Please find an orthodox jewish rabbi that will talk to gentiles and ask
him on the value of genealogies in jewish life not only today but twenty
centuries ago. Then ask him if holes in the lineage was something
common in bce times when tracing ones' genealogies.
Remember that all claims to land and inheritance was directly connected
to being able to prove that one was a direct descendant of one of the
twelve tribes.
Remember what Nehemiah did to the people who had married non-jewish
persons? (Neh. 13:23-31 "In those days also saw I Jews that had married
wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spake half in
the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but
according to the language of each people. And I contended with them,
and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair,
and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters
unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for
yourselves. Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet
among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his
God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did
outlandish women cause to sin. Shall we then hearken unto you to do all
this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange
wives? And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high
priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite, therefore I chased him
from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the
priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.
Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the
priests and the Levites, every one in his business. And for the wood
offering, at times appointed, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my
God, for good.")
Since the standard church today makes no effort in evangelizing hebrews,
we have no idea on jewish customs and culture. Consequently we
constantly insert XX century american thoughts and concepts into
Scripture totally destroying its original meaning and building doctrines
out of thin air.
One example is the scene of Jesus praying to God to remove the cup
before him. Any jew could see what the scene meant, while contemporary
church folks take a whole different approach and concept. In so doing
we are left totally ignorant on the beauty of the story of a jewish
groom and his bethroded bride.
How this event clearly ilustrates the relationship of Jesus and the
church, how the parable of the foolish virgins takes a whole different
perspective, how it easy to understand why the hour of the grooms'
coming nobody knows it but the father, how the sound of the trumpet will
signal the arriving of the groom.
The people listening to Jesus and His disciples understood very well
these events, while current day church folks have a hard time grasping
the idea behind them. And this is with twenty centuries of Christian
teaching. Instead we concentrate in the 'true meaning of the greek
root' but totally miss the plain message.
Likewise is the genealogies. We are totally missing the why is highly
unlikely that generations 'were left out'. Only when one does not
understand the importance of this data to jewish people twenty centuries
ago, one can make the statement that 'it was just left out'.
For Matthew to present Jesus as the messiah to the jews, he had to prove
he came from Adam directly using genealogies. This type of records were
kept in sinagoges and the Jerusalem temple. Since the temple was
destroyed in 70 AD we have no longer these documents. But when the
census was ordered, Joseph and Mary had no trouble finding that they
must go to Bethlehem because they were descendants of King David. How
would they know this (and the civil oficials conducting the census) if
long gaps were missing from genealogies?
Lets' not forget that every man child was taken to the temple (or
sinagoge) to be circumcised eight days after he was born (Lev. 12:1-3
"And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 'Speak unto the children of
Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child,
then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the
separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean. And in the eighth
day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.'") Not only the
procedure was done according to the law but his name was recorded in the
books. Pretty much like a birth certificate in modern day USA.
When we engage in textual criticism of ancient manuscripts, it is our
duty to interpret them according to their era and not the other way
around. The burden of proof is on us not the book and to make arguments
from the books' silence is totally fallacious.
Best Regards,
Dario