Genealogy Bible Quotes

if my memory serves me right, here is my genealogical line: Boccaccio, Petronius, Rabelais, Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau, Maeterlinck, Romain Rolland, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoievsky (and other Russian writers of the Nineteenth Century), the ancient Greek dramatists, theElizabethan dramatists (excluding Shakespeare), Theodore Dreiser, Knut Hamsun, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Elie Faure, Oswald Spengler, Marcel Proust, Van Gogh, the Dadaists and Surrealists, Balzac, Lewis Carroll, Nijinsky, Rimbaud, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Giono, Celine, everything I read on Zen Buddhism, everything I read about China, India, Tibet, Arabia, Africa, and of course the Bible, the men who wrote it and especially the men who made the King James version, for it was the language of the Bible rather than its “message” which I got first and which I will never shake off.

Genealogy of

As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;) I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—I reject no part. Have I forgotten any part? Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition. I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god; I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without         exception;

Just as the genealogies break off at the end, because Jesus was not begotten by St. Joseph, but was truly born of the Holy Spirit from the Virgin Mary, so it now can be said of us that our true "genealogy" is faith in Jesus, who gives us a new origin, who brings us to birth "from God.

The central fact of biblical history, the birth of the Messiah, more than any other, presupposes the design of Providence in the selecting and uniting of successive producers, and the real, paramount interest of the biblical narratives is concentrated on the various and wondrous fates, by which are arranged the births and combinations of the 'fathers of God.' But in all this complicated system of means, having determined in the order of historical phenomena the birth of the Messiah, there was no room for love in the proper meaning of the word. Love is, of course, encountered in the Bible, but only as an independent fact and not as an instrument in the process of the genealogy of Christ. The sacred book does not say that Abram took Sarai to wife by force of an ardent love, and in any case Providence must have waited until this love had grown completely cool for the centenarian progenitors to produce a child of faith, not of love. Isaac married Rebekah not for love but in accordance with an earlier formed resolution and the design of his father. Jacob loved Rachel, but this love turned out to be unnecessary for the origin of the Messiah. He was indeed to be born of a son of Jacob - Judah - but the latter was the offspring, not of Rachel but of the unloved wife, Leah. For the production in the given generation of the ancestor of the Messiah, what was necessary was the union of Jacob precisely with Leah; but to attain this union Providence did not awaken in Jacob any powerful passion of love for the future mother of the 'father of God' - Judah. Not infringing the liberty of Jacob's heartfelt feeling, the higher power permitted him to love Rachel, but for his necessary union with Leah it made use of means of quite a different kind: the mercenary cunning of a third person - devoted to his own domestic and economic interests - Laban. Judah himself, for the production of the remote ancestors of the Messiah, besides his legitimate posterity, had in his old age to marry his daughter-in-law Tamar. Seeing that such a union was not at all in the natural order of things, and indeed could not take place under ordinary conditions, that end was attained by means of an extremely strange occurrence very seductive to superficial readers of the Bible. Nor in such an occurrence could there be any talk of love. It was not love which combined the priestly harlot Rahab with the Hebrew stranger; she yielded herself to him at first in the course of her profession, and afterwards the casual bond was strengthened by her faith in the power of the new God and in the desire for his patronage for herself and her family. It was not love which united David's great-grandfather, the aged Boaz, with the youthful Moabitess Ruth, and Solomon was begotten not from genuine, profound love, but only from the casual, sinful caprice of a sovereign who was growing old.

These simple words reveal Rahab’s amazing destiny: Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab (Matthew 1:5). In other words, Salmone and Rahab were married and had a son. The Bible gives us a glimpse into Salmone’s background through several genealogies (1 Chronicles 2:11; Ruth 4:20–21). Clearly, he comes from a highly distinguished family in the house of Judah; his father Nahshon is the leader of the people of Judah, and his father’s sister is wife to Aaron (Numbers 2:3–4). Of Salmone’s own specific accomplishments and activities nothing is known. But the verse in Matthew is still shocking. How could a man who is practically a Jewish aristocrat, significant enough to get his name recorded in the Scriptures, marry a Canaanite woman who has earned her living entertaining gentlemen? Much of this novel deals with that question. Needless to say, this aspect of the story is purely fictional. We only know that Salmone married Rahab and had a son by her, and that Jesus Himself counts this Canaanite harlot as one of His ancestors. On how such a marriage came about or what obstacles it faced, the Bible is silent.

The Bible is so much more than a dry compilation of genealogies, prophecies, and laws. It is the story of the most important relationship in the world, the one between God and his people. The setting of this story moves quickly from Paradise to a fallen world and then culminates, after much foolishness and suffering, in heaven itself. It reveals what was, what is, and what will be. As the story unfolds, it exposes the nature of our deepest problems and the roots of our worst sufferings. Through its various characters, we recognize the tug-of-war that takes place in our own souls as we struggle to respond to God.

The first chapter of Matthew begins with giving a genealogy of Jesus Christ; and in the third chapter of Luke there is also given a genealogy of Jesus Christ. Did these two agree, it would not prove the genealogy to be true, because it might nevertheless be a fabrication; but as they contradict each other in every particular, it proves falsehood absolutely. If Matthew speaks truth, Luke speaks falsehood; and if Luke speaks truth, Matthew speaks falsehood: and as there is no authority for believing one more than the other, there is no authority for believing either; and if they cannot be believed even in the very first thing they say, and set out to prove, they are not entitled to be believed in any thing they say afterwards. Truth is an uniform thing; and as to inspiration and revelation, were we to admit it, it is impossible to suppose it can be contradictory. Either then the men called apostles were imposters, or the books ascribed to them have been written by other persons, and fathered upon them, as is the case in the Old Testament. Now, if these men, Matthew and Luke, set out with a falsehood between them (as these two accounts show they do) in the very commencement of their history of Jesus Christ, and of who, and of what he was, what authority (as I have before asked) is there left for believing the strange things they tell us afterwards? If they cannot be believed in their account of his natural genealogy, how are we to believe them when they tell us he was the son of God, begotten by a ghost; and that an angel announced this in secret to his mother? If they lied in one genealogy, why are we to believe them in the other? If his natural genealogy be manufactured, which it certainly is, why are we not to suppose that his celestial genealogy is manufactured also, and that the whole is fabulous? Can any man of serious reflection hazard his future happiness upon the belief of a story naturally impossible, repugnant to every idea of decency, and related by persons already detected of falsehood?

Paul also never quotes from Jesus's purported sermons and speeches, parables and prayers, nor does he mention Jesus's supernatural birth or any of his alleged wonders and miracles, all of which one would presume would be very important to his followers, had such exploits and sayings been known prior to the apostles purported time. Turning to the canonical gospels themselves, which in their present form do not appear in the historical record until sometime between 170-180 CE, their pretended authors, the apostles, give sparse histories and genealogies of Jesus that contradict each other and themselves in numerous places. The birth date of Jesus is depicted as having taken place at different times. His birth and childhood are not mentioned in 'Mark,' and although he is claimed in 'Matthew' and 'Luke' to have been 'born of a virgin,' his lineage is traced to the House of David through Joseph, so that he may 'fulfill prophecy.' Christ is said in the first three (Synoptic) gospels to have taught for one year before he died, while in 'John' the number is around three years. 'Matthew' relates that Jesus delivered 'The Sermon on the Mount' before 'the multitudes,' while 'Luke' says it was a private talk given only to the disciples. The accounts of his Passion and Resurrection differ utterly from each other, and no one states how old he was when he died. In addition, in the canonical gospels, Jesus himself makes many illogical contradictions concerning some of his most important teachings.

Circumcision is well-known in the ancient Near East from as early as the fourth millennium BC, though the details of its practice and its significance vary from culture to culture. Circumcision was practiced in the ancient Near East by many peoples. The Egyptians practiced circumcision as early as the third millennium BC. West Semitic peoples, Israelites, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites performed circumcision. Eastern Semitic peoples did not (e.g., Assyrians, Babylonians, Akkadians)—nor did the Philistines, an Aegean or Greek people. Anthropological studies have suggested that the rite always has to do with at least one of four basic themes: fertility, virility, maturity and genealogy. Study of Egyptian mummies demonstrates that the surgical technique in Egypt differed from that used by the Israelites; while the Hebrews amputated the prepuce of the penis, the Egyptians merely incised the foreskin and so exposed the glans penis. Egyptians were not circumcised as children, but in either prenuptial or puberty rites. The common denominator, however, is that it appears to be a rite of passage, giving new identity to the one circumcised and incorporating him into a particular group. Evidence from the Levant comes as early as bronze figurines from the Amuq Valley (Tell el-Judeideh) from the early third millennium BC. An ivory figurine from Megiddo from the mid-second millennium BC shows Canaanite prisoners who are circumcised. Southern Mesopotamia shows no evidence of the practice, nor is any Akkadian term known for the practice. The absence of such evidence is significant since Assyrian and Babylonian medical texts are available in abundance. Abraham is therefore aware of the practice from living in Canaan and visiting Egypt rather than from his roots in Mesopotamia. Since Ishmael is 13 years old at this time, Abraham may even have been wondering whether it was a practice that would characterize this new family of his. In Ge 17 circumcision is retained as a rite of passage, but one associated with identity in the covenant. In light of today’s concerns with gender issues, some have wondered why the sign of the covenant should be something that marks only males. Two cultural issues may offer an explanation: patrilineal descent and identity in the community. (1) The concept of patrilineal descent resulted in males being considered the representatives of the clan and the ones through whom clan identity was preserved (as, e.g., the wife took on the tribal and clan identity of her husband). (2) Individuals found their identity more in the clan and the community than in a concept of self. Decisions and commitments were made by the family and clan more than by the individual. The rite of passage represented in circumcision marked each male as entering a clan committed to the covenant, a commitment that he would then have the responsibility to maintain. If this logic holds, circumcision would not focus on individual participation in the covenant as much as on continuing communal participation. The community is structured around patrilineal descent, so the sign on the males marks the corporate commitment of the clan from generation to generation. ◆

It is well for us that our salvation doth not depend upon our being able to solve all these difficulties, nor is the divine authority of the gospels at all weakened by them; for the evangelists are not supposed to write these genealogies either of their own knowledge or by divine inspiration,

Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.

We're used to picturing the genealogy of a text like a family tree: one original at the base ascending like a single trunk, with copies branching off it, and copies of copies branching off them. And so on throughout the generations. We imagine an original from which all the generations of diversity spring as scribes make revisions and introduce copying errors. But the reverse seems to be the case when it comes to the origins of the Bible: the further you go back in its literary history, the less uniformity there is. Scriptural traditions are rooted, quite literally, in diversity.

The passages which appear most confirmatory of Christ's Deity, or Divine nature, are, in the first place, the narratives of the Incarnation and of the Miraculous Conception, as given by Matthew and Luke. Now, the two narratives do not harmonize with each other; they neutralize and negative the genealogies on which depend so large a portion of the proof of Jesus being the Messiah—the marvellous statement they contain is not referred to in any subsequent portion of the two Gospels, and is tacitly but positively negatived by several passages—it is never mentioned in the Acts or in the Epistles, and was evidently unknown to all the Apostles—and, finally, the tone of the narrative, especially in Luke, is poetical and legendary, and bears a marked similarity to the stories contained in the Apocryphal Gospels." (W. R. Greg: The Creed of Christendom, p. 229.)

us to take our place within the crowd, to hear Jesus preach and see him perform mighty deeds, when we open up the Gospels for ourselves. While no one today would say that Jesus is John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah, we will see for ourselves if we agree with our own contemporaries that Jesus of Nazareth was simply a great man, a noble teacher, a religious founder, and an unfortunate martyr. Or perhaps we agree with the sour-faced scholars who tell us that Jesus of Nazareth was a failed messiah who never intended to found a religion and that the religion bearing his name has done little to further the material progress of the world.   Pope Benedict XVI reflects in Jesus of Nazareth, “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God. He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually, first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets…. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love.” The Story of a People Open to the beginning of the New Testament and the genealogy of Jesus is what you will find. Most skip over it while others bravely plough their way through it. But much like Matthew, the writer of the first Gospel, I too feel the need to express before anything else that the story of Jesus does not begin with Jesus of Nazareth. A great history is presupposed – a history that his fellow countrymen would have known as well as we know the names of our own grandparents. The only question is: how far back should we go? For Matthew, the answer was to go back to Abraham, the ancient father of the Jewish people, whom God had called out of the city of Ur in Mesopotamia in a journey of faith to the land of Canaan, later called Palestine. For Luke the Evangelist, the answer was Adam, the father of the human race, emphasizing that Jesus came for all peoples.   Very basically, the history presupposed is that of God’s intervention in human affairs, particularly those of the Chosen People, the Children of Israel. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Abraham, bringing him into a covenant with God alone as God, as opposed to the many false gods of his ancestors. As God promised, he made Abraham into a vast people, and that people was later liberated from slavery in Egypt by Moses. The Bible tells us that God spoke to Moses and made a covenant with Moses. And through Moses, God made the people a nation, replete with laws to govern them. Then there was David, the greatest king of Israel, a man “after God’s own heart.” And the Bible tells us that God spoke to David and made a covenant with him, promising that his kingdom

9But avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and useless. + 10Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, + 11knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned.

The Isaac stories open (cf. v.11) with a final statement regarding the line of Ishmael, consisting of a genealogy of the twelve leaders of Ishmael’s clan, a report of the length of his life, and a report of his death. The number twelve appears again to be a deliberate attempt to set these individuals off as founders of a new and separate people (see comment on 22:20 – 24). The descendants of Ishmael continue to play a part in Genesis (28:9; 36:3; 37:27 – 28; 39:1).

They are the subversive force progressively breaking down traditional mechanisms based on sacrificial repetitions of the founding murder and the cover-up that goes with them. Girard is very clear that the bible has had this unique effect which thoroughly pervades our contemporary world. But in these conditions there emerges a stark choice. After the Christian revelation there are no longer truly effective scapegoats and so, in Girard’s own words, ‘the virus of mimetic violence can spread freely’. Thus, ‘Either we choose Christ or we run the risk of self-destruction.’5 I do not disagree, but the way his analysis narrows simply to this statement cuts out a great deal of the field of contemporary reality. It becomes a kind of negative scholastic or churchy judgment on the world. All the deep genealogy he has labored over at this point becomes two dimensional and misses the profound transformative changes Christianity has brought about. In short Girard has produced a structural genealogy of violence; he lacks an equivalent genealogy of compassion. In

As Strauss demonstrated with inescapable lucidity many decades ago, the two nativity stories of Matthew and Luke disagree at almost every point, one exception being the location of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. [...] Matthew assumes Jesus was born in the home of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, and that they only relocated to Nazareth in Galilee after taking off for Egypt to avoid Herod the Great's persecution. Luke knows nothing of this but instead presupposes that Mary and Joseph lived in Galilee and "happened" to be in Bethlehem when the hour struck for Jesus' birth because the Holy Couple had to be there to register for a Roman taxation census. [...] For the moment, my point is to suggest that Luke and Matthew both seem to have been winging it, just as they did with their genealogies. They began with an assumption and tried to connect the dots. This time, their common assumption was that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Whence this assumption? Was there historical memory that Jesus was born there? Hardly; if there had been, we cannot account for Mark's utter lack of knowledge of the fact. No, it seems much more natural, much less contrived, to suggest that Matthew and Luke alike simply inferred from their belief in Jesus' Davidic lineage that he must have been born in Bethlehem. [...] Matthew and Luke both placed the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem because they mistakenly thought prophecy demanded it. They went to work trying to connect the dots with narrative or historical verisimilitude, but with limited success.

As I besought thee to abide still in Ephesus, when I departed into Macedonia, so do, that thou mayest command some, that they teach none other doctrine, 4 Neither that they give heed to fables and genealogies which are endless, which breed questions rather than godly edifying which is by faith. 5 For the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.

Using these kinds of guides, we can outline Genesis as follows: I. The primeval history 1.1–11.26 A. Creation and violence before the flood 1.1–6.4 B. Re‐ creation through flood and multiplication of humanity 6.5–11.9 II. Transitional genealogy bridging from Shem (the Primeval History) to Abraham (Ancestral History) 11.10–26 III. The ancestral history 11.27–50.26 A. Gift of the divine promise to Abraham and his descendants 11.27–25.11 B. The divergent destinies of the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac (Jacob/ Esau) 25.12–35.29 C. The divergent destinies of the descendants of Esau and Jacob/ Israel 36.1–50.26 By the end of the book, the lens of the narrative camera has moved from a wide‐ angle overview of all the peoples of the world to a narrow focus on one small group, the sons of Jacob (also named “Israel”).

The allure of ancestors had a lot in common with a good ghost story. Now I find myself not merely respecting traditions of ancestor reverence but advocating for them, as a doorway to something vital and sacred, accessible as earth, and natural as breath. Chapter 2 NOT FORGOTTEN Growing up, I associated genealogy with the begats of the Bible, with that old family tree my father showed me, and with his reverence for the Old South. I aspired then to be as little like him and his branch of my family as possible. So I never expected to become interested in compiling my own family tree. When I did start researching my ancestors, slowly at first, and then in

The Bible is a strange, silent caress of the bride by the Beloved. It contains words and whole chapters whose value no one can see. But this is their value. If a bride is reading a passionately interesting novel, filled with exciting detail and embellished with beautiful style, the bridegroom remains uncaressed. But in the Bible there are whole chapters of endless genealogies and lists of names. One grows bored and puts the book aside. This was the purpose: to put the book down sometimes and entrust yourself to the inebriating silent embrace where the problems of the text cease to exist. You have His kiss. To prepare you to receive it is the purpose of the Holy Book.

Chapter 1: Genesis 37 1 And Ya'akov (Jacob) sat in the land of the residence of his father in the land of K'na'an (Canaan). 2 These are the [descendents in the] genealogy of Ya'akov (Jacob): Yosef (Joseph) [was] seventeen years old, [he] would shepherd with his brothers among the flock [of animals], and he [was merely] a youth with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zilpah (the women of his father), and Yosef (Joseph) brought their slander – [it was] evil – to their father

How can one interpret a Bible “full of alien genealogies, barbaric practices, strange prophecies, and eccentric epistles”? While we

QUARRELING UNPROFITABLE. [Titus 3:9–11] But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them. You may be sure that such people are warped and sinful; they are self-condemned.

Again, we find ourselves wading through a sea of unfamiliar names — this time in Genesis. Time and again, Scripture will proclaim a list of begats, prompting many Christians to skip past the Old Testament in favor of the more accessible parables or epistles. But while many of these lists are filled with people about whom we know nothing at all, the very act of reading those names, of remembering their existence, reminds us that we matter. Each of those men was a unique person, desperately loved and eternally willed by God. The lists were canonized in Scripture not just because the Israelites had a particular fondness for genealogy, but also so that the Spirit could tell us that each person matters. You matter. When you feel insignificant, God sees you and delights in you.

When you teach your kids the genealogy of Bible characters but not the genealogy of their natural family, you destroy their roots.