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Monday, April 09, 2007

Jesus' family tree

I wondered if you knew of any resources that might help on explaining why the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are different, especially why they have a different number of generations.

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I think it comes down to different ways in which different cultures define the family. Judaism was a tribal society, where the family consisted of extended families in larger, concentric units. As one scholar explains:

"Josh 7:14-18 (cf. Judg 17-18) has become the locus classicus for understanding the use of the Hebrew words for family: sebet (‘tribe’), mispaha (‘clan’), and bayit (‘house’; or, better, bet-ab, ‘fathers' house’). With the help of ethnographic studies and archaeological research, these terms, especially the last two, can be understood as 'kinship group' and 'family household,' respectively," R. Hess & M Carroll, eds. Family in the Bible: Exploring Customs, Culture, and Context (Baker 2003), 35.

We, in the contemporary West, think of a family as a serial nuclear family. Hence, we see discrepancies between the two synoptic gospels because we come to the text with alien presuppositions.

But the Jews had a more flexible definition of kinship and ancestry. Tom Wright has briefly commented on this difference (see below).

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/01/n-t-wright-on-genealogies-of-jesus.html

I should add that numerology is a factor in both genealogies. This is explicit in the case of Matthew.

But Bauckham has argued that septunarian numerology is also shaping the Lucan genealogy (Cf. Jude and the Brothers of Jesus, chap. 7).

This doesn't mean that either of them concocted the materials. Rather, given the flexibility of family trees in Judaism (see my previous email), they used numerology as a selection-criterion, choosing the historical links they needed (while omitting others) to trigger literary allusions and historical associations with the past. I discuss this in my review of TET.

8 comments:

  1. I have always wondered about that. Thanks for clearing it up for me.

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  2. Steve: "This doesn't mean that either of them concocted the materials. Rather, given the flexibility of family trees in Judaism (see my previous email), they used numerology as a selection-criterion, choosing the historical links they needed (while omitting others) to trigger literary allusions and historical associations with the past."

    This all seems to point to the conclusion that they aren't real genealogies, in the sense that we understand genealogies. Would you agree?

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  3. Cream cheese bagel said:

    "This all seems to point to the conclusion that they aren't real genealogies, in the sense that we understand genealogies. Would you agree?"

    Who is the "we"? The question at issue is the sense in which the target culture understood genealogies. The fact that a particular culture has a broader concept of kinship than "we" do, as a result of which there is more than one way to trace lineage, in addition to which one may skip over some other twigs in the process, doesn't make the genealogy "unreal."

    The Jews might just as well regard our restriction of a family to a nuclear family as "unreal."

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  4. Sounds like it all boils down to which point of view one happens to adopt.

    Thanks for making that clear.

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  5. cream cheese bagel said:
    Sounds like it all boils down to which point of view one happens to adopt.

    Thanks for making that clear.

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    No, what it all boils down to is interpreting a document from the past (or present) according to original intent. How would the target audience have understood it? What would it mean to the implied reader? The audience to whom it was initially addressed? That's what it boils down to. Another word for this is grammatico-historical exegesis.

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  6. Right - it all boils down to the point of view of the reader.

    Thanks!

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  7. cream cheese bagel said...
    Right - it all boils down to the point of view of the reader.

    Thanks!

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    You seem to be a little slow on the uptake. It doesn't boil down to the viewpoint of just *any* reader, but to the implied reader. The target audience. It means what the author meant it to mean for his intended readership.

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  8. Steve: "It doesn't boil down to the viewpoint of just *any* reader, but to the implied reader."

    So it does boil down to a viewpoint after all. That's what I thought all along.

    Thanks!

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