1. Adam |
1. Adam |
1. Adam |
Genesis 5.9-14 - And Enos lived ninety years, and begat Cainan (Hebrew - Kenan) ... And Cainan lived seventy years, and begat Mahalaleel: And Cainan lived after he begat Mahalaleel, eight hundred and forty years ... And all the days of Cainan were nine hundred and ten years; and he died.
Genesis 22-24 - The children of Shem ... Arphaxad (Hebrew - Arpachshad) ... and Arphaxad begat Sala (Hebrew - Shelah)
but Luke's records seem to get confused some nine or ten generations later, however, when the name "Cainan" is inserted between Arphaxad and Shelah.
An email message was sent to me with the question "How can both Arphaxad and Cainan simultaneously be the father of Shelah?". This query resulted in the addition of this page-link to the Chronology work. And a sound question it is.
The Old Testament, three times, claims that Shelah was the son Arphaxad, but Luke apparently claims that Shelah was the son of Cainan. So let us consider:
| 1. The Cainan (fourth generation from and including Adam) recorded in the Old Testament lived for 910 years (according to this Chronological study) between circa 3675 BC and 2765 BC. He died 21 years before Noah was born circa 2744 BC. |
| 2. The second person referred to as Cainan, "the son" of Arphaxad, and also the father of Shelah in the third chapter of Luke's gospel would have lived after the Flood in Noah's time, because Arphaxad was born within two years after the Flood (circa 2422 BC when his father, Shem, was 100 years old). So "this second" Cainan as recorded in Luke was not the fourth generation Cainan who was recorded in the Old Testament. |
| 3. The books of Genesis and 1 Chronicles place Shelah (Salah) as 13th generation of the Adamic lineage; but Luke places Shelah (Salah) as the 14th generation of the Adamic lineage by inserting the extra record of (a second) Cainan. |
4. The use of italics in the translation of the King James Version of the Bible is a practice that was used as early as the century 1500-1600 AD where words were inserted or added to the translation of the original text, in order to make that text more easily discernable. These extra added and/or inserted words were shown by use of a different text type. This may put a different complexion on the interpretation of "which was 'the son' of", which perhaps was originally written as "which was of". The expression "The son of" in the New Testament does not imply strict paternity, whereas the word "begat" in the Old Testament refers to dynasty heritage. Now "which was of" could refer to a person as being of a legally inherited line of people, rather than to a true son of a person. Could it be that Luke 3.35-36 should read: Then the interpreted translation of the genealogy may be in the same order as Genesis and 1 Chronicles thus: |
| 5. As far as the interpretation of languages is concerned, it should be remembered that in the times of the Lord Jesus Christ, there were no less than four languages in use in Palestine, and their mixture formed the "Yiddish" of those days. These languages were Hebrew (spoken by the Hebrews), Greek (spoken by the educated people generally), Latin (the language of the Romans), and Aramic the language of the ordinary folks. Added to this situation, the New Testament gospels were written many years after the events they described, and as a result they were more error-prone as true records. Much can be observed, and has been written about the discrepancies between the gospels themselves. For this reason as far as extracting this Chronology, I have tended to keep to the Old Testament writings, which may be less error prone, because of the meticulous detail and process that the Hebrew peoples maintained in their ancient writings. |
6. There were two people recorded in the Bible by the name of "Shelah" or "Sala" or "Salah". There was Shelah (circa 2307 BC to 1874 BC) - son of Arphaxad ; grandson of Shem, and great-grandson of Noah. And there was Shelah - the youngest son of Judah (Judah was circa 1805BC to 1676 BC - so Shelah was born between these dates), by the daughter of Shua the Canaanite; grandson of Jacob, and great grandson of Isaac, and great-great-grandson of Abraham. |
7. The Canaanites, descended from Canaan. Canaan was the son of Ham (so therefore the cousin of Arphaxad), and the grandson of Noah. Shem was Canaan's uncle. During Canaan's lifetime, he revived the awful degradations of Cain (the son of Adam, and it was Cain who slew Abel). The reason I mention Canaan here, is that maybe the mention of Cainan in the lineage of Shelah in Luke's gospel, was made with the intent of distinguishing between the line of "Cainan" and "Canaan" as far as Shelah was concerned (because Canaan was Shelah's uncle). For Jesus Christ was born of the line of the tribe of Judah which descended through the line of Noah's son Shem (not Ham nor Japeth), and it was important to show that he was legally descended from King David, through the line of Judah back through Shem (not Ham nor Japeth), and that Shem descended through the line of fourth generation Cainan back to Seth and Adam. Canaan was of the line of Hebrews, but his lineage was traced further back through the line of Ham (not through the favoured line of Shem) - it was Ham who "uncovered his father's (Noah's) nakedness". In the genealogy of the New Testament records, it was important to emphasise the purity of Jesus' lineage as far as His inheritance of the Throne of The Kingdom of God on earth was concerned. As Israel's King, He was to fulfil the laws of God and the prophets. |
| 8. Somewhere in the Bible we are told to "prove all things ..." Maybe an apparent error or discrepancy in the way that Luke's gospel is written about the genealogy of Jesus, points us in the direction of analysing and sifting Jesus' genealogy, and hence revealing those things which could apparently otherwise be hidden. "Seek and ye shall find." |
Maybe the above comments will clarify some of the doubts on the authenticity of the Biblical records as far as the genealogy of Jesus Christ is concerned. As a result of the findings and observances made above, I believe that Arphaxad was the legal father of Shelah, who was born of the Adamic legal heritage line of people descended backwards through Arphaxad, Shem, Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaeleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth and Adam.
