posted
Ethan, I'm not sure how far we are going to get here, you seem a little too sure of yourself.
Yes, of course the gospels were composed in Greek, and you are correct the dialect was koine. I went back to the Hebrew since it was there that the genealogical practice we're discussing originated. That is, the gospel authors wrote their final product in Greek, but most of them still were Jews, raised in a hellenised Jewish environment, and many of their literary techniques stem from the patterns of the Jewish scriptures. Thus, if you read Green's article, you'll notice he primarily discusses Old Testament genealogies. This Jewish background, however, is the all-important context into which we must place the new testament documents if we are to understand them correctly. The gospel genealogies can therefore be understood in the same way as the OT genealogies. That is why I went back to the Hebrew text. You are correct, however, that the gospels employ the Greek verbgennaw. In the Greek septuagint translation of the OT, gennaw is used to translate yalad, and the two terms match up quite well as far as their semantic domains. Both often refer to the woman giving birth. Note, for example, Luke 1:13, "your wife Elizabeth will bear (gennaw) you a son."
Now, as for how genealogies functioned in ancient palestine, I've explained to you that they did not function as strict historical records as modern scholars would want, and I've given you the Green article that shows quite conclusively that this was the case. It surprises me that you refuse to accept this conclusion - which is an unquestioned consensus in the modern academy - and yet do not offer any engagement or refutation of Green.
Here is another source, the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels s.v. "genealogy":
quote:Recent studies indicate that only rarely do ancient Semitic genealogies intend to preserve strict biological ancestry; rather, genealogies can serve a number of purposes (even simultaneously), such as: to show identity and duty, to demonstrate credentials for power and property, to structure history and to indicate one's character. The value of genealogies in the post-exilic Israelite society is illustrated in Ezra 2:62, 8:1 and Nehemiah 7:5. The omission of certain names in a list does not necessarily make the genealogy inaccurate nor deter it from accomplishing its purpose."
Now, you did offer the beginnings of a counter-argument - though it did not engage Green directly - and that was that you thought the differences between the gospel genealogies could be easier explained as simple mistakes or fabrications than as deliberate designs intended to bear significance.
Why do you think that? Why would it be easier to explain the aporia as errors? Look at the big picture for a minute:
a first century author composes a literary device that accords perfectly with first century conventions for that device, but is quite at odds with modern western standards for that device.
Sure, "errors" would be the easiest explanation by our standards, but that's hardly a fair measurement. And, to beat that horse, why would we resort to that when the text, as it stands, is perfectly normal by its own standards?
This reminds me of an incident shortly after mrs. callee and I were married. She was setting the dining table for a formal dinner and she placed all the knives with their blades facing out. I noticed this and immediately assumed she had made an error, since everyone knows blades are supposed to face in. When I confronted mrs. callee she denied that she had made an error at all, but explained that where she came from the blades were supposed to face out! We argued for quite some time. I could not believe that anyone could hold to a standard of blades-out. We even called her mother, and to my disbelief even her mother claimed quite confidently that blades were always supposed to face out! Thus, I had to conclude that mrs. callee had not at all made a mistake, rather she had set the table in perfect accordance with the practices of her family. In the same way, calling the gospel practices "errors" is not at all the easiest conclusion when in fact those practices are in perfect accordance with the conventions of their culture.
Of course, that illustration breaks down a bit, because ultimately all of mrs. callee's family was simply wrong! And when I pulled out the emily post book and showed her, she agreed to turn the knives inward, though she was not happy about it. Why that breaks down is because while "knives in" can be said to be objectively "the right way" of doing things , the modern practice of 1:1 accurate genealogies cannot make the same claim without being rather arrogant. The ancients simply did not value 1:1 accuracy in a genealogy, and who are we to say that they were wrong for that?
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
I'm referring to the Greek because the texts that I referred to in my first post were written in Greek.
I have yet to see contemporary evidence that Jewish genealogies were not intended to be literally accurate. Green's argument, in effect, is that the geneaologies are inconsistent and chronologically implausible, which we all agree. He concludes that they were not intended to be literally accurate. This is the result he needs, too, because he is trying to reconcile the Old Testament with 19th-century geology.
But I don't see this conclusion as neccesary. Among the pre-Islamic Arabs, there is substantial evidence that the nisbah were taken very literally, even if they were often fabrications. We still have the texts of arguments about lines of descent, and they are precise to almost obsessive degree.
Among the Israelites, there is good reason to think that situation would be even worse. To claim to be kohanim, or to simply claim that one was not halalim, required a careful and complete pedigree. (c.f. Ezra 2:62) Moreover, in the Talmudic writing we see from a very early time an obsession with geneaology that appears to be factual/historical. There is the concept of "zekhut avot"--merit passed down through a family. But the concept is not general, it invokes the idea of precise descent.
From Rottenberg's A guide to Jewish Geneaology:
"It is likely that the long family lists in the Bible were passed on not as casual matters, but as sacred obligations. Certainly these lists were not included in the Bible for their entertainment value--anything but--or to enhance any particular story...If you are combing through the Bible with some single-minded purpose, such as tracing specific relationships, you will be struck by the overwhelming consistency from one account to the next. To be sure, there are some contradictions..."
I do not think I am trying to force a modern standard of genealogy on the ancients. We do not care about genealogy as much as they did. I do think, though, that Christian apologists are trying to divert attention from the obvious contradiction between Matthew and Luke.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The practices of early arabs are, of course, potentially relevant, but that potentiality only becomes actual if, upon examination, we discover evidence of that influence. I have not studied Arab practices, but if they are as you say (and I have no reason to think they are not) then it appears that such influence did not occur, since my assertion still stands that the early Jewish and subsequent Christian writings were not concerned with 1:1 accuracy in their genealogies. I therefore do not see the relevance of discussing Arab practices at this point.
Now, turning to the biblical genealogies, you say you agree with Green that they are all "inconsistant" by our standards, and yet you still think that the simplest explanation for this is that the authors made mistakes? Really? They all made mistakes?
If one or two genealogies contained such aporia while the rest were found to contain accurate 1:1 links, then yes, I could see why "mistake" would be the easiest explanation. But when, as Green documents and you agree, the vast majority of them all seem to contain such inconsistancies, do you really think that "mistake" remains the simplest answer? Do you really think that almost all of these authors were all that incompetant? Frankly, I think that is the most arrogant answer, not the easiest.
Consider, if you arrived to visit a certain Island nation and immediately saw a car that had the steering wheel on the right, what would you conclude? That some dimwit-friday-afternoon worker had made a mistake? Perhaps, but I suspect you would realise that something else entirely was going on when you got out on the highway and noticed that all of the cars contained the same "mistake"!
As for Christian apologists, I am not one, but I do think the question is worth discussing as to what exactly constitutes a contradiction in your mind? Normaly in order to contradict assertion X I would have to assert NOT-X. If I merely asserted Y, then the two statements would be potential reconcilable.
Similarly, Matthew and Luke have, for the most part, different names in their lists. Of course, they are only intended to overlap in part, since Matthew offers genealogy only from Abraham to Joseph, whereas Luke goes all the way back to Adam. By my count Luke surveys 78 generations. That alone should be a clue to you that Luke has left out a good number of names, since 78 generations, at 40 years average each, would not cover nearly enough time. (unless of course you would like to count Luke as too stupid to do the math). By my count again Luke has 57 generations between Abraham and Joseph, the points of Matthew's coverage.
Ofcourse, not all the 57 names that Luke has are different than Matthew. The two of them do have significant overlap. I am far too lazy to count the overlap right now, but it is obvious in a glance at a synopsis.
Your concern than is in the unique elements; the non-overlap. Your contention seems to be that they constitute a contradiction. I think the burden of proof lays upon you do prove that, since they appear to me to simply be additional data; not contradictions of the names Matthew has, but rather different ones inserted in the white spaces between, and vice versa.
And in fact, if you feel like putting time into this, check out Gundry's Matthew commentary where he goes through and, by comparing Matthew's genealogy to the various OT genealogies from which he harvested his names, shows just where those white spaces are, and what was inserted where in relation to the Lukan genealogy. And, since Gundry was kicked out of the ETS for asserting, in that very commentary, the non-historicity of some of Matthew's material, I doubt he is one of the Christian apologists you are concerned about.
Have I just offered you a "Christian apologetic"? Who knows, where I stand I'm just giving a fair academic exploration of the text. My question to you would be why do you seem to be so keene to: a) defeat these Christian apologists, and b) find in the genealogy something you can call an "error"?
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
If we include each of the names mentioned after David by either Matthew or Luke, this gives us 65 generations from David to Joseph, inclusive. Assuming that David is born around 1040 BC, and that Jesus is born around 2 BC, this gives us an average male generational length of about 16 years, which is drastically on the short side (for the Arabs, somewhat later, we have two different studies showing that the average male generational length was around 38 years.)
To justify this with the interpretation that both genealogies are subsets of an accurate whole, we would need to assume (1) that nearly everyone in the Jesse tree is an early-born first son, and (2) that the two authors, who can be shown to agree on only one complete name between David and Joseph, have nevertheless managed to jointly include everyone with almost no omissions.
These seem to be non-trivial assumptions.
Also, I have still not seen contemporary evidence that these genealogies were intended to be figurative rather than literal. I have offered the Talmud and the descent traditions mentioned in Ezra as contemporary evidence to the contrary. To clarify, I don’t think that the biblical genealogies are riddled with inconsistencies, and those that we find in the Old Testament are generally fairly minor. The Matthew/Luke issue is a bit different: four long blocks of names bear no resemblance to each other whatsoever.
To my mind, it looks very much as if both writers were working with twin goals. They wanted to show that Joseph was descended from David, and they believed (or perhaps the coincidentally hit upon the idea) that Zorobabal ben Salathiel was somewhere on the list. Matthew’s other purpose in listing the names of various women and siblings does not appear in this post-Davidian section of the genealogy. Perhaps they made up the names from whole cloth, perhaps they gathered them from any of the millions of bad genealogies that are always floating around. Perhaps one of them was working from a historically accurate, if partial, text. But I don’t see how it can be argued that they were both working from the historical material.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well Ethan, let's regroup here, perhaps by summarising what we agree on.
First, you believe that the genealogies (herein gen.) are filled with inconsistancies because the authors made errors. I tend to believe that they are full of inconsistancies because the common standard for gen. at that time was a flexibility, the freedom to compress or expand in the service of theological points.
What we agree on, however, is this: that the gen. as they stand contain inconsistancies and cannot be trusted to provide 1:1 links.
Second, since you believe that the gen. contain bona fide errors, you, not unreasonably then, conclude that they are not reconcilable. I, on the other hand, am currently agnostic as to whether they could be reconciled. I tend to think that they could be, but this is not because of any direct inspection of the evidence on my part, but rather an apriori hypothesis based on my belief that the inconsistancies simply represent condensations and such, and hence reconciliation should, theoretically, simply be a matter of re-expanding them and inserting the inconsistant names in the appropriate spots, as determined in comparison with the various OT gen. from which these gen. were primarily drawn to begin with. However, while I may lean in that direction, I have not proven that hypothesis, and I doubt I will undertake that work anytime soon. Nevertheless, while you think a reconciliation is never coming, and I think one might be coming, we both agree on one thing.
What we agree on is this: that a reconcilation of the gospel gen. is not currently at hand.
That would be my summary of the discussion thus far. Fair?
My remaining question would concern motivation. My motivation is solely based on an academic obligation to make factual conclusions that handle the text responsibly.
It is not clear to me yet what your motivation is. I have already commented that you seem to be eager to classify these inconsistancies as "errors" and have connected that desire with "christian apologists." I should be honest, therefore, that my suspicion is that, like many americans, you are reacting here to the conservative religious right; that is, you are eager to declare the presence of errors in the text because you are sick and tired of right-wingers using that text to do stupid things to you, like put prayer in your schools, statues in your courts, or remove cold beer from your stores. Am I at all correct on this?
I'm sorry if I sound presumptuous here, I only mean to get these things out in the open so that we can have a better discussion.
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just a quick mathematical question: if the geneologies are problematic because they would make the generations too *short* -- then wouldn't the notion that they gens are condensed -- i.e., jumping a few generations -- only make the problem worse?
(e.g., it's not likely that my great-great-great grandfather was a WWII veteran...so how would adding in another "great" or so do anything but make the problem worse?)
(I don't know much about geneology -- even how to spell the durn word! -- but math, from math I know!)
Silas
Posts: 16801 | From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Silas Sparkhammer: Just a quick mathematical question: if the geneologies are problematic because they would make the generations too *short* -- then wouldn't the notion that they gens are condensed -- i.e., jumping a few generations -- only make the problem worse?
Well, while I tried to find the points of agreement with Ethan, one thing we are not in agreement on is that the inconsistancy in the gen. would solely be a matter of condensing. My understanding is that the ahistorical objectives of the standard biblical gen. allowed for a flexibility that was not limited just to condensing, but could also include various type of additions or alternate routes, i.e. leaving the father's line and working through a cousin's for a bit, etc. Whether that could be true specifically of the MAtt/Lukan gen. would remain to be seen.
quote:(I don't know much about geneology -- even how to spell the durn word! -- but math, from math I know!)
Silas
yeah, don't feel bad, I got sick of fixing my own typos myself, and that's why I started using the abreviation "gen."!
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
callee, are you familiar with a study of ancient Egyptian genealogies that indicate the same? I understand that skipping less important (to the creator's point) generations was widespread in Semitic cultures.
And no-one has thrown the adoption monkey wrench into the picture. I would wager that at least a couple of the individuals in the genealogies had fathers who died while they were young and were adopted by a relative.
-------------------- All posts foretold by Nostradamus.
Turing test failures: 6 Posts: 5481 | From: Decatur, GA | Registered: Nov 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
"but could also include various type of additions or alternate routes, i.e. leaving the father's line and working through a cousin's for a bit"
Can you name any example of this happening when it is not explicitly mentioned in the text? I don't know of one. And Matthew is fairly careful to mention any deviations from father-son lineage.
I think our motivations here are irrelevant, but you're interested, so...I'm an amateur but obsessive geneaologist. I work primarily with pre-Islamic Arabic and Getic genealogies. It frosts my balls to see erroneous geneaologies being defended for ideological reasons, and I think that's what I'm seeing here. You say:
"My motivation is solely based on an academic obligation to make factual conclusions that handle the text responsibly"
If this is the case, then why are you unable to admit that you were wrong about the definition of "begat," after chasing us around in three langauges? And why have you consistently ignored my request for primary sources? And, more generally, why are you proposing an extraordinarily complicated 'excuse' for an inconsistency in the text?
I don't get it. The alternatives you are proposing would all create a longer chain, worsening the problem of generational length. The only alternative that creates a shorter chain is to assume that either M or L or both have
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Jason Threadslayer: callee, are you familiar with a study of ancient Egyptian genealogies that indicate the same? I understand that skipping less important (to the creator's point) generations was widespread in Semitic cultures.
Hmmm... no, I am not, do you have any recollection of the name?
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by EthanMitchell: I think our motivations here are irrelevant,
motivations are entirely relevant. do you seriously think your work is never affected by them?
quote: If this is the case, then why are you unable to admit that you were wrong about the definition of "begat," after chasing us around in three langauges?
Mostly because I was not wrong. I overstated my case while making a sarcastic dig. I stated that "begat" solely referred to the woman giving birth. You responded that in fact it solely refered to the man fathering a child, supported by a reference to websters. I then checked out the word further and responded that in both biblical languages the word referred to both women giving birth and men fathering. I even cited primary texts to that end. Thus, if I was wrong, I was no more wrong than you.
quote: And why have you consistently ignored my request for primary sources?
the sarcastic answer would be that it's not my job to do your homework for you, but the real reason is that it's futile to attempt to advance a debate when the parties involved have not yet agreed upon where they are and where they are goind. To that end I posted what I thought was a fair summary of our discussion thus far, and asked you to comment on it. You have completely failed to do that.
quote: It frosts my balls to see erroneous geneaologies being defended for ideological reasons, and I think that's what I'm seeing here.
I made an honest confession about what I suspected about your motivation and asked you whether that was so. Not only did you fail to do that, but you turned around and called me a liar by questioning my own motivation.
Your accusation is wrong. Not only was my description of my motivation quite accurate and complete, but furthermore it bears stating that I am not the fundamentalist apologist you seem to have decided that I am.
More importantly,
the very nature of your accusation is completely out of line.
That is not how respectable conversations take place.
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
"On the most basic level it cannot be literal because X and Y are almost always males, and a male does not do any begetting at all! So right from the start, even in the most conservative literal interpretation, the phrase "X begat Y" is already a symbolic code for an entirely different meaning. What that phrase really means to say is that some woman X knocked up begat Y."
This is a sarcastic dig that we were supposed to identify as such and pass by? And I did not say that beget "solely refered to the man fathering a child," I said that that was the definition in my dictionary.
I don't think you are a fundamentalist apologist; I do think that you are making an argument that needlessly multiplies entities. And the offense you take at my questioning of your motives is exactly why I don't think motivational issues are a useful adjunct to a debate about the text. It's the genetic fallacy: our arguments stand or fall regardless of why we make them.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
"To that end I posted what I thought was a fair summary of our discussion thus far, and asked you to comment on it. You have completely failed to do that."
Ok, give me a second. Basically, I agree with your two points of agreement, although I would qualify the first a bit. I think that in general, the OT geneos are fairly consistent. They may be compression-lists, as other Semitic peoples practiced, but the compression pattern is consistent. I don't think it would be fair to say that the OT geneological literature is characterized by inconsistency.
What we do not agree about is what the function of the OT geneologies was. I've offered Ezra and the Talmud as evidence that they were meant to be taken more or less literally, and used to settle questions of hereditary privilege and merit. I have asked you for primary sources that indicate otherwise, and you tell me that "it's not my job to do your homework for you." Which is fair enough, of course, but since I doubt that such sources exist, I am not going to spend a lot of time looking for them.
As far as the NT, I suppose that one of my conceptual problems is this...I am all too aware that it is rare for most people to be able to accurately trace their ancestors for more than ten or twelve generations, except in very unusual circumstances. (And I don't find it credible that Joseph, who might well have been illiterate, would have known his ancestry to fifty-odd generations.)
What I'm unclear about...and it might save us both a lot of time and the wear and tear on one's soul that comes from this kind of e-argument...is how, exactly, you think that M tnd L wrote their respective texts. Perhaps, when you propose that the authors employ "various type of additions or alternate routes," you are not so very far from my suggestion that they are "making it up."
Another thing that perhaps we both agree on: Between David and Joseph, the theological connotations that the authors might well have been making with their choices of who to include are lost on us today, since we have no secondary references to any of the people mentioned.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sure, I did write that, but look what I wrote immediately after:
quote:But even that, most basic level of abstraction is not my point.
So what do we have here? Early on I made a minor subpoint and you offered a corrective refinement.
note two facts:
1) from the start I explicitly identified that subpoint as unimportant to the discussion
2) I accepted your corrective refinement.
So tell me again why you're still talking about that?
More importantly, why aren't we talking about all the other questions and points I've made in recent posts, particularly the ones that I explicitly noted you had thus far failed to address?
My goal is to arrive at an accurate description of the biblical genealogies. It is unclear to me what your goal is, but it is quickly starting to look like it is to waste my time.
ETA OK, I retract my final snarky riposte inlight of your subsequent post.
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
"More importantly, why aren't we talking about all the other questions and points I've made in recent posts, particularly the ones that I explicitly noted you had thus far failed to address?"
And likewise, and I think for both of us it is because we have lives--though who would know?--and that this conversation is rather...sprawling.
"My goal is to arrive at an accurate description of the biblical genealogies."
Great. Let's start with the Old Testament, since I think we are needlessly irritating each other with the M/L thing. I'd love to get your opinion on the following thoughts:
(1) The Genesis geneos are probably compression trees. (2) There are not that many inconsistencies. I'm only aware of two (Gen 10:23 to 22:20 et seq, and Chron 2:9), I'm sure there are a few more. But basically the level of consistency is pretty high. (3) There was certainly a practical use of genealogy in establishing one's social standing, and the method of calculating it relied not just on descent from a specific orgin, but on not being descended from outsiders--in other words, on complete, accurate, ancestry trees--this is spelled out in Leviticus (Or Deutoronomy?) and the Talmud, and it is apparently referenced in Ezra.
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
P.S. I detest the whole Da Vinci Code thing, so part of my underlying motive here is the fact that we have hijacked this thread to NFBSK...
Posts: 330 | From: New Haven, VT | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by EthanMitchell: (3) There was certainly a practical use of genealogy in establishing one's social standing, and the method of calculating it relied not just on descent from a specific orgin, but on not being descended from outsiders--in other words, on complete, accurate, ancestry trees--this is spelled out in Leviticus (Or Deutoronomy?) and the Talmud, and it is apparently referenced in Ezra.
You may want to refer to Ruth also, which gets into the kinsman-redeemer - the closest next-of-kin who would redeem property if a man became poor or died w/out heirs. (Ruth was David's great-grandmother and a foreigner)
-------------------- No man has a right in America to treat any other man "tolerantly" for tolerance is the assumption of superiority. -Wendell L. Willkie Posts: 3833 | From: Virginia | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by EthanMitchell: Great. Let's start with the Old Testament, since I think we are needlessly irritating each other with the M/L thing.
Actually, I was about to suggest we do the opposite, and turn to a more focused discussion of one of the two gospel genealogies. Those texts are within my areas of study, whereas the OT questions you raised - while good questions - are outside my purview and thus would require research for which I just don't have time.
If you want, then, we could start with Matthew.
-------------------- a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and that something is worth honoring as well. - John Carroll Posts: 3375 | From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by DemonWolf: Sort of. Joseph was of the line of David, but Jesus was born to a virgin.
I have heard that using the word Virgin to describe the Virgin Mary wasn't referring to her not having ever had sex but was used to describe a good woman or something like that.
Posts: 18 | From: Australia | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
, the modern practice of 1:1 accurate genealogies cannot make the same claim without being rather arrogant. The ancients simply did not value 1:1 accuracy in a genealogy, and who are we to say that they were wrong for that?
