Biblical Genealogies

[Deacon]

How Do You Understand and Interpret the Biblical Genealogies?

What are the different ways they can be understood?

A six-part series on Biblical Genealogies is being presented by Denis Lamoureux on Peter Enns website “Rethinking Biblical Christianity”.
I’ve had problems presenting this to my Sunday school class in the past.

Perhaps this blog series will help to provide some information that solidifies the shifting positions that many take regarding this issue.

Rob

 

[preachinjesus]

We have recognize a few things about the genealogies in the Bible which are important to understanding them as a whole.

One of the first is that none of the genealogies match. There are different names and information conned across them.

Also, the lists are not exhaustive. They usually only mention a first-born son and rarely get into other descendants.

There appears to be some skipping around in the genealogies too.

All that said, these aren't bad things, but just honest things that need to be honestly evaluated.

 

[ktn4eg]

I'm not sure that this is completely what you are asking about with regard to "Biblical Genealogies" or not, but one thing that I personally have found to be helpful was to not only find out what the names of the people in the genealogies meant to that person.

Back in Bible times, the name that was given to a person often times had a meaning that in these days we seldom attach to it. While some names had a very special meaning to them, others conveyed some quality that the person who had that name sought to either uphold or (in a few cases) tried not distance himself from.

A good concordance will probably give you at least a very basic meaning of what that name meant back in Bible times.

Another thing I have pursued in the past was to study some of the ages to which some of the Bible characters attained.

While I realize that not every Bible character has his year of death mentioned, and, even if the Bible does mention his years in this life, they are not always accurate down to a "t," I did (for example) find it interesting to note that Methuselah's year of death occurred in the same year as the flood of Noah.

What research I did on the meaning that people attached to Methuselah's name seemed to indicate that when I left this life, something of great significance was going to take place.

Whether or not the people of Methuselah's day knew that there was going to be a flood, I don't know.

OTOH, in hindsight, if I were living back in those days and heard of Methuselah's passing, I'd sure would want to know what God had in store for the people He created!! :thumbs: