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The Bible's boring, everyone knows that. Phares begat Esrom and Esrom begat Aram and Aram begat Aminadab. When I was teaching public bible reading in our church, I made the lesson readers practice with a telephone directory, to learn how to make it interesting. Suddenly entrance, ancestry has become fascinating, as anyone gripped by Britain's DNA Project on this programme yesterday will agree. Scientists believe, through mitochondrial DNA that we can now trace ourselves back to one woman, aptly dubbed Eve, living in Central Africa in 190000 BC, that nine people in the UK have the same DNA marker as the Queen of Sheba would have had, who visited King Solomon in the Book of Kings, and that 90% of men called Cohen all share the same sequence, some calling themselves sons of Aaron, older brother to Moses and the first High Priest. Time was when only toffs could trace their ancestry, the rest of us being too insignificant to have written records.
眾所周知，《圣經》趣味性不強。法勒斯生希斯侖，希斯侖生亞蘭，亞蘭生亞米拿達。我以前在教堂里教公眾閱讀《圣經》的時候，讓學生們對著電話薄練習，嘗試讓課程變得有意思。 大家被世系深深地吸引了，這真有些讓人始料未及。但凡昨天被該項目的英國DNA計劃感興趣的人都會同意這一點。科學家相信借住線粒體DNA，我們發現自己的祖宗是一位公元19萬年前的女人，她生活在中部非洲，姑且稱之為夏娃吧。在英國，有9個人可能與《列王記》中拜訪所羅門王的示巴女王的DNA標記相同。在所有叫科恩的男性中，90%的人序列相同，他們有些自稱是亞倫，摩西的兄長、首任大祭司的后代。 曾幾何時，只有富人才可以追溯世系，其他人無足輕重，沒有任何書面記錄。
Now, thanks to the Internet, many of us are finding our forebears, and are as proud of under-scullery-maids and transported convicts as of those who fought with the Conqueror. Recently my father gave our daughter's fiance my mother's engagement ring. It is apt as well as moving that she should wear it, having inherited her grandmother's sweet nature as well as her formidable brains. It prompted me to find out more about my own ring, given to my husband by my mother Mary's sister, my dear aunt Jane. The last person to wear it before me was Mary Jane, my great-grandmother, who emigrated from Scotland to Australia aged six and became an accomplished art student in Melbourne in the mid 19th century. We have two of her beautiful paintings, and I'm even more inspired by her feminist professionalism, in such an era, than by her talent. We become the people we come from, which is why it's so right that adopted children may now trace their biological families. Genealogies are there because they are not only compelling but critical. At the weekend our nine year old and I read the thrilling Book of Ruth, ending with the bombshell that this poor displaced and desperate immigrant, became grandmother to David, the great King of the Jews. Almost, the greatest.
如今，在互聯網的幫助下，很多人都可以找到自己的祖先，既為與征服者威廉一起戰斗的人驕傲，也為在廚房里洗洗涮涮的婢女、被運往他鄉的囚徒驕傲。 近日，我爸爸把我媽媽的訂婚戒指送給了我女兒的未婚夫。這件事真是又合適、又讓人感動，因為我的女兒將會戴上這枚戒指，繼承她祖母的美好品質、聰明的頭腦。我也開始了解我自己的這枚戒指。我婆婆瑪麗的妹妹，簡嬸嬸把它交給了我丈夫，我丈夫把它戴在我的手上。上一個戴這戒指的人是瑪麗·簡，我們的曾祖母。她六歲時從蘇格蘭移民澳大利亞，19世紀中期在墨爾本成為了一名杰出的美術專業學生。我們收藏了兩幅她的作品，十分漂亮。與其說是她的才能，不如說是她的信念激勵。她在那個年代就主張女性應當有自己的職業。 我們的祖先是什么樣的，我們就是什么樣的。這就是為什么現在領養的孩子尋找同自己有血緣關系的親人。譜系擺在那兒，它不僅讓人好奇，也非常重要。周末，我們9歲的孩子和我一起讀《路得記》，故事令人動容，結局出人意料。這位貧困絕望、流離失所的移民，竟是大衛的祖母，而大衛又是猶太人的大王，可以算是最早的君王。
Why would one person have two different ancestries? One, in Mark's gospel, is straightforward, the royal succession, king after king regardless of blood. The other, Luke's gospel, goes backwards, tracing the hidden, biological thread, the genetic descent. Both culminate with the same ordinary craftsman, living under a foreign tyrant placed on the throne by an invading power. The rightful heir, keeping his ancestry darkly secret, a necessity to preserve his life. So the son he acknowledged, fulfilled hundreds of years of prophesy, as the true heir to King David. As Luke says, "the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of David, the son of Adam, the son of God."You and I may not be able to trace our ancestry quite so far back, but knowing who we are is never boring.
為什么一個人會有兩個祖先呢？一方面，馬太的福音書直言是皇位繼承，不論血脈傳承皇位。另一方面，路加的福音書卻倒退一步，追尋隱秘的生物聯系，基因血統。 兩者都追溯到一個平凡的巧匠，他生活在一位因入侵力量而加冕的異國暴君的統治之下。這位合法的繼承人為了保命，不得不隱瞞自己的血統這一幽暗的秘密。所以，他承認的兒子，大衛王真正的后人，完成了幾百年的語言。路加有言，“正是如此，約瑟的子孫，大衛的子孫，亞當的子孫，上帝的子孫。” 我們也許沒法把我們的族譜追得這么遠，但是知道我們是誰總是一件有意思的事情。
