Jared or Jered ( ''Yereḏ'', in

pausa In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek παῦσις, ''pâusis'' 'stopping, ceasing') is the hiatus between prosodic declination units. The concept is somewhat broad, as it is primarily used to refer to allophones that occur in ...

''Yāreḏ'', "to descend"; or Ἰάρεδ ''Iáret''; ''Yārad''),The etymology "to descend" is according to in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek language, Greek ; ; ) is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its incipit, first word, (In the beginning (phrase), 'In the beginning'). Genesis purpor ...

, was a sixth-generation descendant of

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

. His primary history is recounted in .

Modern scholarship

The biblical details about

Jared Jared is a given name of Bible, Biblical derivation. Origin In the Book of Genesis, the Jared (biblical figure), biblical patriarch Jared () was the sixth in the ten pre-Noah's Ark, flood generations between Adam and Noah; he was the son of Maha ...

, like the other long-lived patriarchs, are in the book of Genesis. In terms of the

documentary hypothesis The documentary hypothesis (DH) is one of the models used by biblical scholars to explain the origins and composition of the Torah (or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible: Book of Genesis, Genesis, Book of Exodus, Exodus, Leviticus, Bo ...

, the passage about the descendants of Adam (Genesis 5:1-32) is attributed to the

Priestly source The Priestly source (or simply P) is perhaps the most widely recognized of the sources underlying the Torah, both stylistically and theologically distinct from other material in it. It is considered by most scholars as the latest of all sources, a ...

. A parallel passage (Genesis 4:17-22) which contains a genealogy of the descendants of Cain, is attributed to the Jahwist, another ancient version of the same original genealogy. The two genealogies contain seven similar names, and the Jahwist's version of the genealogy has

Irad Irad (, ''Irad'') is a name in Hebrew. In the Book of Genesis, the grandson of Cain is Irad. Genesis 4:18, in a genealogical passage about the descendants of Cain, contains the only reference to Irad in the Bible: "To Enoch was born Irad; and ...

in the place of Jared.

Tradition

His father Mahalalel, great-grandson of

Seth Seth, in the Abrahamic religions, was the third son of Adam and Eve. The Hebrew Bible names two of his siblings (although it also states that he had others): his brothers Cain and Abel. According to , Seth was born after Abel's murder by Cain, ...

, son of

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

, was 65 years old when Jared was born.65 according to the Masoretic Text, but 165 according to the Septuagint. Larsson, Gerhard. �
The Chronology of the Pentateuch: A Comparison of the MT and LXX
” ''Journal of Biblical Literature'', vol. 102, no. 3, 1983, p. 402. In the apocryphal ''

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees is an ancient Jewish apocryphal text of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, as well as by Haymanot Judaism, a denomination observed by members of Ethiopian Jewish ...

'', his mother's name is Dinah. ''Jubilees'' states that Jared married a woman whose name is variously spelled as Bereka, Baraka, and Barakah, and the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

speaks of Jared having become father to other sons and daughters (). Of those children, only

Enoch Enoch ( ; ''Henṓkh'') is a biblical figure and Patriarchs (Bible), patriarch prior to Noah's flood, and the son of Jared (biblical figure), Jared and father of Methuselah. He was of the Antediluvian period in the Hebrew Bible. The text of t ...

is named specifically, born when Jared was 162 years old (, , , , ). Enoch went on to marry Edna, according to ''Jubilees'', and the sole named grandchild of Jared is Enoch's son

Methuselah Methuselah (; ''Məṯūšélaḥ'', in pausa ''Məṯūšālaḥ'', "His death shall send" or "Man of the javelin" or "Death of sword"; ''Mathousalas'') was a biblical patriarch and a figure in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is clai ...

, the longest-living human mentioned in the Bible who lived 969 years.(Genesis 5:27)(, , ). Additionally, Jared was a forefather of

Noah Noah (; , also Noach) appears as the last of the Antediluvian Patriarchs (Bible), patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5–9), the Quran and Baháʼí literature, ...

and his three sons. Jared's age was given as 962 years old when he died (when Noah was 366), making him the second-oldest person mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

. In the

Samaritan Pentateuch The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah (Samaritan Hebrew: , ), is the Religious text, sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existe ...

, his age was 62 at fatherhood and only 847 at death, making Noah the oldest and Jared the seventh-oldest. According to

Samaritan Samaritans (; ; ; ), are an ethnoreligious group originating from the Hebrews and Israelites of the ancient Near East. They are indigenous to Samaria, a historical region of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah that ...

tradition, the ancient Samaritan village of ''Shalem Rabbta,'' modern-day Salim, was founded by Jared.

Islam

Jared (Yarid) is also mentioned in

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

in the '' Qisas Al-Anbiya'', which mentions him in an identical manner.

Family tree

Allusions

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

, in his novel, '' The Return of the Native'' (1878), referenced Jared as one who betokened an advanced lifetime: "The number of their years may have adequately summed up Jared, Mahalaleel, and the rest of the antediluvians, but the age of a modern man is to be measured by the intensity of his history." (London:

Folio Society The Folio Society is an independent London-based publisher, founded by Charles Ede in 1947 and incorporated in 1971. Formerly privately owned, it became an employee ownership trust in 2021. It produces illustrated hardback fine press edit ...

) (1971 880at p. 150.

References