Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Descendents Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 08:22:06 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Comp Sci, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia Lines: 40 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article burt@sequent.uucp ([Burton Keeble]) writes: > It would seem that since geneology was a major issue with the Jews, > they would have continued the practice of keeping family records even after > their conversion. Jesus had many relatives on his mother's side. Why wouldn't > they have had even greater reason to feel proud of their blood relationship > to him, and to pass that information down through the generations? In article , cadence!stevep@uunet.uu.net (Steve Peterson) writes: > It could have been out of humility, not wanting to draw attention to themselves > as if they were somehow better or more special because of the relationship.... I'm surprised that our Worthy and Knowledgable Moderator didn't comment. The answer is 1. Read "The History of the Church", by Eusebius. Jesus's relatives *DID* keep track of this information. Eusebius quotes an earlier historian who claimed to have found out from the Desposyni how to reconcile the two genealogies of Jesus. 2. Remember your history. We're talking about the time of the Roman Empire here. The Romans weren't noted for subtelty. They had had a lot of trouble with ``messiahs'' in Judaea. Letting it be known that you were a close relative of a ``messiah'' was a good way of avoiding old age. So they kept track of the information if they good, but mostly kept quiet, not out of humility, but in order to stay alive. -- It is indeed manifest that dead men are formed from living ones; but it does not follow from that, that living men are formed from dead ones. -- Tertullian, on reincarnation. [Well, I don't comment on *everything*. And patristics is not exactly my strong suit. Fortunately, I know we have a number of readers who are able to comment. Desposyni is probably a term many of our readers aren't familiar with. As I understand it this refers to a group of Christians that claimed to have leaders directly descended from Jesus, and that generally rejected many of Paul's concepts of Christianity. (My source here is "Holy Blood, Holy Grail", which is not what I'd normally choose as a reliable source of information, but I haven't seen the term anywhere else.) --clh]