In order to come to a better understanding of this phrase, there is another rabbinic statement that I want to use. It is ʾên ʾāb lĕgôy, a heathen does not have a father.40 When a heathen turns to the Jewish belief, he has no legal father according to Jewish law. The rabbis do not say he has no father at all, but he has no legal father. In this way, I think, we have to see the qualification “without father or mother or genealogy.” Obviously, Melchizedek did have parents. But he did not have the