According to the book The Lurie Legacy the Ashkenazi Lurie family has the oldest family tree among now living families. The family tree is said to go back all the way to Biblical times.
quote:In “Legacy,” Rosenstein links the Lurie lineage — which includes such modern luminaries as Sigmund Freud and Martin Buber — to Rashi, the 11th-century sage, and many other revered Jewish figures from Hillel to Hezekiah — and ultimately to King David of the 10th century BCE.
quote:Some historians suspect that the family Luria (Hebrew: לוריא) is one of the oldest family trees in the world, claiming to trace back at least to King David born c. 1037 BCE, as researched by Neil Rosenstein in his book The Lurie Legacy. According to this theory, it contains many famous members such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Felix Mendelssohn, Martin Buber, Rashi, and Hezekiah.
Is it really possible by genealogy and written sources to trace ones ancestors back to Biblical time?
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ Is this the same family as the kabbalist sage Isaac Luria?? Also, how reliable is this genealogy? From what is understood all of the tribal genealogical records of Judea were destroyed by the Roman sack of Jerusalem (unless the Romans stole some). Unless this was one family copy that was preserved by this family.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
It would be interesting to read the book that is mentioned in one of the articles in the OP. Maybe it explains more about how the genealogies were made and which documents were used.
quote:In “Legacy,” Rosenstein links the Lurie lineage — which includes such modern luminaries as Sigmund Freud and Martin Buber — to Rashi, the 11th-century sage, and many other revered Jewish figures from Hillel to Hezekiah — and ultimately to King David of the 10th century BCE.
Neil Rosenstein: The Lurie Legacy:The House of Davidic Royal Descent
Posted by Djehuti (Member # 6698) on :
^ But you understand my skepticism. According to Jewish tradition all the tribal records in the Jerusalem temple were destroyed (or stolen according to one Jewish conspiracy theory). That's not to say this Lurie family tree is wrong or unauthentic.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
One must always remain a bit skeptical about these kinds of claims. One have to see what documents they used, before one can buy into all claims.
Especially when it comes to claims of people being able to trace their lineages all the way back to Biblical times. It has been rather common that some groups want to claim that they descend from ancient Hebrews, Israelites, Judeans and similar.
In old times here in Europe such thinking was quite popular. Where I live there were learned men who speculated about that Scandinavians descended directly from the tribes of Israel. Some went so far as to say that the old Hebrews were from Sweden and that places like the Garden of Eden once were located in Sweden. Another learned man b t w claimed that the worlds oldest building was the old Church of Uppsala. According to him it was a pagan temple before it became a church and before that it was the temple of Atlantis.
Still today groups that have no provable descent from the ancient Levant still claim they descend from ancient Hebrews and Israelites. Some people seem to need to feel that connection out of religious or other reasons.
But the Lurie book seems interesting and it would be interesting to read and see what kind of documents the author has used.
Posted by Archeopteryx (Member # 23193) on :
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Is this the same family as the kabbalist sage Isaac Luria??
It seems the connection is somewhat unclear:
quote:Although one obscure tradition suggests the name arose from the Hebrew phrase “le-or Yah” — “by God’s light” — Rosenstein considers it more likely that the name derived from the name of the town of Loire on the Rhone River. Illustrious personages bearing variants of the name — such as Lourie, Luria, Loria, Lorie and Lurya — include the Nobel Prize-winning Italian physician Salvador Luria (1912-1991) and internationally renowned political cartoonist Ranan Lurie, who penned the book’s preface. However, Rosenstein cautions that numerous prominent Luries, including the famous 16th-century kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Lurie of Safed, known as the Ari, cannot yet be connected to the clan with historical accuracy. Another important relation is Rebecca Lipa Anikster, whose unique 19th-century Yiddish-Hebrew autobiography, “Zecher Olam,” is painstakingly reproduced in the book and translated in full.
