Bloodlines – Davidic, Hasmonean and Herodian

Davidic messiah superseded by events – and restored by disaster

In the interlude between the mythical David and the imaginary Jesus, both Hasmoneans and Herodians ruled as kings in Judah. Neither dynasty was of Davidic lineage nor even of the tribe of Judah. The Hasmoneans were Levites, the priestly tribe of Joarib. The Herodians were of Idumean/Edomite descent, scarcely Jews at all.

If the notion of a “Davidic line”, so-called, had served as a focus of tribal cohesion during the period of Josiah, the time of exile, and into the early Persian period, its usefulness had waned by the Greek era. Not only had Hellenization attracted the allegiance of a large part of the population but national resurgence, when it came, was led by the bloodline of a Levite priest, Mattathias. By the time that the Maccabees had themselves become a hated dynasty, ideas relating to the hoped for and “prophesied” national saviour had become more ambivalent, an uncertainty compounded by the Romans and their Idumean client king Herod.

Nowhere did Hebrew scripture unambiguously prescribe that the messiah would come from the line of David. Thus, a messiah coming from the line of David could be derived from Jeremiah, the prophet of the exile, and also from the anti-Hasmonean sectarians of Qumran.

“In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” – Jeremiah 33.15.

“…until the Messiah of Righteousness comes, the Branch of David. For to him and his seed is granted the Covenant of kingship over his people for everlasting generations which he is to keep ...” – 4Q 252 6:2-3.

On the other hand, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs anticipated a priestly, not a regal, messiah. Elsewhere, a “man of righteousness” – one who would judge the righteous and the wicked – was the order of the day. Was it, perhaps, one, two, or even three, figures who would herald the deliverance of Israel?

During the Herodian period the books of Enoch merged various notions of a “Son of Man”, an “Elect One”, “the Anointed”, “Son of David” and the “Just One” into a single superlative person (though not yet a character called Jesus). The messiah was expected to fulfil prophetic, temporal and sacerdotal roles.

But then other Jews were political realists, not deluded messianics. As long as the Herodian dynasty continued in existence, various aristocratic families contended for control of the temple economy, the families of Ananus, Boethus and surviving Hasmoneans among them. Josephus, famously, regarded the ancient oracles as fulfilled in the Roman emperor Vespasian. With the destruction of Jerusalem and much of Judea, most of the population accommodated themselves to the Pax Romana.

The “madness” of rebellion finally passed with the failure of Simeon ben Kosiba’s rebellion of 132-135 and the end of the Jewish nation. Although Bar Kochba (“son of the star”) had rabbinic support for his messianic claim, nowhere was it said that he was of the line of David. Clearly, the Christian notion that a messianic claimant had to be of Davidic lineage was by no means a widely held belief.

In the 2nd century, after the disastrous wars, Jewish genealogies continued to exist but only as pious fantasies supporting the claims made for various rabbinic sages. These fabricated bloodlines took inspiration from the cherished fable of a Golden Age, when their ancestors had triumphed and ruled from “sea to sea”. Supposed rabbinic heirs of the Davidic line took the title “Nasi” (“prince”) and the bloodline claim continued to Maimonides in the 12th century and beyond. But surpassing all Jewish claims to the blood and seed of David were those made for the Christian godman Jesus and found within the gospels of Matthew and Luke.

Part 1 – The Genealogy of Matthew’s Gospel