In addition to the fact that Josephus was only writing what he heard (thus comparable to me writing about WWII – actually less credible since my evidence includes written and photographic evidence, not just word of mouth), there is serious question about what he wrote, where the only manusripts of credible antiquity are from the 11th century, in the hands of the Catholic church. Indeed, there is an Arabic version from the 10th century which is rather different.
Exactly. My family can trace their geneology back to the 1600’s on my mom’s side and the late 1700’s on my dad’s. We are really a close family and have met every year since 1865 for a family reunion. Still, with all the updating of our family tree I’ve done on my dad’s side as well as recording all the stories that my aunts and uncles remember, I could probably write a book on my great great great grandfather Elizah but I’d seriously doubt 10% would be accurate since oral histories are relatively bad mediums. Josephus’s accounts could only be as accurate as one of my friends writing down the accounts of Elizah and how he and his brother fought together and spent time in prison 150 years ago. Sprinkle the story with a couple “family miracles” and you could turn it into religious thing.
Sure there is generally some truth to oral histories but it has to do with perspective. See the previous discussion about Beowulf, The 13th Warrior, and Eaters of the Dead.
Not only is the Bible a useless geneological tool, I would question all your sources before the 17th century. What records are you using to trace your ancestors from the 15th century to the 5th? Unless you have royal blood in you, I cannot imagine what records existed in that period (and survive) to provide you with a factual guide of your ancestry.
Regarding “no historical records of Jesus’ existence”:
From Tacitus, circa 90AD,
“To dispel the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and treated with the most extreme punishments, some people, popularly known as Christians, whose disgraceful activities were notorious. The originator of that name, Christus, had been executed when Tiberius was Emperor, by order of the procurator Pontius Pilatus. But the deadly cult, though checked for a time, was now breaking out again not only in Judea, the birthplace of this evil, but even throughout Rome […].”
Yeah, but I have a feeling that I can track my blood-line back to the Atlantisian king with as much accuracy as you can track your supposed “royal” blood-line. Where you joking?
No, I wasn’t joking at all. If you find out that you’re related to British royalty, the rest is really quite easy. There are no better kept familial records in existence than those of the British royal family.
To what extent is Biblical geneology historically accurate?
There is a different geneology for Jesus in every gospel.
Actually there are only geneological listings in Matthew & Luke. Matthew goes back to Abraham, while Luke goes all the way back to Adam (& of course God). Yes, they are different. Furthermore, they each claim to be the bloodline descendants of Joseph, who was not supposedly Jesus’ biological father. They should have been doing Mary’s if they were attempting to establish Jesus’ geneology.
This page has info on this issue in which the Catholic church acknowledges the problem & tries to reconcile the “difficulties”:
No historical evidence for Jesus? How about Josephus? Of all the characters in the Bible, the one whose existence I doubt the least is Jesus Christ.
I haven’t read this book, but I saw a presentation by the author at the American Atheists national convention two years ago. It presents the results of a study of ancient Hebrew texts looking for references to Jesus. There weren’t any found in texts written anywhere near Jesus’s “birth.”
No, I wasn’t joking at all. If you find out that you’re related to British royalty, the rest is really quite easy. There are no better kept familial records in existence than those of the British royal family.
I think also considering how incredibly inbred much of Europe’s monarchies are, you find yourself related to one, you kind of get an automatic pass on the rest. After all, monarchies are mostly based on the idea of a divine blood line so you want to make sure there are as few branches on the family tree as possible between you (the royal) and God.
Moose, forgive me if I still sound suspicious. It’s quite possible that you are related to the British or French royals, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how you would trace your family back to Roman emperors.
What records are you relying on for the period of the Dak Ages, in which the monarchies of Europe were not yet established and even the most blue blooded aristocrats were illiterate?
The ancestors of the great houses of Europe (Anjou, Saxe-Coburg, Hohenzollern, etc.) were barbaric chieftains (if they had even attained that rank at so early a date) still migrating through the continent. I don’t see how you can make the connection between them and any Roman emperor. Granted, Theodoric married into the family of Augustus Romulus (and I am sure such was the custom of other barbarian kings), but given the lack of evidence for that era it confounds me that you can trace your ancestry so far back.
Well, my dad did all of the work. He hasn’t worked on it in years and I only recently started looking this stuff up, so I don’t know what sources he used. I know that, at one point, he actually hired a geneologist to look stuff up for him. Constantine is somewhere in my line, and Marcus Aurelius was his ancestor. So, don’t ask me how my dad got back to Constantine but, if it’s true, then I am also a descendant of Marcus Aurelius.
My opinion of the Bible is that it is a book of tall tales. I believe that it is possible that at one point in time a man named Johnie Appleseed existed. However, I doubt he planted every apple tree in America. I believe that a man named George Washington existed, however, I doubt that he chopped down the cherry tree or skipped a silver dollar across the potomac (forgive me if my knowledge of tall tales are a bit rusty)
In the same way, I believe that at one point in time, there was a massive flooding of the ancient land of canaan (there have been geological studies to suggest it happened) but I doubt that it covered the entire world and the only man and animals that survived were Noah and the animals in his boat. In the same way, I feel that there had to be an originator of the idea of Jesus, son of Josef, but I doubt he went around healing lepers and turning water into wine.
In other words, take what the Bible says with a pinch of salt
To take a contrary opinion to everyone else, I think the ancient Jews were probably reasonably accurate record keepers. I see no reason why the geneologies they kept couldn’t be quite accurate.
On the other hand, they could be totally made up. That all comes down to what you believe.
I think that the development of Judaism would have taken long enough that the geneologies could possibly be genuine.
In the end I think I’d vote that the geneologies are false–but there seems to be no rational way to prove, for sure, whether they are or not.
If you want to believe they’re real, go for it, I certainly won’t oppose you.
To take a contrary opinion to everyone else, I think the ancient Jews were probably reasonably accurate record keepers. I see no reason why the geneologies they kept couldn’t be quite accurate.
On the other hand, they could be totally made up. That all comes down to what you believe.
I think that the development of Judaism would have taken long enough that the geneologies could possibly be genuine.
In the end I think I’d vote that the geneologies are false–but there seems to be no rational way to prove, for sure, whether they are or not.
If you want to believe they’re real, go for it, I certainly won’t oppose you.
To claim that the are accurate with no corraborating evidence is completely arbitrary.
To claim that the are accurate with no corraborating evidence is completely arbitrary.
I’m not claiming they’re accurate–and I’m not advocating that one does so. I am saying that they could be accurate, and one could say that there is a certain chance of the Bible geneologies being valid.
In the end I think this is all that can be said about this topic. We are all here because we believe in objective proof and there is no objective proof in favor or in opposition to the validity of Bible geneologies.
(I maintain that my educated guess is that there is little accuracy there.)
