The Death of Shet
Shet, son of Adam and ancestor of all living humanity, dies in AM 1042 at the age of 912.
Shet dies 112 years after his father, aged 912. With him goes the last person born directly to Adam—the last who could speak of the expulsion from the garden as an eyewitness's son rather than by hearsay. After him the world knows its beginnings only through retelling.
The year 1042 is roughly the midpoint between Adam and the Flood. Enosh is still alive (he will die in 1140), as are Kenan, Mahalalel, Yered, Methuselah and Lemech; Noach has not yet been born—he will come fourteen years later, in 1056. The world is full of people who remember the old witnesses, and is already sliding into what Genesis 6 will call "the earth was filled with violence".
The tradition preserved no stories about Shet—only a name, years and a place in the chain. But that place carries the weight: Cain's line ends at the Flood, Shet's continues through Noach into every nation on earth.
How we know
Sources
Tanakh
- Bereishit 5:8 — the 912 years of Shet
- Divrei HaYamim I 1:1 — Shet as second in the genealogy from Adam
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Bereishit Rabbah 23:5 — from Shet the world was “established”; “in his image and likeness”
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.