Editing Seth (section)

==Josephus==
In the ''[[Antiquities of the Jews]]'', [[Josephus]] refers to Seth as virtuous and of excellent character,<ref>Flavius Josephus, [https://www.crcnh.org/downloads/history-reference/josephus/The-Antiquities-of-The-Jews.pdf ''Antiquities of the Jews''], chapter 2, section 3, accessed 2 September 2020</ref> and reports that his descendants invented the wisdom of the heavenly bodies, and built the "pillars of the sons of Seth", two pillars inscribed with many scientific discoveries and inventions, notably in [[astronomy]]. They were built by Seth's descendants based on [[Adam (Bible)|Adam]]'s prediction that the world would be destroyed at one time by fire and another time by [[deluge (mythology)|global flood]], in order to protect the discoveries and be remembered after the destruction. One was composed of brick, and the other of stone, so that if the pillar of brick should be destroyed, the pillar of stone would remain, both reporting the ancient discoveries, and informing humankind that a pillar of brick was also erected. Josephus reports that the pillar of stone remained in the land of Siriad in his day.

[[William Whiston]], a 17/18th-century translator of the ''Antiquities'', stated in a footnote that he believed Josephus mistook Seth for [[Sesostris]], king of [[Egypt]], the erector of the pillar in Siriad (being a contemporary name for the territories in which [[Sirius]] was venerated, i.e. [[Egypt]]). He stated that there was no way for any pillars of Seth to survive the [[flood myth|deluge]], because the deluge buried all such pillars and edifices far underground in the sediment of its waters. The [[perennialist]] writer Nigel Jackson identifies the land of Siriad in Josephus' account with [[Ancient Syria|Syria]], citing related [[Mandaeism|Mandaean]] legends regarding the "Oriental Land of Shyr" in connection with the visionary mytho-geography of the prophetic traditions surrounding Seth.<ref>"On the Prophethood of Seth in the Abrahamic Traditions", ''Sacred Web'' volume 25, Summer 2010</ref>