Genealogy of the Bible- Book of Genesis
Like most people, when I read the Bible, I would gloss over the ‘and so and so begat so and so’ sections as they are very dry and hard to follow. But then it occurred to me that if God felt it important to list all that begetting, then it must be important. This made me want to study it. However, just reading it was to confusing and too easy to just gloss over. The only way I could think to really understand it was to create a family tree of the whole mess. I started the project and have managed to make it through the book of Genesis. I thought I would share what I had. I have attached three documents. The first is the entire family tree in one very large JPG format. Next is a 180 page PDF where if you print it out, you can piece the tree together. The last file is the GEDCOM file incase you want to load the genealogy into your favorite program.
Source GEDCOM file BibleGeneology-Genesis.ged
Family Tree in 180 page PDF DecendantsOfAdam.pdf
Family Tree in one BIG JPEG DecendantsOfAdam.jpg
The mapping was pretty straight forward. The only real issue I found was dealing with Esau’s lineage.
- The first issue is with his wives. In Gen 26:34, it says he married two Hittite women; Beeri and Basemath (daughter of Elon). Then in Gen 28:9, it says he married Mahalath., the daughter of Ishmael However, in Gen 36, is says that he married Adah (daughter of Elon), Aholibamah (daughter of Anah) and Basemath the daughter of Ishmael. At first this might seem contradictory, but let us be careful not to mix up confusing with contradictory. I see that there are two possible answers to this conundrum. First is that he really did have 6 wives and did married two sets of sisters. Marring sisters is not unheard of as his grandfather had married two sisters. Plus, Basemath could have been a very popular woman’s name at the time. The other possibility is that when you research the word “Basemath”, you find that it means Fragrant. Therefore, he could have had 4 wives and two of them has the same nick-name ‘Fragrant.’ Which is correct? The Bible is not clear. Either works for me.
- Next is the descendants of Seir as mentioned in Genesis 36:20. At first I could not figure out where Seir came from as he is not listed as a son of Esau anywhere (but it is found in the middle of the lineage of Esau). Then I remembered that Esau had settled in the land of Seir. The Bible is talking about people that already lived in the land. Although I listed these people as brothers under a “man” named Seir in the tree, I am not sure they were even related. The Bible does not say. I was able to see why some of them were listed as a couple of Esau’s wives where related to these “sons of Seir,” but why other ones are listed I am not sure.
Well that is it for Genesis. It was very interesting to map out the genealogy as I found some very interesting and strange family ties. I am starting to think that Abraham was the origins of the red-necks as there was a lot of marrying of your cousin going on. 