Many persons today go to extraordinary lengths to trace their family ancestry sometimes to be able to share in inheritances, but often just for personal satisfaction. To the ancient Israelites, however, it was a much more serious matter.
The keeping of accurate genealogies played a number of critical roles for individuals as well as the nation as a whole.
First of all, in order to exercise any civic rights an Israelite man had to prove his pure connection to one of the tribes -- with no fleshly connection to the Ammonite or Moabite race for instance, according to Deuteronomy 23: 2,3, according to scholar Joachim Jeremias. Beyond that accurate geanologies were also critical in establishing, "tribal and family relationships and determining land divisions and inheritances.
And on a national level, according to Jeremias such family records were also critical to protective the purity of the hereditary line of Levites and Aaronic priests. "It was imperative that the purity of line remain unblemished," says Jeremias.
They went to great lengths to achieve this goal such as insisting that women wanting to marry into priestly families had to prove their hereditary background was pure and disqualifying entire families claiming a Levitical history in Nehemia's day after Cyrus freed them from Babylonian captivity when these families could not produce genealogical proof of their claims.
The Bible is perhaps one of the best example of an accurate genealogical record proving without a doubt that Jesus was the promised Messiah a descendant of the line of King David of the Tribe of Judah the Bible said he would be.
(See "Evidence All Around us" Below)
No comments:
Post a Comment