\n<\/p>\n
If you clicked on this post\u2014what is wrong with you? Step back for a moment and think about it: you clicked on a post about genealogies<\/em>! Seriously. Go find something to do.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re still<\/em> here,\u00a0thanks for hanging around. Just promise me later today you\u2019ll do something for yourself: take a walk outside, chase squirrels, talk to a human being, anything.<\/p>\n Anyway.<\/p>\n When the topic turns to Genesis<\/a> 1-11, namely whether or not these chapters are \u201chistorical,\u201d\u00a0people will often kindly tolerate me as I go on and on (and on) about how those chapters aren\u2019t really historical accounts but something else. Pick your word: metaphor, symbol, myth, legend, or whatever. Frankly, after you take \u201chistory\u201d off the table, it doesn\u2019t matter what you call it.<\/p>\n But sooner or later someone will ask, \u201cBut what about the genealogies in chapters 4, 5, 10, and 11? These aren\u2019t\u00a0stories of talking serpents or magic trees, but a record of names<\/em>. Surely<\/em>, this is a clear sign that the author intended to write history, not fiction. \u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps. And\u00a0don\u2019t call me Shirley.<\/p>\n As tedious as it may sound, sit down one day and make a side-by-side list of the names (yes, you heard me) in 4:17-26 and 5:1-32. Commentaries and some study Bibles will correctly tell you that these genealogies are parallel (cover the same ground) but are not identical. These are two traditions that the editor of Genesis decided to keep, even though including them side-by-side like this is a blatant assault our modern notions of what history writing is supposed to look like (the nerve).<\/p>\n A second\u00a0genealogical pair is found in 10:1-32 and 11:10-26. They are less parallel than the first pair, but\u00a0they do cover some of the same ground and differently. (They also give two different accounts for the spread of humanity after the Flood, but I digress.)<\/p>\n Even Jesus has 2\u00a0genealogies that do not square up: Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-28. They are not completely different\u2014they overlap a lot\u2014but they are also significantly different.<\/p>\n Almost as if they did\u00a0this on purpose. Which they did.<\/p>\n In fact, it\u2019s the differences that help us see the different theological purposes of the Gospel writers.<\/p>\n Without getting longwinded, Matthew\u2019s genealogy, divided into 3 neat segments of 14, goes back to Abraham and portrays Jesus as the king of David\u2019s line\u00a0who will bring an end to Israel\u2019s exile. Luke\u2019s genealogy overlaps with many of Matthew\u2019s names, but is much longer and connects Jesus back to \u201cAdam, Son of God,\u201d perhaps to present \u201cJesus, Son of God\u201d as a second Adam. (Note that the next scene in chapter 4 shows Jesus successfully resisting the devil\u2019s temptation, unlike the first Adam\u2019s disobedience in the\u00a0Garden of Eden.)<\/p>\n I am not saying that genealogies are all automatically fabrications, devoid of any sort of historical memory. I actually think that is not the case. Some no doubt have genuine historical value in our sense of the word, but the degree of historicity in the genealogies is up for discussion on a case by case basis.<\/p>\n My bigger point here, however, is that seeing how genealogies behave takes off the table the common assumption that genealogies place us safely (whew) on historical ground and\u00a0<\/em>are indications of the writer\u2019s intention to write history <\/em>and so we should accept them as such.<\/p>\n But whatever the writers\u00a0were after exactly, the inconvenient presence of\u00a0parallel genealogies is, ironically for some, biblical proof\u00a0that their conception of \u201chistorical\u201d\u00a0differs markedly from ours.<\/p>\n Taking a step further back, the parallel genealogies are simply examples of a general pattern in the Bible for writing about the past: the inclusion of more than one version\u2014like the 2 \u201caccounts\u201d of Israel\u2019s monarchy (books of\u00a0Samuel\/kings and the books of Chronicles) and of Jesus\u2019s life (4 Gospels).<\/p>\n The biblical writers were not \u201chistorians\u201d writing \u201caccounts\u201d of the\u00a0past. They were\u00a0storytellers<\/i>\u00a0accessing past tradition to say something about their present.\u00a0<\/a>That\u00a0includes genealogies<\/em>.<\/p>\n Genealogies in the ancient world were not examples of a plain and simple, just the bare fact, recording of the\u00a0objective past. They were\u2014like the\u00a0Bible\u2019s handling of the past in general\u2014creative retellings of the past where the line between history and fiction are blurred and often for us difficult, if not impossible, to discern.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe truth is, the appearance of names in a list does not mean we are reading \u201chistory.\u201d<\/h2>\n
But, frankly,\u00a0we have no earthly idea what ancient writers intended<\/em>, nor do we know what \u201chistorical\u201d\u00a0would have meant to them. <\/em><\/h2>\n