GENEALOGY
List of ancestors of a person or a family.
The organization of Israel as a nation made it necessary to keep them carefully.
The right to succession to the throne, to the high priesthood, to the leadership of a tribe, a clan, a patriarchal house, the very belonging to the chosen people, depended on genealogies. Thus, precise genealogical documents are found from the very origin of the Jewish nation (Gen. 35:22-26; cp. Gen. 35:36; 46:8-27; Ex. 6:14-25; Num. 1: 2, 18; 1 Chr. 5:7, 17).
In Ezra’s time, due to the loss of some records, there were many who could not prove their priestly line, and were therefore excluded from the priesthood (Ezra 2:61, 62; Neh. 7:63, 64).
The “endless genealogies” against which Paul warned Timothy and Titus appear to have been the Gnostic genealogies of aeons and other imaginary beings (1 Tim. 1:4; Tit. 3:9).