It’s that time of year again, when we remember the birth of Jesus, the Messiah. This was the long-expected deliverer, born of a woman, born at just the right time. For some it is ludicrous to think that Jesus was born from a virgin. But this is a truth that has been handed down to us, who believe, from the earliest of times, and maintained throughout the centuries. And it is reasonable. After all, if one believes that the immortal, invisible God has created all visible things out of what was not visible, then it is surely no stretch to believe that this same God could fertilize an ovum in a woman’s womb. But how about Jesus’ most ancient father and mother – Adam and Eve? How important are they to the story of Christmas?
Photo Credit: Sweet Media (Jim Padgett), Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Many of us will read Luke 2 with joy this season, if we have not done so already. The telltale features of the Messiah’s arrival are memorable and remarkable – the uncomely place of birth, clandestine praise of angels, recognition by lowly shepherds, animal feeding trough as a sign, and ominous specter of Roman imperial power. All of these features, I imagine, we will believe. But what about Luke 3?
The text of the genealogy is straightforward enough (Luke 3:23–38):
23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, rthe son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (ESV)
Luke, the physician, makes no distinction between individuals mentioned early on in the genealogy and those later. For him, this is a very straightforward record of biological descendants. In this sentence, each man is connected to the one following him simply by the article in the genitive case (Greek: tou – τοῦ). In such genealogical lists, one might expect telescoping, that is to say, some generations may be skipped. However, it would not be expected that someone listed as a father (or ancestor) of another was not, in fact, his progenitor. Rather, if in such an ancestral list one man was in fact not the descendent of another (nor adopted), then his inclusion would constitute a lie.
The exception to the rule in Luke’s genealogy is, naturally, Joseph, Jesus’ adoptive father. Luke makes this point explicit. He says that Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph. But, in fact, through Mary, Jesus was the (grand)son of Eli (or Heli – Ἥλι in Greek). Presumably Mary was Eli’s daughter.
What does this all mean? Luke believed that Jesus was descended from Adam. Does that make you feel uncomfortable? Then, perhaps you should reconsider what you take to be your source of truth. You accept Luke’s account in chapter 2 regarding Jesus’ birth, don’t you? Why not accept his account also of Jesus’ hereditary ancestry?
Let me put it this way: no ancient reader would have read Luke’s genealogy and imagined that somehow Luke was presenting Adam as a mythical figure. Luke is claiming that he was real – every bit as real as you and I.
And Luke wasn’t alone. Jesus thought the same thing. How do we know this? While experiencing intense rejection and abuse, Jesus at one point, exasperated, stated (Luke 11:49–51):
49 “Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation” (NRSV).
Jesus mentions Abel, slaughtered near the dawn of creation, and Zechariah, murdered during the reign of Joash, king of Judah, in the same breath. For Jesus, both of these prophets’ blood will be required of his own generation. In fact, Jesus describes all of the righteous prophets who suffered an untimely death at the hands of oppressors with one description. They, as a group, have experienced the same fate. Jesus speaks of “the blood of all the prophets.” Abel is one of them. He took his place at the helm. Moreover, Jesus says explicitly that the prophets have been persecuted “since the foundation of the world” (Greek: apo kataboles kosmou – ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου). Abel, of course, is the man who fits with that beginning point.
But there is more. Jesus is himself drawing on a concept that appears in the Scriptures (the Tanach or Old Testament). In the final section of 1 and 2 Chronicles, after the persistent moral degradation of the kingdom of Judah has been chronicled, the Scriptures read (2 Chronicles 36:15–16):
15 “The LORD, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; 16 but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD against his people became so great that there was no remedy” (NRSV).
It is recalled how God’s people consistently rejected his messengers, in particular his prophets. God sent many prophets, but the people would not heed their words. Next the Babylonians come and raze to the ground the palaces in Jerusalem, the city walls and the temple of God, killing many and taking others into exile.
This concluding, summary statement in 2 Chronicles 36 echoes what was said earlier, when Zechariah was murdered in the temple itself. Jehoiada, a good priest, had raised king Joash from childhood. (And Jehoiada’s wife, Jehosheba, had saved Joash’s life, as a child, from the boy’s crazed grandmother, Athaliah). But when Jehoiada died, Joash did great evil (2 Chronicles 24:17–22):
17 “But after the death of Jehoiada, the officers of Judah came, bowing low to the king; and the king listened to them. 18 They forsook the House of the LORD God of their fathers to serve the sacred posts and idols; and there was wrath upon Judah and Jerusalem because of this guilt of theirs. 19 The LORD sent prophets among them to bring them back to Him; they admonished them but they would not pay heed. 20 Then the spirit of God enveloped Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest; he stood above the people and said to them, “Thus God said: Why do you transgress the commandments of the LORD when you cannot succeed? Since you have forsaken the LORD, He has forsaken you.” 21 They conspired against him and pelted him with stones in the court of the House of the LORD, by order of the king. 22 King Joash disregarded the loyalty that his father Jehoiada had shown to him, and killed his son. As he [Zechariah] was dying, he said, “May the LORD see and requite it.” (NRSV)
As in chapter 36, so too here, in chapter 24, the emphasis falls on the prophets. God sent the prophets, but their words were not heeded. Zechariah is the key case in point. His death is the pinnacle of the betrayal of Judah’s leaders against God’s messengers. Here’s how.
Joash killed the son of the very man who raised him, as though his own child, helping him gain his crown. Joash actually grew up in the temple, hidden away for years from Athaliah. And Joash had Zechariah killed in the temple precincts themselves – a location where not even someone defiled by human blood is allowed to enter! The wickedness has a further level of betrayal in it that disturbs greatly. In a way, Joash killed someone akin to his own brother. For Joash grew up with Zechariah, Jehoiada’s son. And he killed him at the same location where he had grown up with him – the House of God. (And, since the temple was the closest thing to the Garden of Eden, Joash’s aggression was a variation on a theme – a second Cain who killed Abel in the Garden.)
Joash’s betrayal of Zechariah is comparable to Cain’s turning on Abel. And as Abel and Zechariah were killed by their brothers, Jesus knew this would happen to him, too. He came as our “brother,” taking on human flesh, knowing that we, his “brothers,” would have him murdered. But he came anyways, out of pure love for us. And this ineffable love wins over even some of the most impenetrable hearts.
Jesus draws on this biblical precedent in 1 and 2 Chronicles in his own words against his generation. In 2 Chronicles, the weight of the blood of many prophets falls on the generation of Zedekiah, when the Babylonians conquer and raze Jerusalem to the ground. But in this case we are only speaking of the blood of the prophets sent to the kingdom of Judah, from the days of king Rehoboam (Solomon’s son) until king Zedekiah. In Jesus’ case, he speaks of the blood of all the prophets, since the foundation of the world: from Abel until the blood of Zechariah, killed in the temple courts. Had other prophets been killed since Zechariah? Of course. In fact, John the Baptist has already been beheaded by this point in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus makes the pronouncement against his generation. But Jesus is making a point by stopping at Zechariah. He is calling on biblical precedent. The same dangerous rejection of God’s prophets that brought about the Babylonian exile is bringing about an even greater disaster for the children of Israel, in Jesus’ generation. And it is here that Jesus cites the blood of Abel, in a concrete manner.
In short, Jesus believed that Abel existed. If Abel existed, so too did Adam. And this is exactly what Jesus intimates, when asked about divorce (Matthew 19.4–5):
4 “He answered, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’?” (NRSV)
Jesus does not mention Adam and Eve by name. But he cites from Genesis 1 and 2, respectively, with full confidence in the written, scriptural text. Jesus believed that Adam and Eve were real, the original couple. Abel was their son, killed by Cain. Basically, Jesus believed the Bible. Shouldn’t we, too?!
This post was modified slightly on Fri, Jan 5, and Sat, Jan 6, 2024, to make a correction and small addition.