The Lineage of Shem to Abraham

Where is Hyrcania? From Shem, the Arabs are prosperous; from Ophir, the Armenians; from Euilat, the naked sophists. All these are sons of Shem. Zalā begat Ragau, and Ragau begat Seruch; Seruch begat Nahor, and he taught him the Chaldean divination and astronomy. In the times of Seruch, the sons of Noah began to practice idolatry and to engage in all evil, to build cities, to appoint kings, to besiege, to plunder, and to take captives.

Nahor begat Terah, and Terah begat Abraham, and Nahor, and Aran. Aran begat Lot, and Sarrah, and Melchan. Aran died in a city called Ur of the Chaldeans, in which even now his tomb is shown. He died in the conflagration in which Abram burned the idols of his father upon entering and exiting them. Melchan married the sisters; Nahor married Sarrah, but Abraham married Sarrah. And they do not do this lawlessly, since there was never even a law to forbid it. For since those born of the common father Adam and his wife, being males and females, being brothers and sisters, nature calling for upbringing, brothers and sisters became necessary for the union of marriage; it is not therefore unlike that those following after this, partaking of the first succession, should follow the law of the ancestors.

Terah, having hated the Chaldean way because of the grief of his son, migrated to Mesopotamia, and there he ended his life, having lived five hundred and twenty years. From then on, the living of men was being cut short, and became shorter, until the generation of Moses. For after Moses, a limit of living became eighty years, which even he himself, having lived, exchanged the mortal life. But Abraham, the thrice-blessed, was the best astronomer, and thinking more highly than the others in virtue; among all the sons of Noah, having fallen into superstition, he alone declared the Creator of all things to be God, by imagining it from the changes of the sun and moon and from the sufferings of the earth, air, and sea.

For why, he says, do they not foresee their own order despite having power, but rather lack it? From these things it is possible to know that he does not contribute strength by his own nature, even if he seems to benefit men not a little, but according to the will of the one who made him. Toward this glory of his, the Chaldeans and those dwelling in Mesopotamia contended, and they surpassed him. And having risen up from there according to the command of God, he inhabited the land of the Canaanites.

But when a terrible famine seized him, he went into Egypt, and he proved all those Egyptians to be nothing worthy, as they were mutually disparaging one another and spreading and overturning their own customs, nor thinking, nor instituting laws. And having been marveled at for much understanding and wisdom, he hands over to them arithmetic and astronomy; for before his presence, the Egyptians had many of these; having learned them, they later bequeathed them to the Greeks. And having returned from Egypt, the son of Abraham became Ishmael from the handmaid Hagar, from whom the nation of Hagarenes and Saracens was formed; and that of the Ishmaelites from Ishmael. And Lot separates from Abraham, and he dwelt in the land of Sodom, which was condemned to be burned by heavenly fire because of lawless transgression (Gen 19:24), and even now the burnt traces of it appear; for it is possible to see the shadows of five cities, in which a fruit grows, which appears from the outside near to edible things, but being taken by hands, it is dissolved into ash and smoke.

And near to this is the Asphalt Lake, which formerly had hollow pits having asphalt, but after the destruction of the land, it has become a lake, which is also called the Dead Sea. And it has a most bitter nature and is barren; and the water has become light, so that heavy things, such as stone or iron, tossing in it, do not happen to sink into the bottom, but are instead blown up again as if by a wind and float upon the surface. For living men, being thrown upon it, spring up; but the dead sink; and burning lamps are carried up, but being extinguished, they sink to the bottom. And it brings up bitter salt, and bitumen, and lumps of black asphalt, as large as headless bulls. And the sailors, seeing these lumps, fill their boats and drag them onto the shore. But the asphalt clings to the wood of the ship and is stripped away with the wood, as if it were not possible to be detached otherwise, unless it be moistened with urine and female secretions.