For Anyone Disputing the Relevance of Genesis 5 and 11, the Genealogy of Matthew is a Go To

Does Genesis 1 through 11 have an author prior to Moses? · Whoever the "Astute Observer" was — Science and Factually Exact Are Not the Same · Should One NOT Read Donald J. Wiseman? · For Anyone Disputing the Relevance of Genesis 5 and 11, the Genealogy of Matthew is a Go To

Young Earth Creationists don't dispute the chronological relevance of Genesis 5 and 11, they believe it.

Atheists don't dispute it either, they use it as a way of attacking the Bible.

I don't know if there are Jews who believe the historicity of the Exodus and not the chronology of Genesis 5 and 11.

The people I am speaking of are people who believe the historicity of the Gospel and not the chronology of Genesis 5 and 11. In the last century there have been many of them. C. S. Lewis for very long into his life as an Anglican and carreere as Christian Apologist, certainly, J. R. R. Tolkien, probably. A certain Damien Macckey seems (perhaps) to have joined their ranks:

Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah far from straightforward
by Damien F. Mackey
https://www.academia.edu/115036022/Matthews_Genealogy_of_Jesus_the_Messiah_far_from_straightforward

Now, he does cite Monsignor John McCarthy and the Church Fathers.

The omission of Ahaziah Joash (Jehoash) and Amaziah, is because they descend from Joram's wife Athaliah. An idolatrous woman. Three generations are omitted because they are too close to her. During the Old Covenant, God visited the sins of the parents onto third and fourth generation (inclusive), so, 1) Athaliah, 2) Ahaziah 3) Joash (Jehoash) and 4) Amaziah are omitted for this reason, and Joram is not omitted, because Athaliah began overtly sinning after his death. Athaliah would perhaps have been omitted anyway, since a woman, otherwise, she would have been a woman of worse special connotation to cite than Rahab, prostitute, Ruth, Gentile, Bathseeba, adulteress. The French playwright Racine so to speak "makes up for the omission" by making her antagonist of an eponymous play.

Now, what Mackey doesn't get, and I don't pretend to fully and definitely understand either, is the omission of Jehoiachim. But on one occasion, he had previously identified him with Haman.*

Either way, I certainly trust the wisdom of the Church Fathers on this matter, and this would, for those who prefer "full LXX" over Julius Africanus on the chronology of Genesis 11 (1070 over 942 years) can take this as a cue: the famous or infamous second Cainan can have actually lived, been omitted in the Hebrew text by Moses on this principle, though kept in memory orally, then been inserted into the actual text in the LXX, as a cultural translation, Greeks not having this custom of "damnatio memoriae" ...

Now, the quibble is, with overlaps, we don't really deal with 3 * 14. Except we do. Not mathematically, but linguistically. We have three sets. Each set consists of 14 people who are different persons. The fact of an overlap between the sets is irrelevant. 42 as such isn't relevant. The relevant part is each set is 14, like Daleth Vav Daleth, the name of the fourteenth from Abraham. Or, even better, the fact of an overlap is relevant artistically. He's building an authentic and plagal scale in tetracaidecachords rather than tetrachords. In an authentic scale, they don't overlap:

D	E	F	G
				A	B	C	D

In a plagal scale, they do:

A	B	C	D
			D	E	F	G

What other 3 14 do we have? It would not be π-ous not to mention Exodus chapter 3 verse 14.

So, no years are given in the genealogy of St. Matthew. The only chronological information given is the big well known landmarks Abraham, King David, Babylonian Captivity, recent history. But what exact time from Abraham's birth to that of Jesus should we expect ? Matt Baker recently commented on a thesis of common ancestry and used "30 years" as an average.

41 * 30 = O, 3 * 14 ... seriously!

41 * 30 = 1230 years. No, Abraham was not born 1230 BC. However, we might want to add, sometimes generations were longer back then. What about 50? 41 * 50 = 2050 (decent, Jesus was born year 2015 after Abraham's birth). And if we skip the ritual and do the maths on physical reality? 45 generations? 2015 / 45 = 44.78 years per generation. Nearly as if there were 45 years of 45 generations. My grandpa was 47 when my mother was born. God bless her memory.*

The point is, whatever liberty St. Matthew took by omitting generations, it didn't distort the chronology by orders of magnitude. It didn't distort the chronology at all.

Now, in Genesis 5 and 11, some people would want us to believe, omissions could have distorted the chronology by orders of magnitude. 2242 + 942 = 3184 years. 2242 + 1070 = 3312 years. Already a dire indiction on the historic reliability of a tradition on Genesis 3 down to Abraham IF generations had been 30 years per generation. But they weren't, at least not the line leading down to Noah, and then the line leading down to Abraham. Abraham was 20th or 21st from Adam. But if we count minimally overlapping generations, Haydock counts Abraham fourth: "Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram." I would put Abraham as sixth, counting this way. Either way, it is certain (except to hacks and infidels, sorry, I'm repeating myself) that Abraham had and maintained historic knowledge of the facts of Genesis 3. Suppose we played around and admitted the "fluidity level of Matthew"? 45 / 41 * 3312 = 3635 years. Abraham would be likely to come out at worst as number 8 — where Father Haydock put Moses. The historicity of Genesis 3 would not be compromised.

I do have a problem with the power of suggestion. The absolutely worst thing about Dr. Mackey's work is the title: Matthew’s Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah far from straightforward. If he had said, "not totally straightforward" — I'd agree. If he had said somewhere else than the title, it was far from straightforward for St. Matthew to produce, I'd see where he was coming from, but I'd say "that's not counting with Divine inspiration" (even I, who don't claim that, have an experience of what a "stroke of genius" means). But he places it in the title, doesn't immediately qualify in what way and therefore leaves the statement as unqualified as the main clue to the content. The impression this gives is disastrous. He pretends, "it is far from straightforward for us to read" ...

He wants to bolster a kind of doctrine of "obscurity of Scripture" so as to make the pronouncement of the magisterium not just overall, but for every specific issue, a bit like the answer clue to the quiz. Sure, the character of Jesus is to some somewhat of a quiz. Chesterton was right to state the teaching (not just magisterial pronouncement, but he specifically mentions iconography, which has its own version of imprimatur, well before the printing press) is the answer clue. The majority of mankind are not the kind of sly and mean Pharisees Jesus had to deal with on occasions, they are not the kind of greedy people whom Jesus faced with a whip in the Court of the Gentiles. Hence, the Church shows them the kind of smile He offered the repentance of Magdalene or the kind of sorrow He bore for our Redemption. But Chesterton was definitely NOT saying that the passages of the cleansings of the temple "are hard to understand" (as some fans of Tovia Singer have been pretending to find them). He was not saying "we can't tell if Genesis 5 means 2242 years or 22042 years, because Scripture's just SO obscure and it seems I can't find an infallible dogma on it" ... and if that's not what Dr. Mackey tried to suggest, perhaps he's not a very competent writer. As I think he is, I would say he intended the effect. Should I ask him to procure himself a very rare icon of Jesus in anger from the perspective of a money-changer, and use it for his devotions, until he repent?

Since this type of "obscurity of Scripture" doctrine actually has a prooftext, let's go to it, and leave it a decent comment after citing the indecent one. St. Peter is speaking of St. Paul:

As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction.
[2 Peter 3:16]

The indecent comment goes: "see, it's sufficient to be unlearned and go to any of the scriptures, and you'll wrest it to your own destruction" ... that's not what St. Peter is saying. He's speaking of a specific type of person who is not just unlearned, but also unstable. And he's not speaking of unconscious wresting, but of a conscious effort to misunderstand, since the misunderstanding gives room for a fleeting pleasure of sin and error while considering oneself a Christian in good standing with God, like the idea of using Romans for the kind of "Romans road" approach that flatters the easily exhausted they don't need to fast, and need not combat sin, because we can't anyway and it's not necessary to get redeemed. Or similarily with people who love to cite a truncated and therefore faked version of Ephesians 2:8—10, same purpose. Or an equally truncated and faked version of Matthew 16:16—19 to pretend Petrine supremacy is based on a supposed misunderstanding of whom Jesus called "this rock" ... a lack of clarity that disappears like morning fog by 9 am in Spring in Spain. IF THEY JUST READ ONE VERSE MORE.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Quadragesima Lord's Day
18.II.2024

* His latest identification of Haman is ... not ...an Egyptian priest of Amun. It actually is still Jehoiachin:

According to my reconstruction, King Amon of Judah was the same person as Jehoiachin the Captive (which word the Greek text has wrongly reproduced as “Amalekite”).