The Amalekites are destroyed again and again and again.....

This is beside my point. In the Bible, you might be reading something about what a person did. Before the text begins with the account you might read something like so and so, son of so and so did such and such. Then you don't get more geneology until another person is mentioned. Geneolological material includes a lot more than what you are alluding to. No amount of geological data proves a literary work to be true. My point is that with the Bible, the case for it's credibility would be weaker without the geneologies. Would you agree to that?

No. The presence or absence of genealogies bears no connection to historical veracity. For instance my high school textbook had no genealogies whatsoever.

Hey Buz,I understand what you're saying. But I think most of us are saying that we have demonstrated many reasons writers include genealogies in their books. One of the main reasons there is so much genealogy in the Old Testament might be that it is the history of a people who are very concerned with genealogy.People who don't give the Bible a special status might say that the genealogies were included to give certain people legitimacy as rulers, heirs, etc. Some of these people might say that all of this genealogical information was included in the Old Testament to give it an air of veracity. Some might say genealogical information was included in the New Testament by writers who wrote many decades after Jesus died, in order to lift his status from Great Teacher to prophesied Son and Lamb of God.One of the reasons the Bible is always referring to "SoAndSo son/daughter of SoAndSo" is that people didn't have last names back then. The use of parentage as part of a person's identity is widespread throughout the ages. It's still being used in places like Afghanistan, where people habitually have one name.One could go on and on (and we all have ).Buz, logically speaking, I don't think you're going to win this one. I can understand why you came up with the idea, and I think it was an interesting hypothesis. But I think the data everyone has presented is sufficient to dismiss it. So I have to say, no, I just don't agree.

Thanks for articulating your opinion so well, Debby. I respect that.Did ancient mythology and fiction contemporary with the Bible also use geneological stuff as frequently and volumnous as the Bible?

Thanks for listening so patiently. I respect that.I am no expert in ancient texts, but I think that there are extensive genealogies in the Vedic texts. I seem to remember that these genealogies are still used by present day Brahmans to trace their descent from ancient Vedic kings. I really know very little about these texts, but if you're really interested, you could look into them.I also seem to remember that Hesiod included a lot of genealogical material in his Theogony. So you might take a look there. The Egyptians were into genealogy in a big way, too. I'm not sure about their religious texts, but they left lots of pretty detailed genealogies carved into their buildings and monuments.I found this link,http://www.biblicalstudies.com/...miscstudies/chronology.htmwhich has an interesting discussion of the Genesis genealogies from a Christian perspective. Now, I don't agree with the author's assertion that there is enough verifiable information in the OT to create accurate dates back to Abraham. On the other hand, the author does assert that the Biblical genealogies were created with the same purpose as other ancient texts. And he clearly demonstrates that the whole genealogy issue is a somewhat slippery one, even among Christians.Maybe especially among Christians.

My point exactly. I don't think you grant the Bible the same treatment. Here it is not the genealogy that proves anything, but how verifiable the genealogy is. That's the point. I've read all the historical books of the OT many times, and I think I have a pretty good grasp of the frequency and quantity of its genealogies, even in the sense you're talking about. I'm not so sure you have the same grasp on the Book of Mormon. I haven't read the Book of Mormon all the way through, and I don't want to, but its genealogical references are very similar to the Bible. About 1/3 of the BOM is plagiarization from the Bible, anyway.J.S. was remarkably familiar with the Bible. It's pretty obvious, at least to me, that he had been in church, read the Bible, and had lots of questions, which he attempted to answer in the BOM. There was enough familiarity to write in a style similar to the KJV, including always providing genealogical data, just like in the OT. (Unfortunately, he wasn't familiar enough with history to do it well, and he had synagogues before synagogues were invented, and he used a Greek name, Philip, for a brother of his apostles in a situation, supposedly in America, where there could have been no Greek influence.)

I'm not treating the Bible the same as the BOM, because as in science so in the Bible, we have a lot of verifiables/givens to work on where in the BOM there are none, except the ones borrowed from the Bible.

Thanks Debby. Not too much specifics on ancient geneologies in your link but it was interesting and had some things one could research in due time but for me that's not now as I'm too busy.