December 18: Advent Calendar
Tangled roots
TODAY’S ADVENT CALENDAR looks at one of the unusual aspects of the biblical birth narratives of Jesus — the conflicting genealogies in Matthew and Luke. Indeed, most modern readers skip over the genealogies, not entirely sure what to make of their inclusion in the Christmas stories.
In this selection, an excerpt from my book, Grounded, I suggest that we shouldn’t ignore them because these seemingly boring lists reveal a conflict at the heart of Christianity. The “begats” are not boring at all. They tell stories of belonging, of our sacred location in God. In knowing our roots, we come to know ourselves.
Window 18
The first genealogy in the Bible is from Genesis, chapter 5:
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth . . .
The chapter continues on in the same manner for thirty-one verses, tracing Adam’s family to Noah, at the time of the flood . There are two dozen such lists in the Hebrew Bible, some very lengthy, some short; and there are two major genealogies in the New Testament, one in Matthew, and the other, Luke, both part of the birth narratives of Jesus. . .
Despite the fact that most people find them dull reading, the Bible’s genealogies have sparked much debate through the centuries. Skeptics insist that these lists, with their omissions and contradictions are not only irrelevant but undermine the scripture’s veracity. Conservative Christians, claim the lists are accurate in every detail, including, of course that Methuselah had a son when he was 187 and lived another 782 years and that the priest Melchizedek had no parents whatsoever. Doubters use genealogy to disprove the Bible denying its truthfulness; fundamentalists use the same texts to prove fantastical tales demanding that faith means accepting dubious history and science.
Genealogies were not, however, considered dull in their original context. Indeed, genealogy was a common feature of many ancient religions and the sacred texts. . . The Hebrew people secured political or priestly legitimacy through kinship. The records established lines for passing on possessions and property, along with role, rank, and authority. Religious genealogies are not just economic or political, however. They also register the handing down of religious practices or wisdom, that which is called “tradition.”
In an odd way, critics and fundamentalists are right – genealogy is controversial. These lists were controversial even when written! Since lineage confers political or spiritual authority, genealogy was a high-stakes literary enterprise. To claim that one was a son of blessing, like Jacob, or a son of a curse, like Esau, made a huge difference in the ancient world; quite literally the success or failure of a tribe or king rested on its claim to the right ancestry. Thus, biblical genealogies tend to conflict with one another. When a particular family or ruler came to power, they legitimized authority by claiming ancestry from a “good” patriarch; when they lost power, the next ruling family would do the same.
The Bible’s genealogies, and the contradictions therein, actually record a long history of struggle and conflict, a process by which difference groups valorized their ancestors and thereby valorized themselves. Not everyone accepted everyone else’s version of ancestral authority, so they wrote their own equally glowing accounts of family. As a result, competing lists actually wound up in the Bible – such as the competing ancestry lists of Jesus found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. . .
The writer of Matthew presents Jesus as the King of the Jews: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The claim is big and bold, directed toward a Jewish audience seeking both political liberation and spiritual empowerment during a time of oppression. Matthew proclaims that this Jesus, whose story he tells, embodied both King David’s royal authority and the covenantal authority of Abraham. All God’s promises to Israel are fulfilled in Jesus, who appeared to be the son of a carpenter, but was, in actuality, both King and Savior.
Luke’s story is far less regal than Matthew’s. It does include King David (since ancient prophets said the Messiah would be of the line of David), but it also includes a host of lesser-known characters, some who do not appear anywhere else in the Bible. Gone is the triumphant line of kings. Who was Joda, son of Joanan, anyway? Or Cosam, son of Elmadam? Never heard of any of them. Luke also traces Jesus’ line back as far as it can go – through faithful Noah, back to Adam, through his gentle son, Seth. The point is obvious: Jesus is from good spiritual ancestry, clearly blessed of God through so many generations, related to some heroes like David, Jesse, Jacob, and Isaac, but, like all of us, a child of our first parents, created by God. Luke’s is an universal genealogy, emphasizing the unity of the whole human family. Yes, there were some amazing people in the family tree, but much of the story is about regular people being faithful to God.
The two genealogies underscore a fundamental struggle in early Christianity, a conflict that runs through the texts of the New Testament: Was Jesus the Jewish Messiah, or the Savior of the whole world? Should the church maintain its distinctive Jewish roots, or should it open itself up to the non-Jewish community? What is the family lineage of Christianity? Does the church embody royal authority or convey a more universal spiritual and prophetic power? . . . Both of these lineage stories, and the tensions, struggles, and conflicts that ensued from these two accounts, are present in the New Testament and throughout the long history of Christianity.
And the questions begin with Jesus’ own birth: Who was Jesus anyway?
This is an excerpt from Grounded: Finding God in the World, A Spiritual Revolution.
YOU CAN LISTEN TO today’s window as well, courtesy of the Riverside Church. Click HERE.
My master/father sent me up from South
Carolina to Boston as a nine-year-old.
My mother's illiterate silence has been a death.
I wonder if she still labors in his fields.
His sister, dutiful but cold as snow,
gave me a little room in her house, below
the stairs with the Irish servants, who hated me
for the fatal flaw in my genealogy.
For the first time in my life I am at home
in this bevy of scholars, my first family.
Here, the wallpapers welcome me into every room,
and the mirrors see me, not my pedigree.
My sisters, Jerusha, Emilia, Elizabeth ...
But Mama's unlettered silence is a death.
— Marilyn Nelson
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First there was Miwiru . . . Miwiru sired Sigoma, Sigoma sired Owiny . . . I felt the circle finally close. I realized that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words . . . All of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away, connected by more than the accident of a name or the color of my skin. The pain I felt was my father’s pain. My questions were my brothers’ questions. Their struggle, my birthright.
— Barack Obama
A common modern American way of thinking which holds that every tub stands on its own bottom, that every man is an isolated individual and responsible for his own ability and character is not true biologically, psychologically, nor spiritually. Those who have preceded us are bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, and we can no more separate ourselves from them than a plant can separate itself from its roots.
— Howard Brinton
You can listen to today's window HERE, via Riverside Church in NYC: https://www.spreaker.com/user/riversidenyc/bsag-11-21
I very recently read the geneologies closely, I had recently finished a course "Taking another look at the women of Jericho" Focus on Rahab. Lo and behold Rahab is in the geneology of Matthew! Vs 5 Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab,,,, We get to Jesse and King David. But pretty ordinary and even outside thenorm people in the linage leading up to King David. Both show pretty ordinary people leading to the Messiah wether one might have been a king or not. I use to have a red stripe in my hair (just for fun) after it turned white. Today I pur the red ribbon in my hair to honor a spiritual ancestor named Rahab . Yes we do have tangled roots and we still have Jesus, pretty cool!