Tracing Family Histories

 Although the checking of personal ancestries has never been more popular than it is today with numerous magazines and web sites offering  help to trace your family roots  the idea is not new at all.

Ancestral records were vital in the ancient nation of Israel where such records were used in setting up tribal and family relationships such as land divisions and inheritances and they were particularly vital in proving the lineage of the promised Messiah.

That is no doubt why both Mathew and the physician, Luke in their accounts of the life of Jesus started out tracing the lineage of Jesus all the way back to both King David and Abraham. You will remember how Jehovah God made a promise to Abraham that through his family someone would be born who would help mankind to regain God's favour and how King David was told  that this one -- the Messiah -- would come through his family line.

The Jews of  were well aware of this as shown  at John 7:42   Where members of a crowd are quoted by John say, "Does not scrpture not say that the Christ [Messiah] is coming from the offspring of David?" So the Gospel writers  wanted to make this relationship between Abram, David and the Messiah, Jesus, clear.

But where did Mathew and Luke get their information?  Likely from an ancestral record. These took two forms. The ancestral records of priestly families which according to The Jewish Encyclopedia were given special care  and the "public registers".

These were still very accurate histories of Jewish families as seen by the fact that one Hillel, a rabbi of Jesus time was able to prove  he was a descendant of King David according to a Jewish midrash or commentary and the first century historian Flavius Josepheus  also claimed that such records proved his ancestors were priests and that through his mother's side of the family he had "royal blood".

These public archives  were maintained by family heads recording family information at centers  in their home towns such as ones  the Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar had set up during Jesus' era as recorded at Luke 2: 1-5.