for most people in the twenty-first-century Western world (those with a passion for genealogical research excepted). Lists of ancestors bore most of us. In our present culture, we are lucky to keep memories alive for three generations, maybe four if we are the nostalgic type or had a famous ancestor. Our general lack of interest in genealogies creates an interesting situation when it comes to Jesus’s family tree in the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Consider the following four facts. First, based