(From Latin ante=before, and diluvium=flood; people who lived
before the Flood). From Adam to Noah the Bible enumerates ten
patriarchs. A genealogical table of them is given (Genesis 5).
Their names, lifetime, and age at which they begot their
successors are systematically stated. The modern theory of the
composition of the Pentateuch assigns the chapter in which this
table occurs to the documentary source commonly called the
"Priestly Code", or by abbreviation, P. (See PENTATEUCH.) In the
narrative of this code the table of the ten patriarchs is said
by critics to have followed immediately after the Hexahemeron of
chapter i. The account of the Creation concluded or began, as
they maintain, with the phrase: "These are the generations of
the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 2:4). The list of the
patriarchs begins: "This is the book of the generations of
Adam". The thread of the same narrative is said to be further
continued in chapter vi, 9, by means of the same phrase: "These
are the generations of Noah". The