I know, movies usually name a sequel "Son of..." but in this case I want to talk some about the women.
I had just concluded that in the genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, we have to concede there are gaps, right from the start. We have very little extra input from these family trees. They are a bare line of paternal names that should have dotted lines showing descent in many cases, as there might have been additional generations in between the generations listed.
Plus they leave out the women-folk. Luke is particularly strict about this, he won't even mention Mary, and she's the one he's tracing the line of!
Matthew actually mentions a few women--Mary, the woman pregnant out-of-wedlock by the Holy Spirit; Bathsheba, the woman whom King David had an affair with and then killed her husband in order to cover it up; Ruth, the woman of despised Moab, an enemy of Israel, who bathed and perfumed herself and went to sleep at Boaz' feet in order to induce him to offer marriage; Rahab, a harlot from Jericho, who hid the Israelite spies when they came to do reconnaissance before attacking the city, and who later married one of them; Tamar, a widow whose nearest kinsman scorned to raise up an heir to her dead husband with her, so she disguised herself as a harlot and slept with her father-in-law in order to beget the heir. (So, what's your point, Matthew?) I think the only reason he refrained from dredging up Eve, who tempted her husband to eat of the apple and sin against God, was because he only went back as far as Abraham.
My study Bible notes that where the women are mentioned--against all tradition--in this family tree, it is to make a point. Apparently, Matthew wants to point out that Jesus was the Savior not only of the Hebrews--but also of women; of the gentiles; of the sinners; of the weak, the poor and the victims. Well, you have to admit, those are the groups who need a savior. If you were a strong, righteous man of God's Chosen People, why would you really need rescue? No feedback on the "captive Israel" history (and the diaspora), please. I've read it, and I am not denying that the Jews as a people needed a rescuer and redeemer. Just acknowledging that Matthew was writing to ALL people, and reassuring the kind of people who probably most feel the need for a Knight in Shining Armor.
In any case, the trees do not fork, because there is next to no information on the wives' families. Though again, it is possible that some of the reasons for the differences is that "son of" might be used as "son-in-law of." I find it a little hard to swallow, though, because they just didn't find the women to be that important.
How do we fill in the gaps? One answer is: Genesis. Another is: I and II Samuel, I and II Kings and I and II Chronicles. There are others, such as Exodus, Numbers, Ruth... I can tell that this is going to be a very in-depth study, and a lesson for me in comparative documentation. Even the books of the prophets talk about who was king of Israel and/or of Judah at the time of the various prophets, which is relevant since Jesus is descended from those kings.
One thing I've found so far is that in II Chronicles, there are delightful little throw-away lines like this: "Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And Abijah his son succeeded him as king... and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother's name was Maacah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah." Several of the kings had their mothers' names listed in such a fashion.
But unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, I chose a poor example of a great discovery of a mother's name because this specific example requires more research. I can find some conflicting info right in the previous page. If I hadn't found it, I would have said, "so now we know that Rehoboam had a wife or concubine named Maacah, and they had a son Abijah. Also we know that Maacah's father was Uriel." But the following tidbit precedes the other: "Rehoboam...married Maacah daughter of Absalom [a son of David], who bore him Abijah, Attai, Ziza and Shelomith. Rehoboam loved Maacah daughter of Absalom more than any of his other wives and concubines." So is there a conflict? Was Maacah really the daughter of Uriel, or was she the daughter of Absalom? Or was she a daughter of Uriel who was a son (or grandson) of Absalom? Or is there some confusion between Absalom's MOTHER Maacah (a wife or concubine of David, I forget which, he had so many) and Absalom's DAUGHTER Maacah?
Stay tuned for the answers to that one, if I find any. I know there are additional stories about Absalom in the Bible. I don't remember much except he killed his brother.
I think that even with the entry of some of the wives' names, we are still going to be focused on a mostly paternal-line tree. I've only found one or two of the women whose father's name is listed.
But in the meantime, I have no doubt that I will find some wonderful answers and some terrible puzzles, some ridiculous items in the book of Numbers (see the U.S. Census from any given decade if you think there won't be hilarious statements just because the census takers had bad handwriting and spelling, no matter how divinely inspired or truthful the original information), and all kinds of crazy questions and relationships. And definitely some brick walls, as I cannot read Chaldean, Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek or Hebrew, so I can't do the primary research in ancient extra-Biblical sources. But I expect that what I find in the Bible will be enough for now. I'll have to ask God about the rest, when he eventually calls me home. I hope I am required to call upon all my patience in waiting for that, though.
Meanwhile, it should be a fun genealogical ride if anyone wants to come along!
Monday, January 3, 2011
Yet More Biblical Genealogy
Back to the genealogies of Jesus found in Matthew 1 and Luke 3...
So if we backtrack and use the assumption that one tree is that of Joseph and the other is that of Mary, when we get back to their most recent joint ancestor, they should be the same from that point on back to Abraham. Zerubbabel. ("What?!" you ask. "Is that even a word?") Their most recent joint ancestor is Zerubbabel. From Zerubbabel on to Joseph, the lines are quite different, but before that, they ought to be exactly the same back to David and to Abraham, which they are not. And Zerubbabel himself is part of a terrible documentation tangle, which I'm going to skip for just a moment, as I haven't answered it to my entire satisfaction yet anyway. But the fact remains, the lines are NOT the same back from Zerubbabel back to Abraham. Why?
Well, part of the reason stems from language usage. Just because someone uses the word "father" or "son" doesn't make the relationship an actual physical father-son relationship. As we noted above, sometimes it meant "son-in-law" or "adopted heir."
But also "father" or "son" can be more figurative. In American history, the Sons of Liberty and the Daughters of the American Revolution are not, of course, children of some goddess named Freedom or the physical offspring of a war. They were/are organizations of individuals all devoted to the same ideals and goals. And George Washington, the Father of our Country, did not actually physically father any human being, though he was a beloved step-father to the children of his bride, the widowed Martha Dandridge Custis. He was merely the founder and establisher of our nation and governmental system (along with the other Founding Fathers; ooh! more fathers!).
We genealogists and historians might call our ancestors "forefathers" and less frequently or more poetically as "fathers." I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression that in Hebrew, the concept translates to just "fathers". So "father" means ancestor of whatever degree, and "son" means descendant. (I love it in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia where the animal characters refer to the human boys as "sons of Adam" and to the girls as "daughters of Eve.")
And in various societies and even in English we say that one can be a son of a tribe or clan or royal house. As part of the ancient Hebrews, the tribe of Judah, and the House of David, this would definitely be such a case for Jesus and his ancestors.
So, given the basic historical dates involved, when Matthew uses the following phrase to introduce his genealogy, we know that there is some kind of figurative speaking going on: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Matthew wanted to point out first that Jesus was the Messiah (thus the title Christ) who was descended from royalty (King David) and from the patriarch and founder of the Jewish people (Abraham).
And then both Matthew and Luke proceed to list the generations from Abraham to David and even from David down until the exile in Babylon by judiciously skipping generations that didn't matter to their worldview. (Luke actually takes the list all the way from Adam to Jesus, though as far as I can tell, he didn't skip too many between Adam and Abraham.) And so there are gaps in both genealogies right from the start.
We have very little extra input from these family trees. They are a bare line of paternal names that should have dotted lines showing descent, as there might have been additional generations in between.
How do we fix this? Stay tuned.
So if we backtrack and use the assumption that one tree is that of Joseph and the other is that of Mary, when we get back to their most recent joint ancestor, they should be the same from that point on back to Abraham. Zerubbabel. ("What?!" you ask. "Is that even a word?") Their most recent joint ancestor is Zerubbabel. From Zerubbabel on to Joseph, the lines are quite different, but before that, they ought to be exactly the same back to David and to Abraham, which they are not. And Zerubbabel himself is part of a terrible documentation tangle, which I'm going to skip for just a moment, as I haven't answered it to my entire satisfaction yet anyway. But the fact remains, the lines are NOT the same back from Zerubbabel back to Abraham. Why?
Well, part of the reason stems from language usage. Just because someone uses the word "father" or "son" doesn't make the relationship an actual physical father-son relationship. As we noted above, sometimes it meant "son-in-law" or "adopted heir."
But also "father" or "son" can be more figurative. In American history, the Sons of Liberty and the Daughters of the American Revolution are not, of course, children of some goddess named Freedom or the physical offspring of a war. They were/are organizations of individuals all devoted to the same ideals and goals. And George Washington, the Father of our Country, did not actually physically father any human being, though he was a beloved step-father to the children of his bride, the widowed Martha Dandridge Custis. He was merely the founder and establisher of our nation and governmental system (along with the other Founding Fathers; ooh! more fathers!).
We genealogists and historians might call our ancestors "forefathers" and less frequently or more poetically as "fathers." I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I get the impression that in Hebrew, the concept translates to just "fathers". So "father" means ancestor of whatever degree, and "son" means descendant. (I love it in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia where the animal characters refer to the human boys as "sons of Adam" and to the girls as "daughters of Eve.")
And in various societies and even in English we say that one can be a son of a tribe or clan or royal house. As part of the ancient Hebrews, the tribe of Judah, and the House of David, this would definitely be such a case for Jesus and his ancestors.
So, given the basic historical dates involved, when Matthew uses the following phrase to introduce his genealogy, we know that there is some kind of figurative speaking going on: "A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Matthew wanted to point out first that Jesus was the Messiah (thus the title Christ) who was descended from royalty (King David) and from the patriarch and founder of the Jewish people (Abraham).
And then both Matthew and Luke proceed to list the generations from Abraham to David and even from David down until the exile in Babylon by judiciously skipping generations that didn't matter to their worldview. (Luke actually takes the list all the way from Adam to Jesus, though as far as I can tell, he didn't skip too many between Adam and Abraham.) And so there are gaps in both genealogies right from the start.
We have very little extra input from these family trees. They are a bare line of paternal names that should have dotted lines showing descent, as there might have been additional generations in between.
How do we fix this? Stay tuned.
More Biblical Genealogy
Here's where we left Jesus' genealogies from the Gospels: So is Matthew's take on it better, or is Luke's? Or is there any way to reconcile the two?
Here's one way: Some scholars say that Matthew's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Joseph, that is, his legal claim to be a descendant of King David, and Luke's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Mary, that is, his physical human descent from King David (both Joseph and Mary were of the house of David). So when Luke says, "Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli," he was just using the then-typical convention of leaving the women out of things. He was really saying"Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the 'son' (son-in-law) of Heli," that is, "Jesus was the son of Mary, the daughter of Heli."
Now, just to confuse the issue, some scholars say that, no, Matthew's genealogy was the full legal line of descent from David to Jesus through Joseph, while Luke's genealogy was the physical line of descent from David to Jesus, still through Joseph. What that means is that the Mosaic/Levitic law has lots of ways to be a legal heir ("son"). For example, it says that if a man dies without an heir, his brother (or closest male relative) must marry the widow and raise up a son who is the legal heir of the dead man; also that a couple beyond childbearing without a male heir were permitted to adopt an adult male servant to be their heir, and so forth. That would seem to indicate that the differences between the genealogies in the two gospels are entirely from these kind of situations. So for example, Matthew says Joseph son of Jacob son of Matthan, while Luke says Joseph son of Heli son of Matthat (spelling or transcription error accounting for the difference between Matthan and Matthat, presumably)--so the idea is that Matthan/t had two sons, Jacob the elder and Heli the younger, that Jacob died without sons and Heli married the widow to raise up an heir for Jacob, Joseph being the heir in question. In other words, legally Joseph was the son of Jacob while the physical DNA came from Heli.
I find that I strongly disagree with this second stance--that the two trees are a legal versus physical line of descent, both down to Joseph. Scholars need to check the internal consistency of their logic... Logically, the two trees ought to be fairly similar, with one or two names different here or there, if they differ only in being legal versus physical, since the legal inheritance must come from a close male relative of the deceased. Which means the physical father must be a brother or cousin of the legal father (or even, in a worst case scenario, the father of the legal father--I found at least one case like that in the Scriptures, in this lineage in fact), which means the legal father and the physical one would share a parent or grandparent or other direct male ancestor. And those two trees are just NOT that similar.
Here's my main objection to the legal vs. physical argument, based on an inconsistency in the logic. In Matthew, you find that the descent from Abraham to King David contains the following sequence: "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." And Luke has the same thing (note, Matthew was counting down the generations and Luke counting up, but they add up to the same names): "David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon"--but here's the kicker: they should NOT say the same thing if one is a legal line and the other a physical line.
The book of Ruth is quite clear: Ruth was the wife of Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi; Elimelech dies, then Mahlon and Mahlon's brother Kilion die without heirs. Naomi goes back to Israel (the family was living in Moab at the time), taking Ruth, who refused to go home to her parents. When they arrive in Israel, Naomi is quite poor with no husband or sons or grandsons to care for her. But there is one wealthy close kinsman, Boaz (the son of Salmon and the harlot Rahab), who steps in to marry the widow Ruth (though she was a despised Moabite) and raise up an heir to her deceased husband. Obed is in fact the child of this marriage and is heir to Mahlon. So Matthew, if he were doing the full legal descent down to Christ, should have said, "Elimelech, the father of Mahlon, the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David" while Luke would still be permitted to follow the DNA from David up through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Salmon. [Presumably, Elimelech and Salmon were brothers or close cousins and within a generation or two, the lineage would merge into the joint ancestors.] So the claim that the differences between the trees are legal vs. physical lines of inheritance just doesn't hold up.
(The other example I found was this: Judah, son of Israel, had twin sons by Tamar, his son Er's widow. There's a whole big story; look it up on Bible Gateway if you've forgotten it. Anyway, Matthew and Luke both list Perez as a son of Judah. But to be a strict interpretation of legal lineage, Matthew should have said Perez son of Er son of Judah. Luke was okay with the direct DNA on that one. I'm sure there are further examples, I just haven't located them yet.)
Oho! I thought when I noticed this. This is going to be more involved than I thought! And maybe more interesting and more fruitful, both in learning about genealogy and learning about the Bible. It will certainly take more than a day or two of quiet time to sort out. I probably should break here and do a separate blog for the next stuff, so look for the follow-on in my next post.
Here's one way: Some scholars say that Matthew's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Joseph, that is, his legal claim to be a descendant of King David, and Luke's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Mary, that is, his physical human descent from King David (both Joseph and Mary were of the house of David). So when Luke says, "Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli," he was just using the then-typical convention of leaving the women out of things. He was really saying"Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the 'son' (son-in-law) of Heli," that is, "Jesus was the son of Mary, the daughter of Heli."
Now, just to confuse the issue, some scholars say that, no, Matthew's genealogy was the full legal line of descent from David to Jesus through Joseph, while Luke's genealogy was the physical line of descent from David to Jesus, still through Joseph. What that means is that the Mosaic/Levitic law has lots of ways to be a legal heir ("son"). For example, it says that if a man dies without an heir, his brother (or closest male relative) must marry the widow and raise up a son who is the legal heir of the dead man; also that a couple beyond childbearing without a male heir were permitted to adopt an adult male servant to be their heir, and so forth. That would seem to indicate that the differences between the genealogies in the two gospels are entirely from these kind of situations. So for example, Matthew says Joseph son of Jacob son of Matthan, while Luke says Joseph son of Heli son of Matthat (spelling or transcription error accounting for the difference between Matthan and Matthat, presumably)--so the idea is that Matthan/t had two sons, Jacob the elder and Heli the younger, that Jacob died without sons and Heli married the widow to raise up an heir for Jacob, Joseph being the heir in question. In other words, legally Joseph was the son of Jacob while the physical DNA came from Heli.
I find that I strongly disagree with this second stance--that the two trees are a legal versus physical line of descent, both down to Joseph. Scholars need to check the internal consistency of their logic... Logically, the two trees ought to be fairly similar, with one or two names different here or there, if they differ only in being legal versus physical, since the legal inheritance must come from a close male relative of the deceased. Which means the physical father must be a brother or cousin of the legal father (or even, in a worst case scenario, the father of the legal father--I found at least one case like that in the Scriptures, in this lineage in fact), which means the legal father and the physical one would share a parent or grandparent or other direct male ancestor. And those two trees are just NOT that similar.
Here's my main objection to the legal vs. physical argument, based on an inconsistency in the logic. In Matthew, you find that the descent from Abraham to King David contains the following sequence: "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." And Luke has the same thing (note, Matthew was counting down the generations and Luke counting up, but they add up to the same names): "David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon"--but here's the kicker: they should NOT say the same thing if one is a legal line and the other a physical line.
The book of Ruth is quite clear: Ruth was the wife of Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi; Elimelech dies, then Mahlon and Mahlon's brother Kilion die without heirs. Naomi goes back to Israel (the family was living in Moab at the time), taking Ruth, who refused to go home to her parents. When they arrive in Israel, Naomi is quite poor with no husband or sons or grandsons to care for her. But there is one wealthy close kinsman, Boaz (the son of Salmon and the harlot Rahab), who steps in to marry the widow Ruth (though she was a despised Moabite) and raise up an heir to her deceased husband. Obed is in fact the child of this marriage and is heir to Mahlon. So Matthew, if he were doing the full legal descent down to Christ, should have said, "Elimelech, the father of Mahlon, the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David" while Luke would still be permitted to follow the DNA from David up through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Salmon. [Presumably, Elimelech and Salmon were brothers or close cousins and within a generation or two, the lineage would merge into the joint ancestors.] So the claim that the differences between the trees are legal vs. physical lines of inheritance just doesn't hold up.
(The other example I found was this: Judah, son of Israel, had twin sons by Tamar, his son Er's widow. There's a whole big story; look it up on Bible Gateway if you've forgotten it. Anyway, Matthew and Luke both list Perez as a son of Judah. But to be a strict interpretation of legal lineage, Matthew should have said Perez son of Er son of Judah. Luke was okay with the direct DNA on that one. I'm sure there are further examples, I just haven't located them yet.)
Oho! I thought when I noticed this. This is going to be more involved than I thought! And maybe more interesting and more fruitful, both in learning about genealogy and learning about the Bible. It will certainly take more than a day or two of quiet time to sort out. I probably should break here and do a separate blog for the next stuff, so look for the follow-on in my next post.
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