Genealogical Incongruities
Ezra is said to be the “son of Seraiah” (Ezra 7:1), yet Seraiah was killed when Jerusalem was overthrown by the Babylonians in 596 BC (2 Kings 25:18-25) and his son Jehozadak was taken into captivity (1 Chron. 6:14-15). Ezra does not appear in the historical narrative until approximately 138 years later in the seventh year of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:7-8). This seems chronologically implausible.
The word “son” (Heb. ben) does not always denote direct offspring but is also applicable to grandsons (Gen. 31:17, 28, 55) and more remote lines of descent (Josh. 22:24-27; 2 Kings 10:30; Ezra 2:3-61). Lengthy genealogical tables are characteristically incomplete. While names could be skipped or lost inadvertently, they were usually omitted intentionally to keep the preservation of a sizeable family tree manageable, especially when certain individuals were considered insignificant or inconsequential to the chronographer’s purpose. Many names would fall outside the main lines of descent, and genealogies were naturally segmented rather than unbroken links.1 This is evident in Ezra 7:1-5 when compared to 1 Chronicles 6:3-15. In fact, Ezra 7:3 skips six generations listed in 1 Chronicles 6:7-10.
Historical Anomaly: Johanan and Jaddua
The conventional dating of Ezra-Nehemiah has been challenged due to names such as Johanan and Jaddua appearing much later in other historical records. In the time period of Ezra and Nehemiah, the high priest was Eliashib (Neh. 3:1-21; 13:28), whose son was Johanan (Ezra 10:6; Neh. 12:22-23) and great-grandson Jaddua (Neh. 12:10-11, 22), with Nehemiah’s reporting concurrent with the reign of Darius the Persian (Neh. 12:22, 26). About twenty-six years after Nehemiah’s account, the Elephantine papyri confirm Johanan as high priest in Sanballat’s later years (Sachau, Pap. 1.29), posing no chronological difficulty. However, Josephus mentions Jaddua as high priest not long before Darius III lost the empire to Alexander the Great in 330 BC (Ant. 11.8.2-5), about a century after Nehemiah’s report. While it is possible that the Jaddua of Nehemiah was quite young and the Jaddua of Josephus was quite old, this still seems like an improbable stretch.
Critics who challenge the integrity of Ezra-Nehemiah apparently do not judge secular sources with the same level of scrutiny.2 Nonetheless, name matching alone does not take into account the recurrence of identical names of different people in alternate generations. The Jaddua of Nehemiah is not referred to as high priest, and if one assumes he is the high priest of Josephus’ narrative, one would also have to explain the inclusion of Sanballat, still alive, albeit advanced in years, in the same historical setting (Ant. 11.8.2-4). Either Josephus has made a chronological mistake, or there was more than one Jaddua and more than one Sanballat.3 The name Sanballat was in fact worn by multiple persons, historically confirmed as Nehemiah’s adversary and, according to Samaria papyri, another in the mid-fourth century BC.4 There are even two different men in Nehemiah’s report by the name of Jaddua – a descendant of Jeshua the high priest (Neh. 12:11, 22), and a Levite who sealed the covenant with Nehemiah (Neh. 10:21).5
--Kevin L. Moore
Endnotes:
1 When Jesus is called “the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1), obviously immediate parentage is not in view. Matthew neatly arranges the Lord’s ancestry in three sets of fourteen generations apiece. In fourteen generations there are literally 8,192 twelfth-great-grandfathers. As was typical in long genealogical tables, a number of names are omitted, e.g., three kings of Judah (Matt. 1:8, 17; cf. 2 Kings 8:24; 1 Chron. 3:11; 2 Chron. 22:1), maintaining this symmetrical balance. Having been written in a predominantly oral culture where few would have had the opportunity to own a copy of the text, this arrangement makes memorization easier.
2 Edward Mack candidly observes, “all fair-minded men should recognize that a clear and straightforward declaration of the Sacred Scriptures is not to be summarily rejected because of its apparent contradiction by some unknown and irresponsible person, who could stamp clay or chisel stone” (“Chronology of the Old Testament,” rev. Melvin Grove Kyle, in ISBE, ed. James Orr [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980]: 1:636).
3 On the proclivity of Josephus to make factual mistakes or to record information unsubstantiated elsewhere, see Carl G. Tuland, “Josephus, Antiquities, Book XI: Correction or Confirmation of Biblical Post-Exilic Records?” AUSS 4.2 (31 Dec. 1966): 176-92; also Derek Kidner, Ezra and Nehemiah: An Introduction and Commentary (Westmont, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979): 145-46.
4 F. M. Cross, Jr., “The Discovery of the Samaria Papyri,” BA 26 (1963): 119-21.
5 Note the distinction between the priests and the Levites (Neh. 10:8-9; 12:7-8, 12, 22, 24; cf. Num. 18:1-6), with at least two other men named Jeshua among the latter in Nehemiah’s record (Neh. 10:9; 12:8, 24).
Related Posts: Alleged Discrepancies in Ezra-Nehemiah Part 2, Numerical Discrepancies in Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronology of Postexilic Period
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