From Shem to Abram

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Tuesday, 26th February 2008

In Gen 3:15, God told Satan that one of Eve's seed would crush his head.

In Gen 5, we see the genealogy from Adam to Noah being recorded as follows:

1 Adam
2 Seth
3 Enosh
4 Kenan
5 Mahalalel
6 Jared
7 Enoch
8 Methuselah
9 Lamech
10 Noah

There were 10 generations between Adam and Noah.

In Gen 11, we see Noah's line being traced down to Abraham (or Abram, as he was then known as).

11 Shem
12 Arphaxad
13 Shelah
14 Eber
15 Peleg
16 Reu
17 Serug
18 Nahor
19 Terah
20 Abram

There were also 10 generations from Shem to Abram.

Cainan/Kenan

Some early manuscripts of Luke's account includes someone by the name of Cainan in Luke 3:36 in between the names of Arphaxad (12) and Shelah (13). One possible explanation was that this was a copyist's error in copying this name twice, Cainan being a variant of the name Kenan (4).

Furthermore, Ezra the Chronicler recorded in 1 Chron 1:18 "Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah the father of Eber." There was no mention of Cainan there.

We will read later on in Genesis 15 how God told Abraham that the promised seed will come via him.

I've been reading up on the genealogy of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, and will be penning down my thoughts in a future post.