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Genealogies and Spiritualities in Genesis 87 genealogy to a greater extent opens up avenues for finding further meaning in these texts. In this essay, I seek to bring together these three recent developments: the sensitivity to the multiple expressions of the faith we find reflected in the Old Testament, the increasing research interest in Spirituality, and the search for extended meaning in Old Testament genealogies. I have therefore chosen three Genesis genealogies—Gen 4:17–22, 4:25–26 and 5:1–32—to show how each has a different intent. Each aims to indicate a different aspect of God’s care. Each of these genealogies thus evidences an own (though not unrelated) configuration of faith; that is, a different spirituality. 2. Some Remarks on Genealogies in General Far from merely being lists of blood relations, 14 genealogies in cultures ancient and modern serve/d multiple purposes. These include matters of law, inheritance, politics and diplomacy, economics, ideology, administration, theology, identity, cultural criticism, historical and societal (re)presentation, association, power, status, aetiology, tradition, the military 15 —usually in one R. De W. Oosthuizen, “African Experience of Time and Its Compatibility with the Old Testament View of Time as Suggested in the Genealogy of Genesis 5,” Old Testament Essays 6 (1993): 190–204; and M. J. Paul, “Genesis 4:17–24: A Case-Study in Eisegesis,” Tyndale Bulletin 47, no. 1 (1996): 143–62. 14 British comedian Spike Milligan writes humorously of the “much begatting” one encounters in the Old Testament (see S. Milligan, The Old Testament according to Spike Milligan [London: Penguin, 1993]). 15 If one wanted to choose between these options, as used to be the case in earlier research—and still is with e.g., K. Frankenfeld (Genealogie der Bibel. Ein biblicher Stammbaum [Frankfurt am Main: Haag und Herchen, 1997]) who is bent on pinpointing the exact biblical genealogy from Adam to Jesus—it would have to be done in respect of a specific genealogy, not genealogies in general, and—advancing on Wilson (see R. R. Wilson, “The Old Testament Genealogies in Recent Research,” in “I studied inscriptions from before the Flood”: Ancient Near Eastern, Literary, and Linguistic Approaches to Genesis
88 The Old Testament and Christian Spirituality sense or another to provide legitimacy to some current state of affairs. 16 Genealogy, as Aufrecht observes, 17 is thus more than the patronymic phrase “X son of Y”: once this phrase is multiplied, it becomes genealogy; once it is genealogy, it gains multiple denotations. Despite Noth’s distinction between genuine and secondary genealogies resting on the no longer accepted theory that names in genealogies are of necessity related to more extensive histories, 18 what remains important is his recognition that at least some genealogies serve narrative purposes. 19 The value of this insight is 1–11 [ed. R. S. Hess and D. T. Tsumura; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994], 204)—even then, distinguishing between these possibilities would have to be done with circumspection. For brief overviews of research into Old Testament genealogies, cf. e.g., Wilson, “The Old Testament Genealogies in Recent Research,” 200–201; Plum, “Genealogy as Theology,” 68 3 & 4 . 16 Cf. M. Oeming, Das wahre Israel: Die “genealogische Vorhalle” 1 Chronik 1–9 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1990), 9–36; Wilson, “The Old Testament Genealogies in Recent Research,” 213–15; R. R. Wilson, “Between ‘Azel’ and ‘Azel’: Interpreting the Biblical Genealogies,” Biblical Archeologist 42, no. 1 (1979): 19; W. E. Aufrecht, “Genealogy and History in Ancient Israel,” in Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of Peter C. Craigie (ed. P. C. Craigie, L. M. Eslinger and G. Taylor; JSOT Suppl. 67; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 208–9, 215–18, 223; Andriolo, “A Structural Analysis of Genealogy and World View in the Old Testament,” 1659. 17 See Aufrecht, “Genealogy and History in Ancient Israel,” 206–7. 18 See M. Noth, Uberlieferungsgeschichte des Pentateuch (2. Auflage; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1948), 232–37; compare H. Gunkel (Die Urgeschichte und die Patriarchen. Die Schriften des Alten Testaments 1/1 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911], 73) with G. von Rad (Die Priesterschrift im Hexateuch [Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. BWANT IV/13, 1934], 35) for, respectively, seeing this relationship as condensation or expansion; cf. also R. B. Robinson, “Literary Functions of the Genealogies in Genesis,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 48, no. 1 (1986): 603 15 . 19 See Wilson, “The Old Testament Genealogies in Recent Research,” 202. This insight has seen further developments in structural analyses of genealogies in Genesis; cf. e.g., Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies, and N. Steinberg, “The Genealogical Framework of the Family Stories in Genesis,” Semeia 45 (1989): 41–50.
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Table of Contents Betwixt Text and
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viii Introduction various coloniali
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The Old Testament in Christian Spir
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Undervaluation of the Old Testament
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The emerging discipline of Biblical
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