Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> Are there any historical references to genealogies outside of Tanakh?

To genealogies in general? Of course. We have genealogies in Mesopotamian,
Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Arabic and nearly every other literature. Plus, of
course, the two genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. All of these
are of different types and purposes and have parallels in the Tanakh, but I
don't know of a single corpus that is as complex and diverse as that of the
Tanakh.


>I heard of one, namely that they were kept in the Temple, but I don't know
if that is an accurate statement.

This is a much later Rabbinic statement (I don't remember the source
offhand). The rabbis were concerned with genealogies for purposes of "blood
purity" of the various "castes" (not a good word, I know) in Jewish society,
especially that of the Priests. They assumed that this is what the biblical
authors were worried about as well, and interpreted the biblical texts
accordingly. It does make sence that the (Zadokite/Saduccee) priests in
charge of the Temple through most of the second Temple period would keep
track of their own lineages, but I don't think that we have any first-hand
evidence that they in fact did.


Yigal