Endless lists of genealogies
Is the Bible the world's most boring book?
There is a fun scene in the original series of Mother and Son, not to be confused with the rather weak 21st century version, recently broadcast.
Maggie decides that she should seek help from the Bible and decides to read something from the New Testament. The actress, Ruth Cracknell, brilliantly declaims a few verses from Matthew chapter 1. King James Version, of course:
Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; and Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; and Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon; and Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth
This might seem to be a peculiar way to begin a story! However, the Bible has always been a consistent best seller. I wonder how many people who buy it (or get given a copy) actually read it. I think there are about 60 chapters of this stuff, almost entirely in the Old Testament.
When you are reading the Bible, it doesn’t take long until you are faced with lists and genealogies. You’ll find several in Genesis, including in chapters 4 and 5, 10 and 11: quite early on. The doozy is 1 Chronicles, which begins with nine chapters of names, and little else.
How do we make sense of all these lists of names? Here are the first ten verses of 1 Chronicles (coming from The Christian Standard Bible):
1 CHRONICLES
FROM ADAM TO ABRAHAM
1 Adam, Seth, Enosh,
2 Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared,
3 Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech,
4 Noah, Noah’s sons:
Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
5 Japheth’s sons: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
6 Gomer’s sons: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.
7 Javan’s sons: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Rodanim.
8 Ham’s sons: Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.
9 Cush’s sons: Seba, Havilah, Sabta, Raama, and Sabteca.
Raama’s sons: Sheba and Dedan.
10 Cush fathered Nimrod, who was the first to become a great warrior on earth.
Huh? How is that going to help me to be complete, equipped for every good work, which Paul promises all Scripture was designed to do in his 2nd Letter to Timothy?
Trumpets, please!
Da da da DA da DA!
Enter Nancy Dawson, who has spent the past 20 years researching All The Genealogies of the Bible. She has enlisted the help of Dr Eugene Merrill (Old Testament scholar) and Dr Andreas Köstenberger (New Testament scholar), who have examined her “endless lists of genealogies” and have also made their own contributions. Dr Merrill says Mrs Dawson has done something that, to my knowledge, had never been done before, namely, produced a work containing every genealogy of the Bible from the longest to the shortest. He says her book is without a peer in its comprehensively studious attention to detail.
The charts in the book are easy to follow, and each chart is explained. Why do we have all these lists? Nancy Dawson says that the genealogies show the family of God, which is composed of Jews and Gentiles who came to hold the “faith of Abraham.… the father of us all”
She goes on to say that we should think of the genealogies as like a house being built up and a tree of life growing in height and breadth. She says that these lists of names provide a framework for Scripture, fulfilling 19 different functions! Gordon Fee argues similarly in the Zondervan NIV Readers Bible (also called, confusingly, The Books of the Bible) that the lists of people and places provide a skeleton which the inspired author fleshes out by telling the stories of some of the people and places in the list.
I’m appreciating this new book and accessing it in Logos Bible Software, using my big-to-me monitor, with the charts taking up most of the screen.
Reading this book should give you a new appreciation for these lists, and help you to see how they are vital to the story. I’ve been reading through the Bible systematically since 2005, and have come to read these lists with more interest and even look forward to it!
Now, if only Ruth Cracknell were still with us to explore this new resource. (She was a regular attender at St James Anglican Church, King St, Sydney)
Dawson, N. S., & Merrill, E. H. (2023). All the Genealogies of the Bible: Visual Charts and Exegetical Commentary (A. J. Köstenberger, Ed.; p. xvii). Zondervan Academic.