’s matching of names with Berossus’s kings: Amelon with Babylonian amîlu, “man”, beside Enosh, “man”, and Ammenon with ummânu, “artifex”, beside Kenan. Skinner calls Hommel’s further pairings “somewhat hazardous combinations”; if sound, he says, the Sethite list depends on the Babylonian, though he allows that list might itself derive from an older genealogy. King, finding Ammenon to be the Sumerian Enmenunna, says this should dispose of the ummânu–Kenan pair, and that the likeness of Amelon to amêlu “may prove to be fortuitous”. Keil reads Gen 5 as the line that kept the promise and explains the lack of ages in Cain’s line by its having “no future history”. For the wider source question see note.historical.Gen.2.4-Gen.2.25.two-accounts-question. These are their views.

Uncertain Whether the likenesses mark two families or variant forms of one list, and whether any name has a Babylonian counterpart, are open. No lean is taken, and these comparisons do not fix the meaning of Gen 5.