Genealogy In the Bible Can Be Amazing

I have this genealogy program for my computer called “Legacy”. Sure I’m researching my own family, but today I wanted to do something different – record the genealogy from the Bible. Some time ago, I recorded onto paper the descendants from Adam to Jesus. I mean, I’ve got pages of paper taped together for charts, footnotes, and color-coding. But today, I finally took the time to digitize them.

Genealogy Passages in the Bible

Now, I know how often times when we read the Bible, we get caught up in the genealogy passages, right? I mean, just when you’re getting into an exciting story about a battle, you get to a half or full page of who’s the father of whom and a full list of their family members. Boooooring, right? But I’ll tell you, if you really take the time to look at it all, you’re sure to find gold (or other interesting elements) in this information! For example, did you know that the longest living guy lived to be over 900 years old? He lived before Noah, and it wasn’t Adam!

Crazy Genealogies in the Bible:

Did you know that in the Bible–yes, the BIBLE, there’s:

• A guy who married his step-mom;
• Some 1st cousins who wed;
• A brother and sister who married and had kids;
• 2 daughters who thought they were the last of humankind, so they got their dad so drunk he passed out, then somehow “date raped” him in order to procreated through him;
• A Priest’s wife was 2 generations younger than him (that’s like marrying somebody old enough to be your grandparent!);
• Judah/Israel, the guy through whom the Messiah would be born, while mourning for his late wife, hired a prostitute, who turned out being his daughter-in-law in disguise;
• One brother killed another because he raped their sister (all kids of David);
• And SO much more!

And they actually recorded all this! I mean, if you had family members in your family history (and many of us possibly do) who did some of this stuff, wouldn’t you want it kept secret?

And man, the connections between the families are mind-blowing! For instance, did you know that Esau married Ishmael’s daughter? So what, right? I mean, they were probably around the same age anyway, and they were cousins and that was acceptable back then. Right, but if Jacob hadn’t tricked his dad for the blessing, then Isaac would have given it to Esau, and Ishmael would have been able to claim the blessing of the Messiah’s lineage after all, creating a paradox in the recording of the Scriptures we have today. Mind-blowing, right?

The Mark of Cain

I’ve heard some White Supremesists (even Youth Pastors who’d been taught such!) claiming that dark skin is the mark of Cain, deeming it evil and thus claiming their right to do all the evil they do to such people. But if you’ll look at the genealogies, you’ll see that:

1. Everybody even remotely related to or near Cain died in the flood. So the Mark of Cain died in the flood — it no longer exists.
2. Also that God put that mark onto Cain as a warning to anybody who would attempt to kill him for murdering his brother. And if anybody should still murder Cain, they would suffer vengeance seven-times over! So the Lord put that mark onto Cain so that nobody would even think of killing him. It was a means of protection over Cain, not a target.

The “Unnamed Son”

And finally, you may want to remember, um (snapping my fingers), what’s his name. No really, the Bible completely blocked out his name! See, in the old days, if somebody was to be completely destroyed, not only were they killed, but their names were also blocked out of the history books–forgotten completely. So to this day he’s known as the “unnamed son”. So there was this guy…um….well anyway, he “cursed and blasphemed the Lord’s name”, and the Lord smite him. So you may want to keep in mind the next time you say the Lord’s name in vain, just how serious God was when He made it a commandment as something not to do.

(I read something recently that gave some other great reasons for reading the genealogies in the Bible, which you may want to check out.)

So the next time you come across the descendant-passages, write some down. Not only might it be interesting, but they may also just help you understand more about what’s actually going on.

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