Nearly 12 years ago, I traveled to Israel to take some Old and New Testament courses under the aegis of the American Christian Trust in cooperation with Hebrew University. We met in Einstein’s bunker on the Mount Scopus campus, fifteen or so American Christians placed under the tutelage of various Orthodox professors there. Our syllabus listed “The Ancient Genealogies” as a topic, and none of us were particularly excited. The typical Christian approach to the genealogies is a pretty scientific one. Look up the biblical genealogies and you can see what I mean. Most theologians talk about them as historical evidence; others talk about how the ancient writers telescoped the…