Abstract
The Mother of All Genealogies (Genesis 10)
Genealogy is a well represented literary genre in the Bible where it reflects the basic
relationship and fabric of the tribal society defining ancient Israel. The object of this
paper is to bring this early form of kinship ties to the attention of the modern Jewish
genealogist. These genealogies were necessary for determining the next of kin and
their responsibility in matters of marriage (levirate), caring for the impoverished
(Book of Ruth), inheritance (Daughters of Zelophhad) and protection. These
genealogies were functional until the Babylonian Exile 586 BCE, which saw the
dissolution of tribal units and the breakdown of the family structure hastened by the
exile from the family inheritance. This national calamity left these genealogies devoid
of their real purpose of stabilizing that tribal society.
Biblical genealogies have two basic forms: linear and segmented.
The former is very similar to what we do today by finding an ancestor who is the
progenitor of our family tree and following him/her for as many documented
generations as we can find down to our own. This vertical list gives us the structural
depth of the list.
The second - the segmented form - is particular to tribal societies. It starts with a
patriarch and branches out either according to number of wives in a polygamous
relationship (Jacob and his four wives) or according to the sons. These lists, according
to social anthropological terminology, give us the "spatial depth" of the settlement
pattern of this family/clan or tribe.
The most elaborate biblical genealogy is Genesis chapter 10 listing the seventy
descendants of Noah. This list is a classical example of how the genealogies became a
literary device. For one, the chapter separates the predeluvian from later patriarchal
period narratives. Second and more important, using the medium of the family
genealogy, it expresses the biblical message of the universal brotherhood of mankind.
Furthermore, the genealogy is one of the earliest examples of the attempt to list all
mankind according to "scientific", i.e empirical criteria. The children of the three
brothers Shem, Ham and Japheth are identified ethnically, linguistically and living in
geographic proximity (10: vss. 5, 20, 31). It was the names mentioned here and
especially in the prophesies of Obadiah that became in the Medieval period identified
with the new homes of the Jewish people in the European exile, e.g., Sepharad,
Zarephat and Ashkenaz.