The Genealogy From Noah to Jesus: 66 Generations in Luke 3

Luke’s genealogy lists 66 generations from Noah to Jesus. It runs upward, from Jesus through David, Abraham and Noah’s son Shem to Adam, and between Shem and Abraham it includes one name the Hebrew text of Genesis 11 does not: Cainan. Matthew’s genealogy starts at Abraham and follows a different son of David, so the two Gospels give different lines.

Luke sets it at Jesus’ baptism and reads it upward, from son to father: “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli” (Luke 3:23). Thirteen verses later the list reaches the flood: “Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech” (Luke 3:36). Noe and Sem are the Greek forms of Noah and Shem. Read the other way, from Noah down, Abraham is the 12th name, David the 25th and Zerubbabel the 47th. Where the Old Testament spells a name differently, Luke’s King James spelling follows in brackets, and the reference shows where each verse of Luke 3 starts as you read down.

1. Noah (Noe; Luke 3:36)
2. Shem (Sem)
3. Arphaxad
4. Cainan
5. Salah (Sala; Luke 3:35)
6. Eber (Heber)
7. Peleg (Phalec)
8. Reu (Ragau)
9. Serug (Saruch)
10. Nahor (Nachor; Luke 3:34)
11. Terah (Thara)
12. Abraham
13. Isaac
14. Jacob
15. Judah (Juda; Luke 3:33)
16. Pharez (Phares)
17. Hezron (Esrom)
18. Ram (Aram)
19. Amminadab (Aminadab)
20. Nahshon (Naasson; Luke 3:32)
21. Salmon
22. Boaz (Booz)
23. Obed
24. Jesse
25. David (Luke 3:31)
26. Nathan
27. Mattatha
28. Menan
29. Melea
30. Eliakim (Luke 3:30)
31. Jonan
32. Joseph
33. Juda
34. Simeon
35. Levi (Luke 3:29)
36. Matthat
37. Jorim
38. Eliezer
39. Jose
40. Er (Luke 3:28)
41. Elmodam
42. Cosam
43. Addi
44. Melchi
45. Neri (Luke 3:27)
46. Shealtiel (Salathiel)
47. Zerubbabel (Zorobabel)
48. Rhesa
49. Joanna
50. Juda (Luke 3:26)
51. Joseph
52. Semei
53. Mattathias
54. Maath
55. Nagge (Luke 3:25)
56. Esli
57. Naum
58. Amos
59. Mattathias
60. Joseph (Luke 3:24)
61. Janna
62. Melchi
63. Levi
64. Matthat
65. Heli (Luke 3:23)
66. Joseph
67. Jesus

Some names repeat for different men: four Josephs (32, 51, 60 and 66), three called Judah or Juda (15, 33 and 50), and two each of Mattathias (53 and 59), Matthat (36 and 64), Levi (35 and 63) and Melchi (44 and 62).

Luke does not stop at Noah. The list runs on through Lamech, Methuselah and Enoch to its last line: “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God” (Luke 3:38).

Shem. Luke names him, and so does Genesis 11, which opens the line after the flood with “These are the generations of Shem” (Genesis 11:10). 1 Chronicles runs the same line in a single breath: “Shem, Arphaxad, Shelah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, Abram; the same is Abraham” (1 Chronicles 1:24–27). Shem had received his father’s blessing after the flood: “Blessed be the LORD God of Shem” (Genesis 9:26). Genesis 11 gives each father’s age at his son’s birth, so this stretch can also be counted in years, which is how the dates for Noah and Abraham are worked out.

A generation here is one step from father to son, so Luke’s 67 names from Noah to Jesus make 66 generations. The total shifts a little with the text and the route.

Route	Generations, Noah to Jesus
Luke 3 in the King James Version	66
Luke 3 without Cainan, as in the Hebrew Genesis 11	65
Luke 3 in the New American Bible, which reads “Admin” and “Arni” where the King James has Aram	67
Genesis 11 from Noah to Abraham, then Matthew 1	50

The two Gospels part most after David. Luke lists 42 generations from David to Jesus, through David’s son Nathan; Matthew lists 27, through Solomon and the kings of Judah. Counted back to Adam, Luke’s list in the King James text gives 75 generations, and with Jesus and God it names 77, the number Augustine counted. Irenaeus of Lyons counted “seventy-two generations” from Adam. How he reached that number is not known; his sentence ties it to “all languages and generations of men”, so it may be symbolic. How many years those generations span is a separate question, taken up in how many years passed from Adam to Jesus.

The Hebrew text of Genesis has no Cainan between Arphaxad and Salah: “And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah” (Genesis 11:12). 1 Chronicles 1:24 agrees. The Greek Septuagint has him. In Brenton’s translation, “Arphaxad lived a hundred and thirty-five years, and begot Cainan,” and Cainan fathers Sala at 130. Luke’s list matches the Greek. This Cainan is not the one in Luke 3:37, the son of Enos and grandson of Seth, who appears in Genesis 5 as well.

Christians answer the question differently. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1908 set out the two possibilities: “Is the name Cainan a later insertion, or has it dropped out from the Hebrew?” Some, it reported, hold “that it was introduced into the Septuagint to increase the length of time between the Flood and Abraham.” It gave no verdict of its own (“Whether or not the original table contained the name Cainan, we cannot tell”), but saw “no difficulty in admitting such lacunæ”, gaps in the list, and pointed to Matthew, whose “Joram begat Ozias” (Matthew 1:8) passes over three kings. Augustine, whose Bible followed the Greek, counted Cainan among the fathers from Shem to Abraham. The Associates for Biblical Research, who read Genesis 11 as unbroken history, list “a full text-critical analysis into the veracity of Kainan/m in Luke 3:36” among the research still to be done.

Matthew begins “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1) and runs downward from Abraham through Solomon. Luke runs upward through Nathan. They name different fathers for Joseph: “Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary” (Matthew 1:16), but “Joseph, which was the son of Heli” in Luke. The two lines touch at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, then part again until Joseph.

The earliest explanation that survives is Julius Africanus’s, preserved by Eusebius. Israel, he wrote, reckoned names “either according to nature or according to law”, the law being the duty of a man to marry his dead brother’s childless widow: “the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6). On the family tradition Africanus reported, Matthan of Solomon’s line and Melchi of Nathan’s married the same woman in turn; their sons Jacob and Eli were half-brothers; when Eli died childless, Jacob raised up a son to him, Joseph. “Thus neither of the gospels is in error, for one reckons by nature, the other by law.” Africanus was candid about his evidence: “although we can urge no testimony in its support, we have nothing better or truer to offer.” His account also departs from Luke’s text: it makes Melchi the father of Eli, quoting Luke as “the son of Eli, the son of Melchi”, though Luke 3:24 as it has come down to us puts Matthat and Levi between them.

John of Damascus, a Father of the Eastern Church, followed Africanus’s account of the levirate marriage and added Mary’s descent. Since “it was not the custom of the Hebrews nor of the divine Scripture to give genealogies of women”, he took both lists as Joseph’s and held that Mary, of the same tribe, came from Nathan’s line through her father Joachim.

Augustine first proposed adoption: “Joseph may have had two fathers — namely, one by whom he was begotten, and a second by whom he may have been adopted.” In his Retractations (2.16) he corrected the passage. As the editors of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers summarize it, he there judged it probable that “the father who begat Joseph was the mother’s second husband, who, according to the Levirate law, had married her on the death of his brother without issue”, which brings him close to Africanus.

A third reading, found in the commentator John Gill in the 1700s and at Answers in Genesis today, takes Luke’s list as Mary’s. Liz Abrams of Answers in Genesis calls it “one solution that seems very likely”, on one condition: “If Mary’s parents had no sons, Joseph could have been reckoned as their adopted son.” Joseph would then be counted the son of Heli as the heir of Mary’s father, and Gabriel’s promise that “the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32) would fit a Davidic mother.

The New American Bible’s notes stress each Gospel’s purpose. In Matthew, David is named first “to emphasize that Jesus is the royal Messiah”, and “through Joseph’s adoption the child belongs to the family of David.” For Luke the note links David’s son Nathan with Nathan the prophet, and reads the line through him “rather than through King Solomon” as fitting Jesus’ prophetic role in Luke and Acts. 2 Samuel names the two separately: the prophet counsels David (2 Samuel 7:2), and the son is listed among those “born unto him in Jerusalem” (2 Samuel 5:14).

Matthew arranges his list himself: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations” (Matthew 1:17).

Matthew’s set	Names (King James spelling)	Names counted
Abraham to David	Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judas, Phares, Esrom, Aram, Aminadab, Naasson, Salmon, Booz, Obed, Jesse, David	14
David to the exile	Solomon, Roboam, Abia, Asa, Josaphat, Joram, Ozias, Joatham, Achaz, Ezekias, Manasses, Amon, Josias, Jechonias	14
The exile to Christ	Salathiel, Zorobabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Sadoc, Achim, Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, Joseph, Jesus	13

The New American Bible’s note suggests why fourteen: “probably because fourteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew letters forming the name of David.” It also points out that in the second set “three kings of Judah, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah, have been omitted”; 1 Chronicles lists them between Joram and Azariah, who is Matthew’s Ozias: “Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son, Amaziah his son, Azariah his son” (1 Chronicles 3:11–12). The third set has thirteen names, and the note judges that “the hypothesis of a slip not on the part of Matthew but of a later scribe seems likely.” Augustine counted Jechonias twice, at the corner where the list turns toward Babylon, and noted that Matthew named “forty men” before Christ.

Five women appear, four of them by name. “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar” (Matthew 1:3); “Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth” (Matthew 1:5); David “begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias” (Matthew 1:6), that is, Bathsheba; and Mary, “of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ” (Matthew 1:16). Luke names no woman in his list.

The New American Bible’s note says the first four “bore their sons through unions that were in varying degrees strange and unexpected,” irregularities that lead to “the supreme ‘irregularity’ of the Messiah’s birth of a virgin mother.” John Chrysostom, preaching on these verses, said Matthew named Ruth and Rahab, “the one an alien, the other an harlot, that you may learn that He came to do away with all our ills. For He has come as a Physician, not as a Judge.”

Matthew begins with Abraham, to whom God said, “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). Luke goes further back, past Noah, the father of every nation after the flood, to Adam. The New American Bible’s note reads this as “Luke’s universalism”, which “leads him to trace the descent of Jesus beyond Israel to Adam and beyond that to God.” Irenaeus saw the same design in Luke’s list, “connecting the end with the beginning, and implying that it is He who has summed up in Himself all nations dispersed from Adam downwards.”

• What did Ham do to Noah?
• What is the Abrahamic covenant?
• Who was King David?
• How old was Joseph when Jesus was born?
• Luke, the Gospel writer