In brief, Jesus proclaimed himself to be before Abraham. Abraham was the first of the patriarchal fathers of Israel. John 8:58
I’m trying my best to plow my way through Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22 in the Greek texts that I have. (With dictionary and parsing charts because my memory is awful.😞)
I have seen that Deuteronomy 6 uses both Singular and Plural forms of the 2nd Personal Person pronoun in agreement with its verb person.
Matthew 22:34-40,The Greatest Commandment, uses the 2nd Person Singular. A reason why could be that the author was trying to write it as though Jesus was only speaking to the Pharisee who spoke, and not the entire group of Sadducees and Pharisees.
LXX Deuteronomy 6
I see a phrase in verse 3: τοις υιοις Ισραηλ (Dative case plural).
Ισραηλ is never written into a Case like a proper name.
It’s translated however as being like a Gentive Case. (the children of Israel.)
But then in verse 4 it begins: Ακουε Ισραηλ.
ακουε, it doesn’t fit to be a Indicative Mood, Imperfect tense, 3rd person, Singular, Active voice. If it was it should be spelled ηακουεν, ηακουε(ν)
It, Ακουε, must be in the Imperative Mood, 2nd Aorist or Present Tense, 2nd Person, Singular, Active voice.
Κυριος ο θεος ημων
Κυριος εις εστι(ν)
Και αγαπησεις Κύριον τον θεον σου
ημων is the Genitive Case, 1st person, pronoun, Plural.
σου is the Genitive Case, 2nd person, pronoun, Singular.
αγαπησεις is a verb, 🤷♂️ unsure of what specifics. Maybe a Contract Verb αγαπω (α+εις=η) (αγαπαεις=αγαπη) ‘σείς is the Future Tense, 2nd Person, Singular that matches with the parsing of σου. 😵💫
That is where plurals and singulars are seen.
The LXX (Deuteronomy 6:5) does have it: Love the Lord your God. And also:the Lord our God.
Δευτερος (α,ον) 2-1-2
Νομιος (ου, ο) masculine, 2-1-2
Δευτερον: nominative case, neuter
Νομιον: accusative case, masculine
ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΝ ΝΟΜΙΟΝ
ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟΝΟΜΙΟΝ
δευτερονομιον
There’s only two books of the law, and Deuteronomy was the second of the two. That’s what I think the word “Deuteronomy” means in Greek. The Law was only two books. Deuteronomy and another book.
These interactions are typically helpful, and I’ll explain why:
1. Corrections, if any, have always helped to improve my hypothesis.
2. They can lead to Good Finds!
Today’s find: Herod Phillip put his face on one side and the Temple of Augustus on the other side of his coins from the fifth year of his reign to the end, AD 1-2—AD 34.
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And he still claimed to be Jewish and was accepted as Jewish, even with his worship of Augustus. Could you put Yahweh’s temple on coins instead? The 132-135 CE Bar Kokhba rebel coins did: ** you do not have permission to see this link **.
And I learned something else—I thought Augustus was deified post-humously, but there’s abundant attestation to him being worshipped while alive. In the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (his own funerary inscription), Augustus acknowledges being worshiped in the East during his lifetime:
The cities of Asia have built altars to my numen [divine presence].
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In Egypt he was openly worshipped while living, in the Ptolemaic tradition. There’s also coinage contemporary to his life where he’s called a god, Theos.
What about Yahweh’s ‘I’m a jealous god’?🦉Exodus 20:5, Deuteronomy 5:9 where you can’t worship another god, just Yahweh?
That bird had flown 🪽 — the Jewish High Priest was appointed by Rome since 6 CE. And before that, the High Priest was appointed by Herod the Great (neither patrilineally or matrilineally Jewish, but “born Jewish,” per Josephus, as the descendant of converts) who didn’t retain the important Zadokite lineage of the Second Temple with these High Priest appointments.
This flexibility of identity reminds me of Paul calling himself Jewish despite being Tribe of Benjamin not Tribe of Judah-Jewish, and Paul treating Jesus as semi-divine and still calling himself Jewish, despite that not being the stance of the Second Temple, like at all.
In the fifth year of his reign (AD 1-2), Herod Philip began to mint coins for his realm. On one coin, he had the head of Caesar Augustus on the obverse and his own portrait on the reverse with the inscription ‘of Philip the Tetrarch’ (Henden 2010: 258, coin 1219). Another coin had the portrait of Herod Philip on the obverse side and the Augusteum of Paneion on the reverse. The temple is depicted as a tetrastyle (four colums) on a high platform with stairs leading up to the temple (Hendin 2010: 258, coin 1220; Reifenberg 1951: 176, coin 2; Kindler 1971: 162; Pl. 32 A). For the rest of his reign, until AD 34, his coins depicted the Augusteum of Paneion on the reverse with the portrait of either Augustus or Tiberius on the obverse side (Hendin 2010: 258-261).
So the question of whether a Jewish person could worship another deity inclusive/syncretic to Yahweh and still be accepted as Jewish seems to be answered on the coin. 🪙 Like the patrilineally Idumean/Edomite Herod Phillip (whose patrilineage was hush-hush in his own time), a non-Jewish, Nabataean Arabian patrilineage might help explain how Jesus seems to be talking about a deified father (ancestor cult) and a THEOS to royal lineages like he is constantly saying that he has, and whose identifying trait is water purification. And still also claim to be realigning to a more correct or original form of worship.
I don’t know. The question is too big and it was 2000 years ago.
Jesus and the Sanhedrin were having a political debate. Jesus goes beyond nuclear bomb mode and says he’s greater than even Abraham in the realm of patriarchal politics and judicial power.
John 8
Jesus uses the word Father as the word for God. Jesus says he was before Abraham. That would be higher above than King David, Moses, Abraham.
Jesus calls their fathers a διαβολος (a false accuser, a slanderer, a liar).
There’s also theological debates on whether or not Jesus was an angel after the Pharisees accuse him of being possessed by Βεελζεβουλ Beelzebub. Matthew 12 and Mark 3.
The question is too big. I could spend a whole lifetime wondering about it all and never find proof of anything.
Hi Colin!
In brief, Jesus proclaimed himself to be before Abraham. Abraham was the first of the patriarchal fathers of Israel. ** you do not have permission to see this link **
The 10th C CE “Book of The Nabataean Agriculture” discusses reincarnation, ie before Abraham, plainly and in-depth in between its parables and stellar agricultural advice. So, a belief in reincarnation like the Druze and Mandaeans. [Edit: adding Pythagoras c. 570-490 BCE, and Plato c. 428-348 BCE, as well as many Christian Gnostic sects like Sethites and Basilideans. So, not all these are preceded by Alexander the Great’s cultural exchange with India, and this tracks with DNA studies showing an Indian elite being founded by a diaspora from the Fertile Crescent who would have the leisure time to develop these materials.]
The Book of The Nabataean Agriculture claims to reveal the knowledge of a “20,000 year old Mesopotamian document,” that if you figure for Base 60, is ~2333 C BCE. If specific, and who knows, that matches pretty much to the Sargon of Akkad times c. 2334-2279 BCE:
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The disciples came to him and asked, “Why do you speak to the people in parables?”
He replied, “Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.
as utterances which conceal from one class what they reveal to another
But who is the 10th C “Nabataean” author? Just like being a member of Facebook was once reserved for the Ivy League-only and is now a rolling dumpster fire, the names Nabataean and Arabian were once terms for the fabled dynasty and for sheik-types respectively, and then the humble-living people in the areas that Nabataeans and Arabs travel through adopt the names and what knowledge they can as a kind of echo.
The Book of Nabataean Agriculture author refers to Sabians (John the Baptist’s Mandaeans) as a rural lineage connected to this knowledge. And apparently:
Travellers in the East were wont to refer to them as ‘Christians of st. John’
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The mileu is indeed 10th C Mesopotamia but there’s a lot of ag science that’s straight-up Petra.
I’m just trying to say I said it all first before the Midyat excavation publishes its finds:
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So Jesus being influenced by Jews is the world’s safest bet, because Jesus is a First Century Jew. But the idea that Jesus only heard Philo, Enoch, Daniel, and Hillel while stacking some stone walls, and that led him to feed ~20,000 and get a private audience with Pilate? No Way.
It’s Always a Person With an Outside Affiliation That Supplies Large Quantities Of Food In Ancient Jewish Texts (afaik)
• Queen Helene of Adabiene ameliorated famine in Judaea c. 46-47 CE by purchasing grain in Egypt and dried figs from Cypros, and scholars relate that time period as the famine known in Acts. (She’s converted Jewish, and Dr. Eisenman claims that her husband is likely a Nabataean Abgarid.)
• Elisha and Elijah The Resident Alien In Arabia, Who Returns From Heaven Dressed As An Arab To Give Charity
(again, Elijah ‘the Tishbite’ is often translated as ‘resident alien,’ and Gilead for this period is archaeologically Arabian-led)
• Joseph the Vizier of Egypt
(Note that Josephus wrote that the Hyksos were said to be Arabian — in it’s ancient meaning, it just meant wealthy nomadic/semi-nomadic tribe.)
• Joanna the wife of Chuza, Chuza being a classic Nabataean Arabian name. It seems likely that her donated money, along with that of others, would be used at least in part for food.
Luke 8:3
Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.
• The God of Moses ‘the Egyptian’
I think the manna is pearled barley. It’s sweeter and prepares much faster for traveling life, but goes bad faster. 3rd C BCE historian Manetho, as quoted by Josephus, wrote that Moses was a descendant of the remaining Hyksos (who again, Josephus says people put in the Arabian bucket.)
•Herod the Great (patrilineally Edomite, Nabataean mother )
In Josephus’ Antiquities, this king of the Jews whose family converted to Judaism purchased grain from Egypt to alleviate a famine.
Emperor Augustus wrote of feeding 100,000 in the Res Gestae, This was the cura annonae system that expands to bread distribution after his admin, so the ~20,000 and maybe more of the Gospels requires kingdom-level financing.
Then some people think that Jesus didn’t do any of these things, that he just spoke of a slightly better afterlife and started a movement. Go ahead and try that on any street corner. I guarantee you that no under-served person cares about even slightly better free Wi-Fi until physical tangibles like food, money, healthcare and/or shelter are supplied for their family, and that is the proof that converts.
Is it perhaps interesting that Jewish Apocalyptic Literature appears in the 3rd C BCE right when Petra is building out its “afterlife-themed” city as the next city on from Jerusalem? (Archaeologists confirm Josephus that Nabataea bordered Judaea here.)
I mean, Enoch 25 was literally what happens in Petra — no plague, famine, or conquerment found. The murals are cheery enough. Providing hygenic running water, food, medicines such as illustrated in their city art (and sometimes a part of their famous perfumes), and a lack of stress probably helped:
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Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad, |
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And into the holy place shall they enter; |
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And its fragrance shall be in their bones, |
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And they shall live a long life on earth, |
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Such as thy fathers lived: |
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And in their days shall no sorrow or plague |
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Or torment or calamity touch them.’ |
Then early in the Hasmonean Revolt 165-164 BCE, oh hey it’s the Nabataeans first appearance in Maccabees as the friendly, not warlike, helpful neighbors who keep safe the Hasmonean Revolutionary Armies gear. I’m getting heavy Mamre vibes here.
Why can’t it just be like Luke 1:38 says,
“And Mary said, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord…”?
Why not look for a naturalistic reading? There’s nothing in this koine Greek sentence that distinguishes it as a “god” Lord instead of a “human” Lord, afaik. Abraham is called Lord in Genesis 18:12 and had handmaids. This is reiterated in (disputed authorship) 1 Peter 3:6, “Even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord…”
My favorite analogy is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret son:
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Joseph’s mom is a maid to what is in Bible terms, a Lord. Joseph’s married parents are indigenous to the least-wealthy region of the Americas. So, does Joseph eat mostly masa? Why’s he saying his dad is the Terminator?!??
If you don’t think that his secret dad affected his trajectory, check out his bodybuilder pics and film career.
The incredible secret turning out to be true is what makes it *story-worthy*. All he needs to do is take some airplanes full of food and a 3-D house printer down to Guatemala and he’s got himself his own new religion. In the same way, Jesus’ reported lifestyle from birth is different enough from any Jew as to likely indicate a different patrilineality.
And you know, it’s not even a secret in the Gospels. They reveal the secret. Serene, saying it all first before Midyat.
Hi Robert!
Where does Josephus say that Herod the Great was “born Jewish”?
“Born-Jewish” is modern scholar short-hand that they apply to Josephus’ description of Herod’s lineage. Thanks for helping me attribute it correctly.
Why ignore the immediately preceding context? ὁ ἄγγελος Γαβριὴλ ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ … εὗρες γὰρ χάριν παρὰ τῷ θεῷ. … καὶ δώσει αὐτῷ κύριος ὁ θεὸς τὸν θρόνον Δαυὶδ τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ … ὅτι οὐκ ἀδυνατήσει παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ πᾶν ῥῆμα. εἶπεν δὲ Μαριάμ· ἰδοὺ ἡ δούλη κυρίου·
That’s what I’m saying, why ignore the immediately preceding context? There’s a God, a Lord God, and a Lord — these are three different things:
Luke 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel from God…for you have found favor with God. And the Lord God will give to you the throne of His father David…for nothing will be impossible with God. And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord…”
1. Lord
Bosses, from little tribal chiefs like Abraham to David on up to God, can be Lords.
2. Lord God
This is a covenant, contract-specific context. Like in the El Amarna letters, where both Lord and God are used by the Jerusalem administrator to address his God-king Akhenaten that he is a vassal to.
Adding Lord to God probably makes it your Supreme God. Henotheism is what scholars agree is practiced for a large part of the Hebrew Bible, and only redacted into full monotheism in the Persian period and later.
3. God
In the Ancient Near East, God can be anything from an abstract, unmanifested god like Anu, Aten, or Hayyi to a human acting as the manifested image of God, like the Mesopotamian Narram-Sim, like the Egyptian Akhenaten, and like how the Gospel of John seems to imply for Jesus.
For a human addressed as God in the Ancient Near East, it seems to require being king of king of kings, ie running the kingdom that itself has vassal kingdoms that in turn have small vassal kingdoms of their own. Even tribal chiefdoms count. Even toparchies count. Even ethnarchies count. Think federal, state, county, or the Roman Empire with the client state of Judaea that governs Trachonitis. Think The Kingdom of Judah governing The Kingdom of Moab, but also answering to a God who seems to be giving them the same directives as you know, a hegemon.
There’s also a distinction between THE Boss and MY boss, who is probably your immediate superior:
Psalm 110:1 (NRSV)
The Lord says to my lord,
Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.
This is another instance of scholars reading Lord as being a human ruler, at least Lord #2.
The “majestic capitalization” that distinguishes them is of course, not in the original text. Before academic archaeology, which really just got started in the 20th Century, people just didn’t know a lot about Asia Minor’s heirarchy – that hegemons were treated divinely. And like, what’s the differences in custom to being ruled directly and indirectly by intermediaries?
The style of Gospel of Luke’s Annunciation announcing the heir to the Davidic throne is imitated in English monarchy annunciations where the Lord is clearly the Ruler, and God is God.
Thank you for that interesting correction, that a distinction resembling majestic capitalization is in the Hebrew. And again, the Hebrew Bible texts are compiled under an anti-God-King administration and cannonized under Messiah Cyrus the Persian Monotheist. These Hebrew scribes are redacting redacting redacting
This why the God-King Ptolemy Philadelphus THEOS, the commissioner of the Septuagint LXX and direct king over the governor and high priest of Judaea (who would worship Ptolemy Philadelphus THEOS like Herod worshipped Augustus, just not as crassly) and the Son of God, Jesus can interpretio in koine Greek where there is no Yahweh. Midyat dance
Robert said
…The Maccabees reacted violently against such behavior..
The Maccabee Revolt (167-160 BCE) went to the Roman Empire immediately in 161 BCE asking to be a vassal, it’s just that the Imperial Cult didn’t exist until around 27 BCE.
And the Nabataeans aren’t conquerors that force people to worship their god. That’s the Maccabees lol.
The name Yahweh Elohim is a syncretism that encompasses many deities —Yah and El’s entire Divine Council including Ba‘al and Asherah. (Also, in my hypothesis, it may contain the Egyptian desert god for ‘foreigners’, being that they are originally immigrants or whatever.) As a nationalistic titulary deity, these deities are from areas that match Abraham’s promise of territory in Genesis 15:18-21. That seems to be how monotheism succeeds, by adding the local deities and absorbing local traditions into one deity.
Nabataeans are again, just a ‘middle layer of government,’ like a Melchizedek — they tax inter-kingdom roads and arbitrate inter-kingdom justice in a loose confederacy of marital and probably heir alliances.
In this passage, Jason is battling Maccabees and Aretas stops him:
2 Maccabees 5:6-10
…while Jason and his men went on slaughtering their fellow Jews without mercy. Jason did not realize that success against one’s own people is the worst kind of failure. He even considered his success a victory over enemies, rather than a defeat of his own people. 7 But Jason did not take over the government. Instead he was forced to flee once again to the territory of the Ammonites, and in the end his evil plot brought him nothing but shame and disgrace, 8 and he died in misery. Aretas, the ruler of the Arabs, imprisoned him; he was looked upon as a criminal and despised because he had betrayed his own people; everyone was hunting for him, and he had to run from town to town. He fled to Egypt for safety, 9 then to Greece, hoping to find refuge among the Spartans, who were related to the Jews. Finally, this man, who had forced so many others to flee from their own country, died as a fugitive in a foreign land. 10 Jason had killed many people and left their bodies unburied, but now his own death was unmourned. He was not given a funeral or even buried with his ancestors.
(If you’re wondering why Paul would be pursued by an Aretas.)
And in this passage, Aretas supports the “mild and moderate disposition” Maccabee John Hyrcanus I who married Nabataean Princess Cypros, and who Josephus said was the Jewish people’s choice for government, over the militaristic Aristobulus Maccabee who was supported only by the priests who had lost the Zadokite lineage and I think, had purchased their offices:
AJ 14.2
…the people still supporting Hyrcanus, and assisting him in the siege, while none but the priests continued with Aristobulus. So Aretas united the forces of the Arabians and of the Jews together, and pressed on the siege vigorously.”
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Then, normally peaceful Aretas IV battles Galilee’s Herod Antipas over the breaking of the marital alliance with Phaesalis for Herodias (Arab towns in Moab thst prefer her governance weren’t returned to her in the divorce). This is during Jesus‘ mission.
AJ 18.5
Herod the tetrarch makes war with Aretas, the king of Arabia, and is beaten by him as also concerning the death of John the Baptist.
So the Nabataeans are always involved at this point. The idea that Jesus is on a mission during this war but has nothing to do with it, or shows no awareness of it, or takes no sides (when has that happened in the Middle East?) means that no one understands “language that conceals to one class what it reveals to another.”
If there’s a point of agreement, that’s great. The theme of my post is about Jesus potentially introducing a new god via an interpretio that could have been gained patrilineally. I can only discuss the Maccabees within the theme of my post.
To recap, early on I introduce my best guess — a hypothesis for Nabataean Arabian patrilineality. Their cosmology seems to be:
• God the Father, ie an ancestor cult (Obodas the God, whose temple is found at Ein Avdat, Israel)
• God Most High/El Elyon, ie a Supreme God (God of the Ruler, Dushara)
• Half-Man, Half God (Theandrios) who is presented on a triad stele with Dushara and a third deity. The third deity is not currently identifiable because the stelae is degraded.
• Father, Son, and unmanifested Daughter (whose symbol is the dove) in a triad of Sumero-Akkadian deities as their topmost stelae, in their ancient capitol of Sela.
This seems to fit what the Historical Jesus is discussing, at least to me.
End of Recap.
I am glad that you brought up the rise of the Maccabees, because it is facilitated by the Nabataeans. The Nabataeans supported the Maccabaean Army, and they tributed the Seleucids and Parthians, which might have kept them at bay.
The Maccabees, a military faction without a royal lineage, were only recognized as ethnarchs and High Priests until the royal Cypros the Nabataean marries the “calm, reasonable” Maccabee John Hyrcanus I (134-104 BCE). It is their son who becomes the first Maccabee king. Without a royal lineage providing a kingdom, who knows how long the Jewish ethnarcy would have lasted without assimilation?
The middle-layer of governance pops up when there isn’t direct rule, and direct rule is how you find the statues of Ramses The Great God And Good God in Israel. It isn’t ‘just’ Herod building temples to a Roman God-king. It isn’t ‘just’ Menelaus and the Seleucids. It isn’t ‘just’ the Temple of Onias and the Ptolemies.
A God-king —a God that appears in human form—is the tradition of Asia Minor (imo via Akkade), and that’s why the Babylonians, Parthians, Macedonian Greeks and Romans do not have it. Initially. As the Greek and Roman Empires grow in heirarchal structure and begin the direct rule of kingdoms who themselves have kingdoms in Asia Minor, that’s what activates the God-King button.
The Maccabees period is really rare. There’s no deified human leader apparent for this period. The non-deified Romans took Egypt and even ended the Pharaonic tradition of divine kingship. So imo, This Is Why There Is No God Or Even Lord Giving Directives In The Book of Maccabees.
The Nabataeans were a client state to Rome just like Judaea, but they never had a temple to the Roman Emperor. Neither South (Petra, Bostra) or North (Edessa), which is inland to the ports of the 7 Churches of Asia, just outside of the Roman Empire.
The Maccabees at their core won independence on their own merit, but not all on their own, and sometimes it seems like that’s the popular narrative. It’s like Ewok Independence with all the good parts edited out!
• them worshipping C-3PO
• Luke Skywalker, the laborer who gains magic powers from his secret patrilineage
• his secret Princess sister
• Rebel Alliance
• Vader in his Ramses headgear (empire monomyth)
I’d totally watch this though, the Ewoks are the cutest part!
Ancient politics.
βασιλευς: a kingdom of hereditary traditions
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Τυραννος: a kingdom that was not established by hereditary traditions 🤷♂️ (tyranny)
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The NT is a story about a βασιλευς.
The Son of God and God the Father. Son and Father is naturally a hereditary relationship. The Son would inherit the kingdom from the father.
την βασιλειαν των ουρανων The Kingdom of the Heavens. Matthew 7:21.
Thanks Colin! I noticed a good comment that you had elsewhere about how the Hebrew Bible shows that the Davidic line wasn’t eventually even a favorite of the Jewish people. Book of Isaiah has the Jesse line, his dad, re-starting the kingdom.
Netanyahu and Israel don’t seem to care at all.
The last of the Davidic line in the Hebrew Bible is Zedekiah, I think. Zedekiah’s challenge may be that he backed the de-God-ified Apries/Hophra over the legitimate co-ruler and then overtaker, God-king Amasis in Jeremiah 37:5-10. If Apries/Hophra had won, it might have been, “the Lord God has saved the Jewish people from a Babylonian Exile.”
The Davidic covenant has the standard “forever, eternal” suzerainity language. It also has a high status son, and not just servant, relationship. No one cares about extra humble-living Jesse in the First Century. How about an actual king.
The Davidic God reads Egyptian via Canaan to me. Example: El Amarna letter 158: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Whereas Jesus’ kingdom language reads Akkadian via Arabian poetry to me:
• yoke of my lordship
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• four corners kingship
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• Mesopotamia’s magic number 7. In Base 60 it’s like pi, in that you ‘can’t divide it’ and that makes it strong.
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It’s like someone’s not over Babylon succeeding Akkade yet, and they’re using it as an analogy for Rome.
Look, a 7-aperature oil lamp in Galilee!
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Mesopotamian and Arabian blessings are ‘like begets like’ and the ‘smaller becomes larger’, where an actual physical thing becomes a bigger physical thing. This is the Parable of the Mustard Seed and illustrated in the Feeding of the Multidudes.
There was no way to escape from the tyranny of beginning a new kingdom τυραννος. Nobody really knew if they’re really an ancestor of King David. The only option was to claim God as Father. Therefore the kingdom can be inherited from the Father to the Son like a good old fashioned and respectable βασιλευς.
No more King David, and not even Abraham. The only father was God, and only a Son of God could be heir of the kingdom.
Colin Milton said
Nobody really knew if they’re really an ancestor of King David.
Not sure about that.
Mandaean priests can trace lineage back several centuries, so it’s possible that Mary’s connection with Elizabeth helps here. And Essenes were individually literate.
If the small, original Israelite tribe were in administration and/or serving the Egyptians, the documentation might start there.
There’s also ‘pedigree collapse’, like with Charlemagne in the 800s making it easier to be somewhat correct, as all Europeans are descendants or something: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Babylonians kept track of Jehoiachin and his sons:
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So with pedigree collapse in mind, there can be possibly be a tekton and a happy doule in a documented Davidic line. This Babylonian document kept track of four generations, including sharecropper folks: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
Egypt kept track of Near-Eastern manual labor folks: ** you do not have permission to see this link **
I think it was said that Herod the Great faked a Jewish lineage list, so I’m not discounting the possibility at all. Just that it seems within the realm of possibility that whatever God-king, Babylonian, Davidic, or Isaiah communities were interested in the ‘root of Jesse’ prophecy may have been invested in it.
Editing to add: Precise lineages are given by Bible authors, but it isn’t Jesus himself making specific claims, just ‘son of David’. Being part of a son of _ tribe can be as simple as that tribe acknowledging the identification, and maybe sharing familial names. David the name is found in Ebla, and so are Ya theonyms.
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