Genealogy in Luke and the age of man

[Andru]

In Luke, we have the genealogy of Jesus going back to Adam. I am wrestling with the following question: if mankind were tens of thousands of years old, what sense does the genealogy make? I understand that genealogies in the Bible may contain “gaps,” but if mankind were as old as some people say, the genealogy in Luke would have to skip over hundreds, even thousands, of generations.

I am divided in my mind between believing man is only, say, 6-10 thousand years old, as a literal reading of the Bible makes him, or going with the “science,” whatever value it may have (I am skeptical in general of scientific claims beyond basic facts). Hoping someone wise could shed light on this.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Well, let’s see.
If it were say 1000 generations, that would mean 1000 names.
Now if 42 generations takes up half a page, counting almost purely men and ignoring women, then 1000 generations would be 1000/42 * 0.5 ~= 12 pages of text.
24 pages if the women are added.
Considering the Gospel of Matthew in my bible is :32 pages, that would make the length of the Gospel ~33% longer, or ~66% if the women are added.

Now, the question is – given that scrolls are only so long each, and cost – what is more important to record, and why?

The audiences of Matthew and Luke, respectively, are Jewish and Gentile.
Mathew arranges his genealogy around the number 14 – or 2x the number for oath. And the number 3, which relates to the coming forth from water in Genesis and the first fruits of the clean land – or in the time of Jesus, it is simply – the day of “washing” and cleansing.

So, Matthew organized around 3 sets of them. He certainly could have arranged it historically with different markers, but he doesn’t even bother to go back to Adam in the first place.
Matthew is only interested in showing the generations of Christ from the promise to the Hebrew people through Abraham and Isaac (not Ishmael).
There is a cleanliness about the messiah, perhaps?

The number 7 represents “oath” or “promise”, and multiples of 7 (the week, the sabbath, etc.) also carry the same significance – totality, truth, oath.
So, since he had to snip somewhere – he chose to do it in a way emphasizing the oath God gave to Abraham and his children. He also singles out women, apologetically, for each of them was SCANDALOUS; which prevented scandal from being used apologetically against Jesus being the messiah, since these previous scandals were already sanctioned as part of the messianic line.

The Jewish people were very familiar with genaologies, and the Pharisees, eg: traced their lineage back so precicely they knew which parent killed which of God’s prophets…rather a sore point between Jesus and them…

But look to whom Luke is writing; He is speaking to a people who have no definite history, and who’s genaologies were fanciful, full of Gods (false), and ENDLESS – etc. The names in between would have no significance to them as converts to Judaism or Christianity. Large omissions are therefore, pragmatic. On the second side, Luke’s purpose in tracing the lineage of the Messiah back to Adam is to show that ALL of humanity (including the gentiles) were in the messianic mind. The promise is open to ALL of humanity as descendants of Adam.

I am also not certain that the genaologies of many of those from Adam to Abraham were preserved so that any authenticity could be attributed to them; even if Luke had questionable sources – adding these might actually have opened him up to criticism.

These are, of course, my own thoughts on the matter – but the difficulty in dealing with mythologies of other cultures would make a full genalogy fraught with cultural pride; I think Luke was just being prudent. He emphasizes the relationships of people who would be of more use to the Gentiles in accepting their invitation to Christianity.

–Andrew.

 

[Mintaka]

We do know that the Jews, like many ancient peoples, had special genealogical records which were extremely elaborate and long. If you really wanted to see Jesus’ complete genealogy, you could probably have done it, at least to a certain extent. Most people also had a pretty good chunk of their own genealogies memorized. Beyond a certain point, all the Jewish genealogies converged on certain ancestors.

So, just as with the public Roman court records which anyone could consult, there was no need for the Gospel writers to quote the public records in full.

But just as with most of the public Roman court records, Jewish genealogical records didn’t (in the main) survive the ancient world. It’s sad, really.

OTOH, I don’t think anybody really worried about the complete generations of genealogy between (say) Noah and Abraham; and most of the genealogy between Adam and Abraham was only about the legendary founders of ancient nations. It was pretty literal and useful about which peoples were related to which other peoples, though, and archeology and linguistics tend to confirm this stuff. (Not surprising, since most ancient peoples were very concerned about this stuff. It affected diplomacy and trade, and served as their version of World History 101.)

My best guess is that all those people are in there somewhere, and those probably were their names, more or less. Again, ancient peoples often prove very long of memory when it comes to names. King lists, too.

Again, we should remember that the really really ancient world went through a lot of cataclysms. Think of all the stuff that happened when the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations went down, and so did most of the civilizations around the Mediterranean, when the island of Thera exploded! It’s been pointed out before that the people living in Israel and Phoenicia were lucky to have mountains to hide in, and it seems that writing had just barely been invented when all the cataclysms hit. We’re lucky to have even fragments of memories of that time; and yet, quite a lot more survived than anyone would have thought.

So yeah, I have no problem believing the Jewish genealogies. It’s not every single person and every generation; but even if it weren’t an inspired text, it would be pretty likely to be mostly accurate.

 

[JAYGRAY]

I came to the Forums with the very same question that you have asked, and am disappointed to see no replies. It seems certain that Genesis, if not other early biblical books, has to be mythical, ie, reveals a truth but not in the literal sense.

When I was in grammar school many decades ago I was told that men have one less rib than women because God took a rib from Adam to create Eve, an obvious error but widely believed at that time. Currently a fundamentalist preacher with a huge radio network (Family radio) claims to have cracked a code in the bible which allows him to state with precision the age of the universe (some 13,000 years!) and also predict that the world will end in April 2011 or something like that. Utter nonsense based on the idea that everything in the bible is God’s word and has to be literally true.

Clearly God is Truth, and good science is true. The evidence for the age of the universe is established beyond any doubt, and could be said to be “God’s truth”. In biblical times people believed that the earth was flat, that it was the center of all creation, with heaven above like an umbrella and the nether world below. That primitive notion pervades biblical writing. but is not able to inform us in this modern era.

I have had enough experiences of God in my life to know with certainty that God exists, and I believe the Catholic religion contains the truths that God wants us to know. But I don’t know where in the bible the obvious myth of creation gives way to historical truth. Was there actually a flood sent by God to wipe out the sinful world which only Noah and the inhabitants of the arc survived? (Since the world at that time was far larger than imagined by the people of Israel, did the flood extend all the way to, say, Australia?) Did Jonah actually live in the belly of a whale? Did God rain destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah and was Lot’s wife actually turned into a pillar of salt? It is very troubling to me to not be able to find convincing answers to these questions, and I hope others will help provide them.

In the meantime let us all pray for faith and enlightenment and recognize that God’s love and peace are available to us even though complete understanding and knowledge is not.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I came to the Forums with the very same question that you have asked, and am disappointed to see no replies. It seems certain that Genesis, if not other early biblical books, has to be mythical, ie, reveals a truth but not in the literal sense.

That Adam & Eve were the first two human beings is repeated in other places in scripture. Their existence is not fanciful whether one believes in evolution or creationism. It is reasonable and necessary in both explanations that at some point a couple capable of producing intelligent children came into being.
This is true in the literal sense, and as Humani Generis re-affirms the catholic position is that there was an initial pair from whom all humans descended – not poly-genism. Considering this is the most common form of evolution observed, the claim is quite reasonable.

When I was in grammar school many decades ago I was told that men have one less rib than women because God took a rib from Adam to create Eve, an obvious error but widely believed at that time.

There is nothing in Genesis that mandates that all men after Adam would be missing an extra rib. In fact, I think it quite ordinary that if a man has a rib removed for cancer or other ailment – his children will not thereby loose that rib too…

Clearly God is Truth, and good science is true. The evidence for the age of the universe is established beyond any doubt, and could be said to be “God’s truth”.

No. It has not been established beyond all doubt – it has been established to have been longer than several thousand years by presuming the consistency of spatial data – eg: that God did not create the universe as a snapshot of what would have been had the universe been around “longer”. But at any rate, what has that to do with the possibility of having geneologies of the intelligent portion of the species which is man?

In biblical times people believed that the earth was flat, that it was the center of all creation, with heaven above like an umbrella and the nether world below. That primitive notion pervades biblical writing. but is not able to inform us in this modern era.

And St. Augustine discussed theories about the anti-podes in the year ~400. That is, the feet on the other side of the earth. He and many learned others recognized that the earth had other faces upon which one might be able to stand.
Could you provide a scriptural quote which proves unambiguously that the bible teaches the earth is ONE-sided?

There are certainly artistic representations which would suggest what you speak about – but even Michaelangelo had to deviate from what he knew was the truth when he made his paintings, for some things are not easily represented to the simple – and so, one uses less than perfect analogies to do so.

I have had enough experiences of God in my life to know with certainty that God exists, and I believe the Catholic religion contains the truths that God wants us to know. But I don’t know where in the bible the obvious myth of creation gives way to historical truth.

Bravo.
Then study the literature of the time, the Babylonian enuma-elish, etc. Begin to study the PURPOSE of the texts, and you will begin to understand the mythological ELEMENTS – not Myths of Genesis. Much of Genesis is in fact an apologetic making FUN of other people’s myths; and establishing the truth by showing what must be absurd. It is also an expression of Law, eg: one which can be taught to children which they will be easily be able to remember and bring to their own defense in situations which confronted them in Babylon, etc.

Uncle Sam is a mythological element in United States history – a metaphor – but none the less, much of U.S. history has been described accurately by using “Uncle Sam” to referr to whatever power in the government really made the decision.

Did Jonah actually live in the belly of a whale?

No. Jonah was dead in the koils (guts) of the fish. Pinochio was in the whale…

In the meantime let us all pray for faith and enlightenment and recognize that God’s love and peace are available to us even though complete understanding and knowledge is not.

And let us recall, that regardless of these other “biblical” objections, Genaology is not thereby ruled out. You sppear to assume them to be false; but what objection is there to them in general?

Pax Tecum.
–Andrew.