Adventist Youth Honors Answer Book/Arts and Crafts/Genealogy - Advanced

Genealogy - Advanced
Arts and Crafts North American Division	Skill Level 3
	Year of Introduction: 2006

Contents

1. Have the Genealogy Honor

Instructions and tips for earning the Genealogy honor can be found in the Arts and Crafts chapter.

2. Define a primary source versus a secondary source for documentation.

A primary source (also called original source) is a document, recording or other source of information (paper, picture,....etc.) that was created at the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described. It serves as an original source of information about the topic. Primary sources are distinguished from secondary sources, which often cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources.

Examples would include:

• Birth, Marriage, and Death certificates
• Family Bibles (if recorded by someone witnessing the event shortly after it occurred.
• Letters describing the events as they are taking place by a person involved.

A secondary source is a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. A secondary source contrasts with a primary source, which is an original source of the information being discussed. Secondary sources involve generalization, analysis, synthesis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information. Primary and secondary are relative terms, and some sources may be classified as primary or secondary, depending on how it is used.

Examples include:

• History books
• Encyclopedias
• Letters written well after the event
• Oral histories as told by someone without first-hand knowledge of the event.

3. What is the purpose of documentation?

• To check and validate the data.
• By using documented data you won't run the risk of duplicating efforts that someone else has made.
• To pass on the information to future generations.
• Satisfaction of viewing actual artifacts.
• Others can help you continue your search if you reach a perceived dead end.

11. Where in the Bible does it say not to spend time on fables and endless genealogies? What does the Seventh-day Adventist Commentary list as the reason for this advice?

1 Timothy 1:3,4 (NIV)
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work—which is by faith.

Paul also mentioned this in Titus:

Titus 3:9 (NIV)
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.

The SDA Commentary suggests that Paul was cautioning against the common practice among the Jews to attempt to trace their ancestry back to "a Davidic or priestly heritage." It further states that "Much of Jewish teaching and preaching was based on finely spun allegories that pleased the fancies of the people without feeding their souls." - Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 7, pg 288.

In other words, he was cautioning against the belief that salvation was a matter of lineage, and therefore, the Sons of Abraham did not need to repent. John the Baptist also cautioned them against this in Matthew 3:9:

Matthew 3:9 (NIV)
And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.