In his little book, Portraits of God, Harold T. Bryson tells boys who asked their minister for a service project where they could help somebody. The minister gave them the name of a blind man who wanted someone to read the Bible to him.

When the boys arrived at the blind man’s house, they agreed that over a period of time, they would read the entire New Testament to him. However, when they started reading the first chapter of Matthew, they quickly came to all the “begets” and begats”. Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judah - and so on. When they looked down the pages and realized that there were 17 verses of “begets” and “begats” they decided that they would just skip over the section and get on to the “good stuff” about Jesus’ birth. But the old man said “No,” …