Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber. – Genesis 10:21

Today's Scripture Reading (June 28, 2021): Genesis 10

Leopold Frankenberger is one of three men who are often rumored to have been the biological paternal grandfather of Adolf Hitler. While Johann Georg Hiedler is the man that Adolf claimed as grandpa, there is some historical confusion about the true identity of grandpa. What makes the suggestion of Leopold Frankenberger so intriguing is that Frankenberger was of Jewish descent. If Frankenberger was Hitler's grandfather, it complicates everything we know about Hitler and his campaign against the Jewish people.

But it also highlights part of the problem with modern society. As much as we might want to claim to be of a particular descent, the truth is that almost all of us are some sort of mixture of nations. I may identify as Irish, but the truth is that I know I have Irish, English, German, and Dutch people in my family tree, and probably many other nationalities and cultures. What is notable about this list is that many of my ancestors were, at some point, from competing cultures. Probably the best that I can claim is that I am, primarily, of European descent.

But it hasn't always been that way. In a time when people didn't wander too far from the places where they were born, maybe we married into more culturally pure lines. But, for better or worse, it has been generations since that was true. We are all, more or less, the mongrels of our society.

Genesis says that the sons of Noah all went in different directions. The result was that the descendants of Noah could be separated into relatively pure lines of descent. Shem became the father of the sons of Eber, from which we have derived the words Eberites and Hebrew. But Shem is the father of the Hebrew people in the broadest sense of the word, not just of the Hebrew nation as defined by Israel, but Hebrew as defined by being the ancestors of Abraham, and descendants of Shem and his great, great-grandson, Eber. It was a big, vast family and an important one that would shape the world. Shem's name is proudly mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus as is listed in Luke (Luke 3:36), as is Eber (Luke 3:35). Shem may not have been the oldest of the sons of Noah, but that didn't make him any less important.   

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Job 1