This page is part of the Biblical Tree Merge project.

When merging big trees, some of which contain plenty of errors, it is often easy to get confused as to which version is correct. So this page is a quick reference to use when merging biblical trees. As such, it will list various "main" lines in this tree.

Adam → King David → Zerubbabel

List of fifty-four generations of the "main line" of the tree from Adam until Zerubbabel.

Cain's line

The seven generations of Cain's family are often found in mangled form, especially with regard to Lamech's two wives and four children.

Common mistakes:

• There are TWO Lamech. 1) The bigamist in this line, and 2) Noah's father.
• There are TWO Naama: 1) Daughter of THIS Lamech, and 2) Noah's wife (i.e. the OTHER Lamech's daughter in-law).
• Methushael is missing or found before his father, Mehujael

Noah & the 70 Nations

Too many mangled versions of Noah's grandchildren. This refers ONLY to the people named in Genesis 10. There are many more grandchildren mentioned in non-canonical sources, such as the Book of Jasher.

Jesus

The Christian Bible lists two rather different genealogies for Jesus, one in Matthew 1:1–17 and the other in Luke 3:23–38. See also Wikipedia article Genealogy of Jesus.

Both of these genealogies more or less follow the genealogies given in the Jewish Bible, until King David (listed above). With the following minor differences:

• Luke: Adds Cainan between Shelah and Arphaxad, as found in the Septuagint, but omitted in the traditional Bible text.
• Matthew: skips a few generations in order to make his list nicely dividable into groups of seven generations each.

As such, the following lists will start with King David.

King David → Jesus

According to Luke

Luke 3:23–38 - In this genealogy Jesus is described as the descendant of Nathan, son of King David. The one MAJOR difference between the list in Luke, and the traditional line followed in the Geni tree, is that Luke has the first Exilarch Zerubbabel, "son of" Shealtiel, as descendant of this obscure Davidic line. Other, earlier sources have Zerubbabel as a direct near-descendant (great-grandson) of Jechoniah, the next-to-last King of the House of David. Luke's version does NOT make any sense, as "his" Zerubbabel would be a "nobody", having no real claim to the Davidic Line/Title. As such, the "main-line" tree follows Luke as far Shealtiel, and then has a pointer to the "main" Zerubbabel, where the line is continued, through his son Rhesa.

The Split Line

The tree for the last four generations of this line (after Levi) is presently a tangled mess. It is NOT at all clear how (if at all), Joseph of Arimathea is related, so there are probably a dozen different versions IN this part of the tree.

According to Matthew

Matthew 1:1–17 - In this genealogy Jesus is described as the descendant of an abbreviated line from Adam to Zerubabel, and from there, through his son Abiud until Jesus a mere 11 generations later. Matthew also adds the names of some wives, not shown because they are mostly in the generations before King David (but ARE in the tree).

Exilarchs

While all but the first two Exilarchs (Zerubbabel and his grandfather, Salathiel) are NOT in the Bible, this part of the tree is immediately adjacent to it, so it will be handled as if it WAS part.

Other lists

Feel free to add any other lists you find useful.