“Strictly speaking, it is difficult to view the Jewish Book of Genesis otherwise than as a chip from the trunk of the mundane tree of universal Cosmogony, rendered in Oriental allegories. As cycle succeeded cycle, and one nation after another came upon the world’s stage to play its brief part in the majestic drama of human life, each new people evolved from ancestral traditions its own religion, giving it a local color, and stamping it with its individual characteristics.
While each of these religions had its distinguishing traits, by which were there no other archaic vestiges, the physical and psychological status of its creators could be estimated, all preserved a common likeness to one prototype. This parent cult was none other than the primitive “wisdom-religion”. The Israelitish Scriptures are no exception. Their national history – if they can claim any autonomy before the return from Babylon and were anything more than migratory septs of Hindu pariahs – cannot be carried back a day beyond Moses; and if this ex-Egyptian priest must, from theological necessity, be transformed into a Hebrew patriarch, we must insist that the Jewish nation was lifted with that smiling infant out of the bulrushes of Lake Moeris.
Abraham, their alleged father, belongs to the universal mythology. Most likely he is but one of the numerous aliases of Zeruan, (Saturn), the king of the golden age, who is also called the old man, (emblem of time). It is now demonstrated by Assyriologists that in the old Chaldean books Abraham is called Zeru-an, or Zerb-an – meaning one very rich in gold and silver, and a mighty prince. He is also called Zarouan and Zarman – a decrepit old man.
The ancient Babylonian legend is that Xisuthrus, (Hasisadra of the Tablets, or Xisuthrus), sailed with his ark to Armenia, and his son Sim became supreme king. Pliny says that Sim was called Zeruan; and Sim is Shem. In Hebrew, his name writes mX, Shem – a sign. Assyria is held by the ethnologists to be the land of Shem, and Egypt called that of Ham, Shem, in the tenth chapter of Genesis is made the father of all the children of Eber, of Elam, (Oulam or Eilam), and Ashur, (Assir or Assyria).
The “nephelim”, or fallen men, Gebers, mighty men spoken of in Genesis vi., 4, come from Oulam, “men of Shem.” Even Ophir, which is evidently to be sought for in the India of the days of Hiram, is made a descendant of Shem. The records are purposely mixed up to make them fit into the frame of the Mosaic Bible. But Genesis, from its first verse down to the last, has naught to do with the “chosen people”; it belongs to the world’s history. Its appropriation by the Jewish authors in the days of the so-called restoration of the destroyed books of the Israelites, by Ezra, proves nothing, and, until now, has been self-propped on an alleged divine revelation. It is simply a compilation of the universal legends of the universal humanity.
Bunsen says that in the “Chaldean tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find reminiscences of dates disfigured and misunderstood, as genealogies of single men, or indications of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections go back at least three millennia beyond the grandfather of Jacob.”
H. P. Blavatsky
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 