Terah's Tree

New - 21 December 2009

The Mother of All Family Trees

Generations 25 - 50

Terah's Tree

Generation No. 25

Abram / Abraham [25] Terah (=Yawnu) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married

1) Sarah (Sarai) ("contentious," "princess")
2) Hagar, the daughter of a pharaoh in descent from Nimrod (and thus from Cain!)
3) Keturah

children:

Ishmael (by Hager) (making Ishmael a descendant of Nimrod, Cain, et al)

Isaac (by Sarah) (making Isaac a recombined descendant of Cain, Seth, et al)

by Keturah (6 sons)

Zimran
Jokshan
Medan
Midian
Ishbak
Shuah.

According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 15-16, 85-89, 163-167):

“Abraham’s home, Ur of the Chaldees, was a prominent city of the Sumerian Empire, and contemporary texts record that Ur was sacked by the king of nearby Elam [present day Iran, the mountains east of Ur] after 2000 BC.” As it turns out, Abraham’s family was quite prominent in Ur -- clay tablets with the names of commissioners and governors included the names of Terah, Nahor, Serug, and Pelug. “Clearly, the patriarchs represented no ordinary family, but constituted a very powerful dynasty.” And accordingly, when things went bad, Abraham, et al headed north to Haran. “A Sumerian text from 1960 BC...” stated, “Ur is destroyed, bitter is its lament. The country’s blood now fills its holes like hot bronze in a mold. Bodies dissolve like fat in the sun. Our temple is destroyed. The gods have abandoned us like migrating birds. Smoke lies on our cities like a shroud.”

There is some evidence that by 2000 BCE, Abraham was already deep into Canaan (and on his way for a visit to Egypt - albeit for business instead of pleasure), when Sodom and Gomorrah were taken out in a blaze of light. One theory is that these two cities encountered nuclear weaponry... and as luck would have it, the fall out migrated eastward with the winds, and most if not all of Sumer (Ur, Uruk, Eridu, even Kish further north) were subjected to radioactive fall out. It was this which may have precipitated [pardon the pun] the decline of the Sumerian civilization (and leaving it wide open to invasion after the fact by the “less civilized” Elamites.

Abraham’s first and primary wife was Sarai, who was initially known for her inability to conceive. But because Abraham had been promised the post of founding patriarch for a great nation, Sarai presented “Abraham with her Egyptian companion, Hagar, ‘to be his wife’ -- but when Hagar conceives she is chastized and banished by Sarai (Genesis 16:1-16), as if the outcome was unexpected. In due course, Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, is born to Hagar, but it is then announced that his inheritance is to be superseded by a forthcoming son of the hitherto barren Sarai -- a son who will be named Isaac.”

Meanwhile, Abraham is renamed from his former name Abram, the rule of circumcision is introduced for the family heirs [but not for the non-family members?], and “Sarai’s Mesopotamia name, meaning ‘contentious’, is changed to Sarah, denoting a ‘princess’. ["What’s in a name?" suddenly takes on an all new meaning.] In the context of Sarai’s change of name, [Jehovah, aka] El Shaddai further informs Abraham that the newly designated Sarah will be a ‘Mother of Nations’ and that ‘kings of people shall be of her’ (Genesis 17:15-16). Although Abraham’s ancestral family had been influential in Mesopotamia, this is the Bible’s first mention of future Hebrew kingship -- but no reason is given for such an ostensibly important prospect.”

“Genesis (15:18) also contains the promise that Isaac’s descendants will inherit the Egyptian Empire ‘from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates’. No such promise is made, however, in respect of Abraham’s eldest son Ishmael, nor for any of Abraham’s other six sons by his additional wife Keturah (25:1-2). Abraham was somewhat bewildered by this and asked about Ishmael’s prospects, to which El Shaddai replied that he would ‘make him fruitful’, but ‘my covenant will I establish with Isaac’ (17:18-21).”

El Shaddai did promise that Ishmael would begat 12 princes, and make him a great nation. At the same time, any orthodox believer in Genesis 15:18 would likely attempt to use it to create a greater Israel... and simultaneously deny its use to any descendants of Ishmael. Despite the reverence held for Abraham by Islam, clearly this particular Biblical passage is not held in the same high esteem. It might also be noted that the Euphrates is the western most river of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, and thus Baghdad (located on the Tigris) would not be included. However, said greater Israel would extend as far north as Turkey, and take it ninety percent of Syria. Forget the Golan Heights... the orthodox Jews are learning Turkish!

“Isaac was to be recognized as the ancestor of the future kings. Why, then, did Abraham later concede to slay Isaac with a knife upon the altar at Moriag (22:0)? And why, when putting a stop to the slaying, did the angel refer to Isaac as Abraham’s ‘only son’ (22:11), when we know that he had previously fathered Ishmael?” [Perhaps that particular angel had failed to receive the memo on Ishmael’s birth.] “The Koran, while relating the same story of the near-sacrifice, does not name the son concerned. Indeed, many Islamic scholars conclude that the intended victim was not Isaac, but Ishmael, the son of Hagar, [the latter] who is described in the Book of Adam as the daughter of a pharaoh in descent from Nimrod.” This begins to make sense if a line of descent from Isaac had become pharaohs and that circumcision was performed initially only in ancient Egypt... such that the authors of Genesis in writing it all down c. 600 BC would be doing a bit of revisionist history.

The possibility of Ishmael being the intended victim makes the story one with whole new implications. Was Jehovah intending to eliminate an Isaac potential-competitor? What really stayed Abraham's hand?

Terah’s wifes are reported to be “Tohwait (mother of Sarai) and Yawnu (mother of Abraham).” Tohwait is then identified as”Nfry-ta-Tjewnen, the former wife of Pharaoh Amenemhet I. Her son by this marriage was the succeeding Pharaoh Senusret I -- the very pharaoh who claimed Sarai for his wife [during Abraham’s visit to Egypt]. “This is not surprising, since Sarai was Senusret’s maternal half-sister (as well as being Abraham’s paternal half-sister) and it was common practice for Egyptian pharaohs to marry their sisters in order to progress the kingship through the female line. With this in mind, could it be, perhaps, that Isaac was not the son of Abraham after all, but the son of Sarai and the Pharaoh?” In Genesis (12:19), the “Hebrew writers were emphatic about the fact that Sarai and the Pharaoh were actually married for a time.” And... “if Isaac was the son of Pharaoh Senusret, then the seemingly enigmatic details of the covenant would fall very neatly into place.”

Isaac might then fulfill the covenant god gave Abraham... even if Isaac was not his blood kin. On the flip side, if Isaac was indeed Abraham's natural son, then perhaps the terms and conditions of the covenant would take a bit longer to be manifested. In that respect, it might be noted that the Egyptian pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty (still a half millenia in the future) did in fact develop an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates. Inasmuch as Moses became Pharaoh in this dynasty (and after the empire's extension had been completed) -- after 400 years of the newcomers to Egypt (Jacob's family) slowly intermarrying with the local, Egyptian royalty -- then apparently, the promise in Genesis 15:18 was satisfied in all respects.

However, there was apparently some fine print in the covenant, or... to papaphrase Benjamin Franklin... "God has given you an Empire; it remains to be seen if you will be able to keep it." And considering how Moses [See below] really botched up the opportunity as Pharoah of said Greater Egypt... obviously, the fine print, escape clause of god's covenant rather quickly kicked in... and fueled an Exodus.

In Genesis 20:2, Abraham announces to the Egyptian king that Sarah "is my sister." He did not elaborate that she was also wife... leaving that to Jehovah to take the king aside and suggest that the king was "but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man's wife." The king then claims that he "had not come near her..." But then, what would you expect him to say? That she was a great lay?

All of this “paints a rather different picture of Abraham than has hitherto been portrayed. Quite suddenly, Abraham appears not as an everyday nomad, but as a wealthy ruler with gold, silver, camels, herds and a large household of servants. This fits rather better with his earlier brief portrayal as a military commander (Genesis 14) who defeated the armies of four kings to rescue his nephew Lot.”

Wikipedia provides us with the more traditional portrayal of Abraham:

Abraham features in the Book of Genesis as the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples. Abraham is also widely regarded as the patriarch of Jews and Arabs and the founder of monotheism.

To which, Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 85-89) might have responded that monotheism was not exactly an Abraham innovation, nor a practice. And in fact there was likely a god and a goddess (as a minimum) in Abraham’s world.

“For the Israelites, the god-and-goddess concept came to an end when they dismissed Ashtoreth and pledged their allegiance to the one and only Jehovah, who was appropriated from El Elyon. But this pledge of singular allegiance was not made in the time of Abraham, nor even in the time of Moses -- it occurred much later, in the time of Samuel the judge, when ‘the children of Israel did put away Baal and Ashtoreth, and served the Lord only’ (1 Samuel 7:4). This was in about 1060 BC.” [The fact that Moses, as Amenhotep IV, may have attempted a one-god transformation of Egyptian society, this one-god was not necessarily one devoted to Jehovah, but Aten. It was only after Moses was in exile (prior to the Exodus) that Jehovah got his attention. Or course, already being predisposed toward a single god, Moses may have simply applied the local god, Jehovah, to be the burning bush voice... or the burning bush was simply a Moses device for gaining popular support for his strange and perplexing mission... and the fact that this guy talks to trees... and hears their replies.]

Back to Wikipedia: According to Genesis 17:5, Abraham’s name was changed by God from Abram (probably meaning "the father is exalted) to Abraham, a name which Genesis explains as meaning "father of many". [Too bad for Terah.] Abraham was sent by God from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, the land promised to his descendants by Yahweh. There Abraham entered into a covenant: in exchange for recognition of YHWH as his God, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny and the land would belong to his descendants.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions" because of the progenitor role Abraham plays in their holy books. In the Jewish tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or "Abraham, our Father". God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed (Genesis 12:3) [albeit, the "check is in the mail" excuse is wearing a bit thin after four thousand years]. On the other hand, Genesis 12:3 is interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference to Christ [and thus all payments are current?]. Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider Abraham father of the people of Israel through his son Isaac (cf. Exodus 6:3, Exodus 32:13) by his wife Sarah. For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael - born to him by his second wife, Hagar. (Jews and Christians refer to Hagar as Sarah's servant [but this is pretty much just a political put down of the Muslims]). Abraham is also a progenitor of the Semitic tribes of the Negev who trace their descent from their common ancestor Sheba (Genesis 10:28).

BTW, Abraham's descendants may have been given the land of Canaan... but there was nothing to suggest that a single line of descent from Abraham should be given the Deeds to the Land, while all the other lines of descent from Abraham found themselves homeless. Thus the Jews, Christians, and Muslims separately can not claim the "holy land" as their exclusive property on the basis of Abraham's convenant... because in effect they were all descended from him.

After Abraham’s brother Haran died (after becoming the father of Lot), Terah, with his surviving sons and their families, then departed for Canaan, but settled in Haran, where Terah died at the age of 205. Following the death of Terah, when Abram was seventy-five, the Lord spoke to Abram, telling him to leave his father's house and his kindred and the land of his birth and go "to the land that I will show you", where Abram will become a great nation. So Abram departed Haran with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and all their followers and flocks, and they traveled to Canaan, where, at Shechem, the Lord gave the land to him and his seed.

This bit about going to a land that a god is offering for the faithful sounds a lot like the Mormon story. Only when they reached the Salt Lake valley... and possibily before they discovered that the lake was salty... the valley with the great lake laid out in all of its majesty before them prompted the famous, "This is the place". And then, when the truth was known... how can one go back on such a grand pronouncement?

On two separate occasions, Abram/Abraham travels south, where he tells his wife to pretend to be his sister because he fears he would otherwise be killed because of her. On both occasions, the ruler in question, firstly Pharaoh and later Abimelech, are attracted to Sarai/Sarah and attempt to marry her. On both occasions the Lord and the ruler sends Abraham away with great wealth...

[And thus making Abraham one of the world’s first, really successful pimps? Is that the message that the authors are trying to convey?]

Following the period spent in Egypt, Abram, Sarai and his nephew Lot, returned to Ai in Canaan. There they dwelt for some time, their herds increasing, until strife arose between the herdsmen. Abram thereupon proposed to Lot that they should separate, allowing Lot the first choice. Lot took the fertile land lying east of the Jordan River and near to Sodom and Gomorrah, while Abram lived in Canaan, moving down to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron.

After this, an invading force from Northern Mesopotamia, led by Chedorlaomer, king of Elam attacked and subdued the Cities of the Plain, forcing them to pay tribute. After twelve years, these cities rebelled. The following year Chedorlaomer and his allies returned, defeating the rebels and taking many captive, including Lot. Abraham assembled his men and chased after the invaders, defeating them near Damascus.

During this period, Sarai, being barren, offers her handmaiden [companion?], Hagar, to Abram. Hagar soon conceives. Sarai, jealous of this, treats Hagar harshly, forcing her to flee. When in the desert, the Lord appears to Hagar, telling her to return, but promising that her son [Ishmael] shall also be the father of a "multitude". [Curiously, it is never explained why someone should agree to covenants when the promise is only for a huge number of descendants.]

When Abram is ninety-nine, the Lord again appears to him and affirms his promise. A covenant is entered into: Sarai will give to birth to a son who will be called Isaac and Abram's house must from thenceforth be circumcised. It is promised that Isaac will father twelve princes, who will become a great nation. Abram's name is changed to Abraham and Sarai's to Sarah.

Soon after, the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah bring two angels down to investigate. Abraham pleads with them to spare the city if first fifty, then forty-five, then forty, then thirty, then twenty, and finally ten righteous men are found in the city. In each case the angels agree that the city would be spared. They enter the city, where they meet Lot, who offers them hospitality. Soon a crowd gathers around Lot's house, demanding the two angels that they may "know" them. Lot offers his daughters, but the men of the city press forward until the angels smite them with blindness. In the morning Lot is told to flee and not to look back as the cities are destroyed. However, his wife disobeys and is turned into a pillar of salt. [Which could be associated with a blast of radiation?] After this Abraham enters into a treaty with Abimelech at Beer-sheba.

A recurring feature of the story of Abraham are the covenants between him and The Lord, which are reiterated and reaffirmed several times. When Abram is told to leave Ur, The Lord promises "I will make you into a great nation". After parting from Lot, God reappears and promises "All the land that you can see" to Abraham and that his seed would be "like the dust of the earth" in number. Following the battle of the Vale of Siddim, the Lord appears and reaffirms the promise. Further, it is prophesied that "your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years." [Now, that’s a covenant that has got to make one pause.] Abraham makes a sacrifice and enters into a covenant: "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." This covenant refers to Abraham's descendants thru his son Isaac. [And any contradictory claims by the Kenites, Kenizzites... et al?]

Some time after the birth of Isaac, Abraham was commanded by the Lord to offer his son up as a sacrifice in the land of Moriah. The patriarch traveled three days until he came to the mount that God taught him. He commanded the servant to remain while he and Isaac proceeded alone to the mountain, Isaac carrying the wood upon which he would be sacrificed. Along the way, Isaac repeatedly asked Abraham where the animal for the burnt offering was. Abraham then replied that The Lord would provide one. [Just the sort of father-son bonding one dreams about.] Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, he was prevented by an angel, and given on that spot a ram which he sacrificed in place of his son. Thus it is said, "On the mountain the Lord provides." As a reward for his obedience he received another promise of a numerous seed and abundant prosperity. After this event, Abraham did not return to Hebron, Sarah's encampment, but instead went to Beersheba, Keturah's encampment, and it is to Beersheba that Abraham's servant brought Rebecca, Isaac's patrilineal parallel cousin who became Isaac’s wife.

Sarah died aged about 127, and was buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs near Hebron, which Abraham had purchased from Ephron the Hittite, along with the adjoining field. Abraham, being reminded by this occurrence, probably, of his own great age, and the consequent uncertainty of his life, became solicitous to secure an alliance between Isaac and a female branch of his own family. Eliezer his steward was therefore sent into Mesopotamia, to find from Abraham's kindred a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer went on his commission with prudence, and returned with Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel, granddaughter of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham's niece and Isaac's first-cousin. Many biblical commentators believe that Rebekah was still a child when she married Isaac, while Isaac was forty years of age. [Apparently, the lesson of the much older Sarah being unable to conceive until further along in years... and without divine intervention... was not lost on Isaac's stewards.]

Abraham lived a long time after these events. After the death of Sarah, he took another wife, a concubine named Keturah and she bore Abraham six sons. Abraham died at the age of 175 years. Jewish legend says that he was meant to live to 180 years, but God purposely took his life because he felt that Abraham did not need to go through the pain of seeing Esau's wicked deeds. [Seriously?]

In the New Testament Abraham is mentioned prominently as a man of faith (see e.g., Hebrews 11), and the apostle Paul uses him as an example of salvation by faith, as the progenitor of the Christ (or Messiah) (see Galatians 3:16). The New Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham's interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of perfect faith in God. [Lying to and killing someone is considered ‘the supreme act of perfect faith in God? What about killing others with a bomb?] "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac [such that Abraham was demonstrating his faith at the expense of someone else -- a curious example of showing a "perfect faith"]. He who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son [which conveniently forgets the older Ishmael?], of whom it was said, 'In Isaac your seed shall be called,' concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense" The imagery of a father sacrificing his son is seen as a type of god the Father offering his Son on Golgatha.

The traditional view in Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is that through Abraham's seed, all the people of earth would be blessed. Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely being of Abraham's seed was no guarantee of salvation. [However...] the promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through Abraham's seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews. [Depends on the brand of Christianity -- see, for example, The Lost Gospels.]

Many scholars claim, on the basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were written under King Josiah (7th century BCE) or King Hezekiah (8th century BCE) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh. Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BCE. [Abraham, et al might then be primarily fictional.]

Later research into the culture of Mesoportamia and Syria in the second millennium BCE have seemed to undercut attempts to tie Abraham in with a definite century, and to treat him as a strictly historical figure. While it is widely admitted that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham, apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles.

[And yet, the entire line of descent from Shem continues to be in question... even the specifications of Noah and Abraham. Inasmuch as the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) were largely compiled c. 600 BC, while the Israelites were still being held captive in Babylon... and where they would have undoubtedly been influenced by the traditions, stores, and literature of Mesopotamia... it is more likely that the entire Shem to Zerubabbal line is based on other heroic tales and traditions... borrowing a little from wherever... to make one’s legitimacy more apparent.]

Figure 1. Descendants of Terah and Tohwait (reprise)

Generation No. 26

1. Isaac [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married Rebecca (Bebechak)

children:

Esau
Jacob

Isaac is generally reckoned to be the son of Abraham, but as noted above may have been the son of Pharaoh Senusret I. In any case, it was apparently Abraham who raised Isaac [despite the bit about being ready to sacrifice the boy to assuade the voice his head.] Sensuret being the dad does make sense when we note that Sarai changed her name to Sarah (‘princess’), as well as there being the introduction of the Egyptian custom of circumcision. This would also explain the otherwise mysterious nature of the ‘birthright’ that was eventually sold by Isaac’s son to his brother Jacob (Genesis 25:30-34).

From Wikipedia: Isaac is regarded as one of the patriarchs of the Jewish people, and the longest-lived of the [post-Flood] patriarchs, living till the age of 180 years. Isaac was the only one whose name was not changed. Isaac was also the only patriarch who did not leave Canaan, although he once tried to leave and God told him not to do so. Compared to other patriarchs in the Bible, his story is considerably less colorful. Some academic scholars have [even] described Isaac as "a legendary figure" while others view him "as a figure representing tribal history, though as a historical individual" or "as a seminomadic leader."

Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 years old, and Abraham circumcised Isaac when the boy was eight days old. Isaac was Sarah's first and only child, and after Isaac had been weaned, Sarah supposedly saw Ishmael mocking Isaac, and she urged her husband to banish Hagar and her child so that Isaac would be Abraham's only heir. Abraham was hesitant but allegedly at God's order he listened to his wife's request. (Genesis 21:8-12) [Now, that's funny!]

When Isaac was forty years of age, Abraham sent Eliezer, his steward, into Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac, from Bethuel, his nephew's family. Eliezer chose Rebekah for Isaac. After twenty years of marriage to Isaac, Rebekah had still not given birth to a child and was believed to be barren. Isaac prayed for her and she conceived. (Genesis 25:20-21) Rebekah gave birth to twin boys, Esau and Jacob. Isaac favored Esau, but apparently, Rebekah favored Jacob. This turned out to be crucial inasmuch as Isaac grew very old and became completely blind. He called Esau, his eldest son, and directed him to procure some venison for him. But while Esau was hunting, Jacob (with Rebekah’s help) deceptively misrepresented himself as Esau to his blind father and obtained his father's blessing, making Jacob Isaac's primary heir, and leaving Esau in an inferior position. Isaac lived some time after this, and sent Jacob into Mesopotamia to take a wife of his own family.

According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (page 184): “Esau may have sold his birthright to his younger twin brother Jacob” (whose descendants became kings of Judah), but we find that through Tuya and Yuya [See Moses and Miriam], descendants of Esau did indeed become pharaohs of Egypt. These particular pharaohs have been known as the ‘Amarna Kings’: they were Akhenaten [Moses], Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and Aye, who ruled consecutively c. 1367-1348 BC.” “It would appear that the selling of the birthright by Esau to Jacob [in the long term] had no effect whatever; it was not until after the Amarna period that the lines from Esau and Jacob were united through marriage, subsequently descending to the Davidic kings of Judah.”

BTW, lest we forget about Ishmael...

2. Ishmael [21] Abraham (=Hagar of Egypt) [20] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

A key factor is that Mahalath of Egypt (Nefru-sobek) joined the ranks of Na’amath, Ora, Iyoska, Tohwait, and Sarah in the Recombining of the Royal Lines Follies, by marrying Ishmael. Their daughter, Bashemath, then married Esau (the dispensed son of Isaac, the latter who ruled in favor of Jacob). But then Mahalath really outdid the others by marrying a second time, this one to Isaac’s son, Esau (who then became the founder of the Dukes of Edom). Together they produced Igrath, who kept the matriarchal line tradition, and did a major reconnect by marrying Amenenhet III of Egypt. Their offspring was none other than Sobeknefru, the Dragon Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt. [See Figure 1, where Malahath II is the same as Malahath... but only denotes a second marriage.]

While some of this lineage may be first sons... those having lost their birthright by ulterior means... the fact remains that they managed to get back into the thick of things with advantageous marriages. This is, in fact, pretty much the tradition whereby the males marry the females to gain legitimacy in royal circles. (Or did I mention that already?)

Generation No. 27

Jacob [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married

1) Leah, from whose line the kings descended
2) Rachel
3) Zilpah, (Leah’s maidservant)
4) Bilhah (Rachel’s maidservant}

children:

by Leah

Levi, married Melka, from whom the Levite Priesthood descended (via sons)
Reuben, married Ada
Simeon, married Adiba
Judah, married Shuah (Betasuel), but also had a mistress, Tamar of Kadesh .....(widow of Er)
Dinah (daughter), The Tehama, married Schechem, son of Hamor the Hivite
Issachar (Jesakor Hezka)
Zebulun, who married Niiman (their daughter, Kanita, married Hezron)
.....(Thus bypassing Judah, but still connecting to his grandson)

by Rachel

Joseph
Benjamin

by Zilpah

Gad
Asher

by Bilhah

Dan
Naphatali

According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 166-167, 85-89):

“Jacob married into the Haran family of Rebecca (as did his father, Isaac). This included (by subterfuge) Leah, and then Rachel. In addition to their offspring, Jacob also had children by his wives’ handmaidens Bilhah and Zilpah, and from this wealth of sons by four different women sprang the twelve tribes of Israel.” Meanwhile, just as “the name ‘Hebrew’ derives from the patriarch Eber (Heber/Abhar), six generations before Abraham, the term “Israelite’ comes from the renaming of Abraham’s grandson Jacob, who became known as Israel (Genesis 35:10-12). By way of translation, Is-ra-el means ‘soldier of El’, while some say that Ysra-el means ‘El rules’ and others prefer ‘El strives’. Whichever is correct, the name is plainly indicative of the Canaanite tradition of El Elyon, rather than of the later tradition of Jehovah..” [Curiously, very few scholars consider an alternative reasoning for all of this name changing in the House of Abraham... i.e., they were running from the law and trying to avoid debtors with Mafia leanings.]

One source to really give one a real taste for Jacob and his parenthood talents is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Another version (from Wikipedia), is one strange tale, i.e.:

Isaac’s wife Rebekah is extremely uncomfortable during her pregnancy and goes to inquire of God why she is suffering so. According to the Midrash, whenever she would pass a house of Torah study, Jacob would struggle to come out; whenever she would pass a house of idolatry, Esau would agitate to come out. [Very importantly, she believes this story.] She receives the prophecy that twins are in her womb [which might account for her being uncomfortable in her pregnancy]. The two children that are fighting in her womb will continue to fight all their lives. The prophecy, which Rebekah does not share with her husband, continues that these two nations will never gain power simultaneously; when one falls, the other will rise, and vice versa. In addition, the elder will serve the younger.

When the time comes for her to give birth, Rebekah delivers twins. The firstborn emerges red and hairy all over like a full-grown man; onlookers name him Esau, from the Hebrew: meaning "completely developed." The second son comes out grasping Esau's heel and is named Jacob (a play on the word "heel", and also "he who follows"). [“Heel” actually sounds much more appropriate.] The boys display very different natures as they mature. "Esau became a hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a simple man, a dweller in tents" (Gen. 25:27) [aka "a layabout"]. Moreover, the attitudes of their parents toward them also differ: "Isaac loved Esau because game was in his mouth, but Rebekah loved Jacob" [because?].

On the day that Abraham dies, Jacob prepares a lentil stew as a traditional mourner’s meal for his father, Isaac, Esau returns famished from the fields [having actually worked for a living] and begs Jacob to give him some of the stew. (He refers to the dish as, ‘that red, red stuff,’ giving rise to his second moniker, “Red”.) Jacob then offers to give Esau a bow of stew in exchange for his birthright, and Esau agrees. (Jacob also steals Easu's wife thus creating more conflict between the two.) [One might wonder if it was the stew or the wife that caused so much sibling rivalry between them.]

Subsequently, in his old age, when Isaac becomes blind, he decides to bestow his blessing on his firstborn son, Esau. He sends Esau out to the fields to trap and cook a piece of savory game for him, so that he can eat it and bless Esau before he dies. Rebekah overhears this conversation and realizes that Isaac's blessings must go to Jacob, since she was told before the twins' birth that the elder son would serve the younger. She therefore orders Jacob to bring her two goats from the flock, which she will cook in the way Isaac loves, and to bring them to his father in place of Esau. When Jacob protests that his father will recognize the deception and curse him as soon as he feels him — since Esau is a hairy man and Jacob is smooth-skinned — Rebekah says that the curse will be on her instead. Before she sends Jacob to his father, she dresses him in Esau's garments and lays goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.

Thus disguised, Jacob enters his father's room. Surprised that Esau is back so soon, Isaac asks how it could be that the hunt went so quickly. When Jacob responds, "Because the Lord your God arranged it for me," Isaac's suspicions are aroused, since Esau never uses the name of God. Isaac demands that Jacob come close so he can feel him, but the goatskins feel just like Esau's hairy skin. Confused, Isaac exclaims, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau!" Still trying to get at the truth, Isaac asks him point-blank, "You are my son, Esau?" and Jacob answers simply, "I am" (meaning, "I am me," not, "I am Esau"). [Alternatively, Jacob's reply was a premeditated, blatant lie, rationalized by religious fanatics to somehow make him otherwise.] Isaac proceeds to eat the food and drink the wine that Jacob gives him, and then he blesses him with the dew of the heavens, the fatness of the earth, and rulership over many nations as well as his own brother.

Jacob has just left the room when Esau returns from the hunt to receive his blessing. The realization that he has been deceived shocks Isaac, yet he acknowledges that Jacob receives the blessings by saying, "Indeed, he shall remain blessed!" The rationalization here is that Isaac smells the heavenly scent of Gan Eden (Paradise) when Jacob enters his room and, in contrast, perceives Gehenna opening beneath Esau when the latter enters the room, showing him that he had been deceived all along by Esau's show of piety. [A great deal is done to make Esau look really bad in these interpretations. In any modern court of law, it would be slander and libel on a massive scale... and probably thrown out of its ear.]

Esau is [naturally] heartbroken by the deception, and begs for his own blessing. Having made Jacob a ruler over his brothers, Isaac can only promise, "By your sword you shall live, but your brother you shall serve; yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck". [Is this an escape clause, or what? Shouldn't someone be using this about now?] Esau is, of course, filled with hatred toward Jacob for taking away both his birthright and his blessing. [Duh!] He vows to himself to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies. Here again, Rebekah guesses at his murderous intentions and orders Jacob to travel to her brother Laban's house until Esau's anger subsides. She convinces Isaac to send Jacob away by telling him that she despairs of him marrying a local girl from the idol-worshipping families of Canaan [as Esau has done -- whose wife Jacob had stolen... it’s always nice to be a fly-by-night ‘tent dweller’]). After Isaac sends Jacob away to find a wife, Esau realizes that his own Canaanite wives are evil in his father's eyes, and he takes a daughter of Ishmael, Bashemath, to wife. [This turns out to be a very strategic move on Ishmael's part. He is now connected to Egyptian royalty by blood. See Figure 1.]

En route to Haran, Jacob experiences a vision in which he sees a ladder reaching into heaven with angels going up and down it, a vision that is commonly referred to as "Jacob's Ladder". From the top of the ladder he hears the voice of God, who repeats many of the blessings upon him. Jacob awakens in the morning and continues on his way to Haran. He sees a well where the shepherds are gathering their flocks to water them, and meets Laban's younger daughter, his cousin Rachel, who is working as a shepherdess. He loves her immediately, and after spending a month with his relatives, asks for her hand in marriage in return for working seven years for Laban. Laban agrees to the arrangement. These seven years seem to Jacob "but a few days, for the love he had for her," but when they are complete and he asks for his wife, Laban deceives Jacob by switching Rachel's older sister, Leah, as the veiled bride. According to the Midrash, both Jacob and Rachel suspect that Laban will pull such a trick; Laban is known as the "Aramean" (deceiver), and changed Jacob's wages ten times during his employ. The couple therefore devises a series of signs by which Jacob can identify the veiled bride on his wedding night. But when Rachel sees her sister being taken out to the wedding canopy, her heart goes out to her and the public shame she will suffer if she is exposed. Rachel therefore gives Leah the signs so that Jacob will not realize the switch. [But it does seem ever so ironic that Jacob is fooled... in a manner similar to which he fooled his father.]

In the morning, when the truth becomes known, Laban justifies himself, saying that in their country it is unheard of to give the younger daughter before the older. However, he agrees to give Rachel in marriage as well if Jacob works another seven years for her. After the week of wedding celebrations with Leah, Jacob marries Rachel, and he continues to work for Laban for another seven years. [What a really neat honeymoon for Leah, with her sister sharing her husband's bed seven days after the marriage!]

Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah, and Leah feels hated. God [inexplicably] opens Leah's womb and she gives birth to four sons in quick succession: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel, however, remains barren. Following the example of Sarah, who gave her handmaid to Abraham after years of infertility, Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid, Bilhah, in marriage so she can raise children through her. Bilhah gives birth to Dan and Naphtali. Seeing that she has left off childbearing temporarily, Leah then gives her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob in marriage so she can raise more children through her. Zilpah gives birth to Gad and Asher. (According to some commentators, Bilhah and Zilpah are younger daughters of Laban). [This may therefore constitute an early commentary on "traditional family values": one man marrying four sisters. Not quite the spirit of brotherly love... more like kissing cousins.]

Afterwards, Leah becomes fertile again and gives birth to Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah. At this point, God remembers Rachel, who gives birth to Joseph. [Now there’s a classic statement!]

After Joseph is born, Jacob decides to return home to his parents. Laban is reluctant to release him, as God blessed his flock on account of Jacob. Now Laban offers to pay Jacob, and Jacob proposes an unusual deal. He suggests that Laban remove all the spotted, speckled and brown goats and sheep from the flock; whichever ones would be born after that would be Jacob's wages. Left alone, Jacob plants rods of poplar, hazel, and chestnut in front of the flocks' watering holes, and when the animals see them, they give birth to spotted, speckled and brown foals. Thus Jacob's herds increase and he becomes very wealthy. As time passes, Laban's sons notice that Jacob is taking the better part of their flocks, and Laban's friendly attitude towards Jacob begins to change. God tells Jacob that he should now leave, and he and his wives and children do so without informing Laban. Before they leave, Rachel steals all the household idols from Laban's house. [Remember these household idols -- see below.]

In a rage, Laban pursues Jacob for seven days. Before he catches up to him, God appears to him in a dream and warns him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob. When the two meet, Laban plays the injured father-in-law and demands his idols back. Knowing nothing about Rachel's theft of the idols, Jacob tells Laban whoever stole them should die, and stands aside to let him search. When Laban reaches Rachel's tent, she hides the idols by sitting on them and pretends she cannot get up because she is menstruating. [Which at the time was equivalent in the patriarchal mind set to a threat of Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD.] Jacob and Laban then part from each other with a pact to preserve the peace between them. Laban returns home and Jacob continues on his way.

As Jacob nears the land of Canaan, he sends messengers ahead to his brother Esau. They return with the news that Esau is coming to meet Jacob with an army of 400 men. In great apprehension, Jacob prepares for the worst. He engages in earnest prayer to God, then sends on before him a tribute of flocks and herds to Esau, "a present to my lord Esau from thy servant Jacob." Jacob then transports his family and flocks back across the ford Jabbok, then re-crosses over towards the direction from which Esau will come, spending the night alone in communion with God. There, a mysterious being ("a man", or "the angel") appears and wrestles with Jacob until daybreak. When the assailant sees that he cannot defeat Jacob, he touches him on the sinew of his thigh. As a result, Jacob develops a limp and because of this, "to this day the people of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket". [Now... how weird is that?]

Jacob then demands a blessing, and the mysterious being declares that from now on, Jacob will be called Israel (meaning "one who has prevailed with God"). Jacob then asks the being's name, but the being refuses to answer. Because of the ambiguous and varying terminology, and because the being refused to reveal its name, there are varying views as to whether this mysterious being is a man, an angel, or God Himself. One possibility is the being was the guardian angel of Esau himself, sent to destroy Jacob before he could return to the land of Canaan. Another theory is that the being refuses to identify itself for fear that if its secret name was known, it would be conjurable by incantations. Some commentators, however, argue that the stranger was God himself, citing Jacob's own words and the name he assumed thereafter ("One who has struggled with God"). They point out that although later holy scriptures maintain that God does not manifest as a mortal, several instances of it arguably occur in Genesis. [And by the ton in the Sumerian, Babylonian annals... i.e., Jehovah is just Enlil.]

In the morning, Jacob assembles his family placing Rachel and Joseph in the rear and Leah and her children in the front. [Apparently] Jacob continues to favor Rachel's children over Leah's, as presumably the rear position would be safer from a frontal assault by Esau, which Jacob fears. Jacob himself takes the foremost position. Esau's spirit of revenge, however, has by this time been appeased by Jacob's bounteous gift of camels, goats and flocks. Their reunion is an emotional one. Esau offers to accompany them on their way back to Israel, but Jacob protests that his children are still young and tender; they will eventually catch up with Esau at Mount Seir. According to the Sages, this was a prophetic reference to the End of Days, when Jacob's descendants will come to Mount Seir, the home of Edom, to deliver judgment against Esau's descendants for persecuting them throughout the millennia. [Esau's descendants persecuting Jacob's? How is that again?]

Jacob arrives in Shechem (where Abraham had been welcomed many years prior). Jacob is allowed to buy a parcel of land that will eventually house Joseph's Tomb. In Shechem, his daughter Dinah is kidnapped and raped by the prince's son, who desires to marry the girl. [Alternatively, Dinah is not only willing but eager to marry the prince’s son, and thus there is absolutely no rape involved.] Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, agree to go ahead with the match as long as all the men of Shechem first circumcise themselves, ostensibly to unite the children of Jacob in familial harmony.

[However...] On the third day after the circumcision, when all the men of Shechem are most weak, Simeon and Levi put all the residents to death by the sword and “rescue” their sister Dinah. Jacob remains silent about the episode, but later rebukes his two sons for their anger in his deathbed blessing.

[The Red Tent cited above takes the view that Dinah did not want to be rescued. Also, after the genocide, Jacob steals everything not nailed down, including the women and a hoard of jewelry and then takes it on the lam, trying to distance himself from the land of Schechem as quickly as possible. He also buries all of the foreign idols -- including supposedly all of those that Rachel had stolen. Dinah is also infuriated and eventually migrates to Egypt to rid herself of Jacob.]

As Jacob and his entourage near the border of Canaan, Rachel goes into labor and dies as she gives birth to her second—and Jacob's twelfth—son, Benjamin. Jacob buries her and erects a monument over her grave, which is located just outside Bethlehem. Rachel's Tomb remains a popular site for pilgrimages and prayers to this day. [Why exactly is that?] Jacob is then finally reunited with his father Isaac in Mamre (outside Hebron). When Isaac dies at the age of 180, Jacob and Esau bury him in the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Abraham had bought as a family burial plot.

As a mini Executive Summary, we might note that:

Jacob begins by fooling his blind father in order to obtain his blessing (Genesis 27:1-29), runs away from a legitimately angered Esau (27:43-45), gets his comeuppance from his uncle (29:21-28), and then returns the favor by some highly selective breeding of sheep (30:31-31:1). Jacob then runs from Laban (31:31), before being forced to make amends with Esau. Then when Jacob arrives at Shechem (33:18), he is greeted hospitably and allowed to buy a parcel of land from the children of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the country. When his daughter, Dinah, attracts the attentions of the prince's son, Jacob demands as the dowry price that every male in the princedom be circumcised. Jacob goes on to say, 'Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.' (34:16). The last comment was apparently a con, and obviously bore no semblance to a binding agreement in Jacob's mind.

“Jacob's sons, Simeon and Levi, then took advantage of the men of the city having just been circumcised to slay each and every one of them – including Hamor and his son Shechem – and stealing back their 'defiled' Dinah. They then spoiled the city (34:27-29), took all their wealth and wives and 'spoiled even all that was in the house.' Jacob then fled the area, even after leaving 'all the strange gods' and all their earrings buried under an oak tree. One assumes that Jacob did not bury under this same oak tree the livestock, Shechem wives, and other wealth. Just the idols and costume jewelry.” But everything was okay (kosher?) because God had told him to do it. Or in modern jargon, “the Devil made him do it!”

The Bible next relates the story of Joseph, who is separated from his father Jacob at the age of 17 and sold as a slave by his brothers, who are jealous of his dreams of kingship over them. Jacob is deeply grieved by the loss of his favorite son, and refuses to be comforted. Joseph is taken down to Egypt, where he is treated well in the house of Potiphar. But his beauty catches the eye of Potiphar's wife, who attempts to seduce him. When he refuses and runs out of the room, she screams out that she has been accosted and accuses him of trying to rape her. Joseph is thrown into prison, where he again finds favor with all and is promoted by the warden to oversee his fellow prisoners. When two of the other inmates, Pharaoh's former butler and baker, dream strange dreams one night, Joseph interprets these dreams correctly. Two years later, Pharaoh himself has two troubling dreams, and the butler recommends that Joseph be asked to interpret them. Joseph explains the dreams as relating to seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh is so impressed that he makes Joseph viceroy over Egypt and the manager of Egypt's grain stores. Joseph artfully manages first the storage and then the distribution of Egypt's grain, making Pharaoh quite wealthy.

[This rags to riches scenario would appear to be far less likely than the Pharaoh recognizing Joseph as the great grandson of Abraham, or more importantly, possibly Sensuret I. Keep in mind that Esau's daughter, Igrath, married Amenemhet III, such that the entire Joseph to Egypt story sounds a bit contrived. Joseph may indeed have spent some time in Pharaoh's prison, but the reason for it may have been more likely one of Joseph having done precisely as Potiphar's wife had claimed. (Sometimes in the "he said; she said" bit, the female is the one telling the truth.) Then, when Joseph had paid his just dues... it was back on the royalty career path.]

When the famine strikes Canaan, Jacob sends 10 of his sons to Egypt to procure grain for their starving families. Upon meeting Joseph for the first time in 22 years, they do not recognize him, since he now dresses and speaks like an Egyptian [demonstrating that rather clearly, Joseph has gone native]. However, Joseph recognizes them and demands to see the twelfth brother of whom they speak, his own full-brother, Benjamin. As a way of making sure they will come back, he holds Simeon (being the oldest who plotted to sell him, since Reuben intended to rescue him) as a hostage until they return with Benjamin.

Jacob is distraught when he hears this news, for Benjamin is all that is left to him of his beloved wife Rachel's children, and he refuses to release him lest something happen to him too. But when their food stores run out and the famine worsen, Jacob agrees to Judah's promise to protect Benjamin from harm. The brothers return to Joseph with Benjamin, and when Joseph sees Benjamin he is overcome with emotion, and reveals himself to his brothers. He invites them to bring their families and their father, Jacob, down to Egypt to live near him, and gives them a place to live in the Egyptian province of Goshen.

Jacob's final 17 years are spent in peace and tranquility in Egypt, knowing that all his 12 sons are righteous people, and he dies at the age of 147. Before his death, he makes Joseph promise that he will bury him in the Cave of the Patriarchs, even though Jacob buried Joseph's mother, Rachel, by the side of the road and not in the Cave (Leah is buried there instead, along with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah). With Pharaoh's permission, Joseph leads a huge state funeral back to Canaan, with the 12 sons carrying their father's coffin and many Egyptian officials accompanying them. Before he dies, Jacob also adopts Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own. [Such that Jacob now had a baker's dozen of sons.] He also blesses each one of his sons. According to the Midrash, he desires to tell them the exact date when the Mashiach will arrive, but the prophecy fails him.

Generation No. 28

Judah (Juda/Judas) [28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu / Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married

1) Bat Shua (Illit), daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite
2) illicit coupling with daughter-in-law) Tamar, of Kadesh (widow of Er... and Onan)

Children

by Bat Shua

Er, who married Tamar, but he died without issue
Onan, who married the hand-me-down, Tamar, but he died without issue too
Shelah

by Tamar

Pharez
Zerah (twin to Pharez)

According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 166-167):

“The original biblical Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Isaac’s grandson Judah and there is a very strange story in Genesis (38:1-30) of how she conceived of her father-in-law [got pregnant by the old dude] who did not recognize her. [I suspect we've heard that excuse before.] Some not very convincing excuses are made for Judah’s action but...” because of her exceptional lineage -- “Tamar would have been the obvious choice as a founding matriarch of the kingly line promised to Isaac’s descendants. Judah had thus selected her to be the wife of his firstborn Er, but when Er died unexpectedly, Tamar was passed to Er’s younger brother, Onan, who was also prematurely slain. [There is no comment, curiously enough, about Tarmar being something of a jinx.] The writers [of Genesis] attributed both these deaths to the will of Jehovah and then told of how Tamar was accosted by Judah, who seemingly mistook her for a harlot, pledging a kid from his flock in payment. No reason is given for Tamar’s failure to announce her identity, but in due time she gave birth to Pharez and the Hebrew line towards King David was under way.

“Whatever the truth of Judah’s illicit liaison with his widowed daughter-in-law, it is plain that, within a culture that held kingship to be a matrilinear inheritance, this Tamar was significant to the succession. The facts of the matter were corrupted, however, by the later Bible writers at a time when the concept of a patrilinear dynasty was being promoted in a male-dominated Hebrew environment. Because of this, the hereditary importance of Tamar was lost. Also, by virtue of Tamar’s illegal conception, the line of Judah was strictly illegitimate and it was not until a later time that a lawful marriage cemented a proper link with the Cainite royal strain. [Another Tamar turns up as the daughter of King David and there is a very similar tale of how too she was duped (in this case, sleeping with her brother Ammon). Also, Absalom, another of David’s sons, had as a daughter, yet another Tamar, as did the later King Zedekiah, and Jesus. The stories of individual family males finding it necessary to conceive with a Tamar are each wrapped in diverse and sundry blankets of weird excuses], but the females were of eminent station, conducive to perpetuating the true sovereignty of the line as it progressed from the time of Isaac in parallel with the main Egyptian succession.”

One might even consider the fact that the problems encountered by Abraham's first several generations of descendants was due in large part to the fact that Abraham's lineage was the secondary or junior royal line... and was simply got given the same status as the senior royal lineage that had descended from Cain and was spending an inordinate amount of time ruling in Egypt. On the one hand, one has Kings... and on the other, royal wanabees. There goes the new king...but for the senior in line to the throne.

Wikipedia’s (comparatively boring) version of Judah’s story is that he was the fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. Wikepedia's saving grace is that "some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation." [Say what?] With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars regard the tribe as having been believed by the text's authors to have been part of the original Israelite confederation; however, it is worthy of note that the tribe of Judah was not purely Israelite, but contained a large admixture of non-Israelites, with a number of Kenizzite groups, the Jerahmeelites, and the Kenites, merging into the tribe at various points.

After Er died without any children, Tamar became Onan's wife in accordance with custom, but he too died without children [apparently, not in accordance with custom]. The narrative continues by stating that Judah decided that marriage to Tamar was cursed to be fatal, and so avoided letting Shelah marry her. However, this would have left Tamar unable to have children, so she [allegedly] managed to trick Judah into having sex with her, by pretending to be a prostitute. According to the text [written by whom?] when Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant, he intended to have her burnt, but when he discovered that he was the father, he recanted and confessed that he had used a prostitute. [This stuff is right out of the Bible! Amazing.] As it turned out, Tamar was pregnant with twins, and they were Pharez and Zerah, the fourth and fifth sons of Judah. According to the Talmud, Judah's confession atoned for some of his prior faults, and itself resulted in him being divinely rewarded by a share in the future world.

While all of this Biblical begating soap operas can be fun, there is even more from other sources. E.g.:

Classical rabbinical sources allude to a war between the Canaanites and Judah's family (which isn't mentioned in the Bible), as a result of their destruction of Shechem in revenge for the [alleged] rape of Dinah. Judah features heavily as a protagonist in accounts of this war. In these accounts Judah kills Jashub, king of Tappuah, in hand-to-hand combat, after first having deposed Jashub from his horse by throwing an extremely heavy stone (60 shekels in weight) at him from a large distance away. The accounts say that Judah was able to achieve this even though he was himself under attack, from arrows which Jashub was shooting at him with both hands. The accounts go on to state that while Judah was trying to remove Jashub's armour from his corpse, nine assistants of Jashub fell upon him in combat, but after Judah killed one, he scared away the others; nevertheless, Judah killed several members of Jashub's army (42 men according to the Book of Jasher, but 1000 men according to the Testament of Judah). [Cool movie idea, but it gets better!]

In the Torah's Joseph narrative, when his brothers are jealous of Joseph and contemplate murdering him, Judah suggests that the brothers should sell Joseph to some passing Ishmaelites; it is unclear from the narrative whether Judah's motives were to save Joseph, or to harm him but keep him alive. The narrative goes on to state that the brothers dipped Joseph's coat in fresh goat's blood, and showed it to Jacob, after Joseph had gone, so that he would think that Joseph was dead. Jacob may have suspected that Judah had killed Joseph, especially when Judah was the one who had brought the blood stained coat to Jacob. Since rabbinical sources held Judah to have been the leader of his brothers, these sources also hold him responsible for this deception, even if it was not Judah himself who brought the coat to Jacob. Even if Judah had been trying to save Joseph, the classical rabbinical sources still regard him negatively for it; these sources argue that, as the leader of the brothers, Judah should have made more effort, and carried Joseph home to Jacob on his (Judah's) own shoulders. These sources argue that Judah's brothers, after witnessing Jacob's grief at the loss of Joseph, deposed and excommunicated Judah, as the brothers held Judah entirely responsible, since they would have brought Joseph home if Judah had asked them to do so. Divine punishment, according to such classical sources, was also inflicted on Judah in punishment; the death of Er and Onan, and of his wife are portrayed in by such classical rabbis as being acts of divine retribution. [Yeah, yeah.]

The Biblical Joseph narrative eventually describes Joseph as meeting his brothers again, while he is in a position of power, and without his brothers recognizing him; in this latter part of the narrative, Benjamin initially remains in Canaan, and so Joseph takes Simeon hostage, and insists that the brothers return with their younger brother (Benjamin) to prove they aren't spies. The narrative goes on to state that Judah offers himself to Jacob as surety for Benjamin's safety, and manages to persuade him to let them take Benjamin to Egypt. According to classical rabbinical literature, because Judah had proposed that he should bear any blame forever, this ultimately led to his bones being rolled around his coffin without cease, while it was being carried during the Exodus, until Moses interceded with God, by arguing that Judah's confession (in regard to having sex with Tamar) had led to Reuben confessing his own incest. [Incest? There’s something wrong with incest... in that day and age, with brothers marrying half-sisters (e.g. Abraham)?]

When, in the Joseph narrative, the brothers return with Benjamin to Joseph, Joseph tests whether the brothers have reformed by tricking them into a situation where he can demand the enslavement of Benjamin. The narrative describes Judah as making an impassioned plea against enslaving Benjamin, ultimately making Joseph recant and reveal his identity.

Some argue that Judah reacted violently to the threat against Benjamin, asking Naphtali to enumerate the districts of Egypt, and after finding out that there were 12 (actually 20 in Lower Egypt and 22 in Upper Egypt), he decided to destroy three himself, and have his brothers destroy one of the remaining districts each; the threat of destroying Egypt was, according to these sources, what really motivated Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers. [Now, that is fascinating... and probably more likely the truth.]

Generation No. 29

Pharez (Perez) [29] Judah (=Tamar) [28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married Barayah (Jacob's descendant)

children:

Hezron (Ezrom)

Zerah (Hezron's twin -- as you may have noticed, twins run in this family)

From Wikipedia: Pharez ("Breach") was the son of Tamar and of Judah, and was the twin of Zerah. The text argues that he was called Perez because he was the first twin to be born, and thus had breached the womb. The Book of Ruth lists Perez as being part of the ancestral genealogy of King David, and the Book of Matthew consequently mentions him when specifying the genealogy of Jesus. That’s about it for Pharez.

Generation No. 30

Hezron [30] Pharez (=Barayah) [29] Judah (=Tamar of Kadesh) [28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]

married Kanita (daughter of Zebulum)

children -- ?

From Wikipedia: Hezron (meaning "Enclosed") is a name which occurs 3 times in the Hebrew Bible.

* (1.) A plain in the south of Judah, west of Kadesh-barnea (Joshua 15:3).
* (2.) One of the sons of Reuben (Genesis 46:9; Exodus 6:14, Numeri 26:6).
* (3.) The older of the two sons of Pharez In (Genesis 46:12), he is mentioned among the
youngest generation of the 70 Israelites to move to Egypt with Jacob.

Generations No. 31 - 50

The Bible’s Missing Generations -- From the 18th to the 14th Century BC

There is a rather long hiatus of Biblical record between Genesis and Exodus (allegedly 400 years of bondage and hard labor -- the latter which will in due course be shown to derive from the overactive imaginations of a people who have always relished the victim roles). This period of time extends from the time of Hezron, a couple of generations after the Israelites had escaped the famine and migrated to Egypt, where they were treated royally upon their arrival, and so forth and so on... until a time when, according to scripture, things were not going all that well. During, this period... at least from a Biblical perspecive, the trail of this particular royal blood line becomes a bit cold. There are in fact no real clues -- written down, as it were -- as to... to put it bluntly... who begat who. Nevertheless, it is a fair bet that the principals involved were extremely knowledgeable about who was doing it to whom... except perhaps for those with Judah's flair for imaginative couplings with royal princesses under the guise of prostitution. We can assume that the people in the royal front lines were keeping appropriate tabs, even if written records of their success or failure to do so have not, apparently, survived until the present day.

In a nut shell, the Seth royal line has entered something of a genealogical limbo. And said limbo will continue until researchers discover a heretobefore unknown document... explaining in great detail who begat who. Short of that we will be forced to pick up the Seth line of royal ancestors when we again encounter some one with record keeping skills. This turns out to be someone named Ram (Rama) (c. 1360 BCE) -- albeit, if the truth be known, it wasn't necessarily Ram's record keeping as it was Kiya-tasherit and the Egyptian record keepers who noted the marriages with Seth's descendants.

By the way, based on some creative math and assumptions, we have assumed the Bible's Missing Generations to constitute the 31st through the 50th generations in the Seth line. [See Tohwait's Tree, Muddled Generations (33 - 41) for a full explanation of said calculations.]

Meanwhile, back in Egypt, where the Cain descendants were still keeping track of ball scores and the royal lineages... albeit with something less than total precision... we must move -- with undue haste -- from the 12th Dynasty of Egypt (Sobeknefru, et al - c. 1780 BCE) to the beginning of the 18th Dynasty (c. 1570 BCE). This is when Ahmose I rolled into town, fired all the previous writers and scribes, and began recording a bit more definitive information than most of his predecessors. In fact, he was carving it in stone... as per local tradition.

Descendants of Noah