Conflicting Genealogies of Jesus. How Come?
Israelite Genealogies
An Old Testament tradition underpinning the notion of a "chosen" people, ancestral genealogies were mandatory in ancient Israel to prove "purity" of blood descent. Since ancient Israel was arguably the world's most patriarchal society, Israelite genealogies were strictly paternal. As the lawyers of their day, responsible for compiling genealogies, Jewish scribes were notoriously creative. An invaluable trait when the subject's biological father was either unknown or an embarrassment.
So well-known was the prophecy that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David, two of the four Gospels, Matthew and Luke, include genealogies to authentic Jesus' Davidic heritage. While both authors insist Joseph was only Jesus' step-father, they fail to name Jesus' biological father. Such an obvious omission strongly suggests the lists of names were compiled for pedagogical reasons. Matthew's list of ancestors begins with Abraham, the so-called Father of Faith; Luke traces Jesus back to Adam, the supposed first man. But it was not necessary for an Israelite genealogy to go back as far as Abraham, and none that did would be believed.
Virgin Birth
According to the early Church's doctrinal position, Matthew and Luke do not name Jesus' biological father because he had none. Mary's perpetual virginity was justified mainly by use of the Greek word for €virgin€ in the infancy narratives when a literal reading of €virgin" was entirely out of context. All Jewish girls were described as virgins before marriage, and nothing extraordinary was invoked by use of the word.
Absent an explicit identification of the father, the Church was able to force its own interpretation onto the text. In an ancient world accustomed to tales of gods descending to earth to impregnate women, virgin birth was an ideal vehicle with which to derail or forestall questions about the biological father.
Some scholars still insist Matthew and Luke advocate a virgin birth. And because virgin birth is so totally alien to Judaic thought, it is assumed Luke was a pagan convert. No one has yet explained from where Matthew got the idea; nor has anyone clarified why the word €virgin€ is no longer used to describe Mary after Jesus was born, which was the whole point of the doctrine.
Ironically, the dynamics of how Mary conceived a child while preserving her virginity intact provided fertile breeding ground for all manner of cerebral hypotheses by Greek-speaking intellectuals. In due course, the world was introduced to the high theological concept of the Trinity. Simultaneously God, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus was the world's first and only hermetically sealed individual; spontaneously generated inside the womb of his mother; without sexual intercourse, lacking the sperm, chromosomes, and DNA of a human father, and devoid of the particular genetic signature of a paternal ancestry.
Nonetheless, by its very existence a family tree or genealogy constituted proof that the subject's father was known. Virgin birth not only negates the centrality of the bloodline principle upon which messianic Judaism was founded, it contradicts the requirement for genealogies.
The Davidic Divide
Since biblical genealogies do not make scintillating reading (so and so begat so and so etc), most readers skip them altogether. But anyone taking the time to study the genealogies of Jesus will notice Matthew and Luke differ not only on the identity of Joseph's father, whose name was presumably in living memory, but on the entire Davidic lineage.
Several unconvincing solutions to this thorny problem are offered. A Google search confirms the following explanation as the most popular: Matthew's genealogy follows Old Testament tradition so lists the names of Joseph's forefathers. Luke, on the other hand, cites Mary's paternal ancestry - despite no precedent for maternal genealogies existing anywhere in the archives of Judaism. Though extremely knowledgeable about Israelite history, Luke, we are told, was not as "Jewish" as Matthew, so observed customs less rigorously.
For skeptics, the gross discrepancies between the lists of names proves that at least one, if not both, genealogies is fraudulent. Believers nor skeptics, however, have explained why Luke prefers the relatively unknown Nathan as Jesus' predecessor over his brother, the greatly revered and much-loved Israelite hero King Solomon of whom the Old Testament famously prophesies, €the throne of King Solomon would last forever over Israel€ (I Chronicles 22: 9-10), or why Matthew includes the somewhat obscure name of Jeconiah, of whom the prophet Jeremiah predicts, €He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, or rule anymore in Judah€ (Jeremiah 22:30).
In compiling their genealogies, Matthew and Luke patently utilized sources from different traditions in circulation during the first century. Even though both genealogies purport to fulfill the messianic prophesy, it is safe to say that neither source tradition represents mainstream Judaism of that period.
Matthew
Without exception, Israelite genealogies precluded the names of women. Names of Gentile, or non-Israelite, women were therefore unthinkable. So how come Matthew names four foreign women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the €wife of Uriah€ (Bathsheba) in the pre-monarchic (from Abraham to David) list of Jesus' ancestors? The standard theological response to this anomaly is that Matthew cites these foreigners to emphasize Jesus as a savior for the whole world, not only Jews. A pious ideal, but one which conveniently overlooks the racial exclusivity expressed by Matthew's adult Jesus:
€Go nowhere among the Gentiles... but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.€ (Mt 10:6-7)
€I have come only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel.€ (Mt 15:24)
Each of these four women violated sacrosanct rules of sexual conduct which made them liable to punishment by death according to the Law of Moses. As described in the Old Testament, Tamar seduced her father-in-law; Rahab was a €prostitute;€ the unmarried Ruth sneaked into Boaz's bed; and Bathsheba was an adulteress. Yet all of them are regarded by Jews as heroines of Israel as they risked their lives to further the Israelite cause. The Bible describes how Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba willingly participate in scandalous liaisons that produce offspring with men of a specific Israelite bloodline. Matthew's source for Rahab's role in this messianic lineage is unknown.
Reportedly, the Israelite forefathers had no foreknowledge of these foreign women's "sacred mission.€ So, while the mission's success did not depend entirely on non-Israelites, the provenance of the "sacred mission" did.
Luke
Luke's pre-monarchic genealogy is basically the same as Matthew's (minus the four foreign women), except Jesus' ancestry is traced all the way back to €Adam, son of God.€ As Israelite genealogies did not trace back to God, the €son of God€ phraseology is usually attributed to pagan influences. Full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, has proven that divine begetting was thematic to the particular school of Judaism that secreted away its sacred texts among the caves at Qumran before the Roman army arrived in 68 C.E.
"When God has begotten the Messiah among them." (1QSa 2:11)
Not by chance does Luke list 77 names in Jesus' genealogy. A prophecy in the apocalyptic Book of Enoch, also found at Qumran, foretells that the Messiah would deliver Israel 77 generations after the fall of the angels (1 Enoch 10:11-12). Enoch also predicts the coming of an eschatological €Elect One;€ Luke is the only other writer to apply the same epithet to Jesus (Lk 9:35).
Because so much of its content was paraphrased, even quoted, in the New Testament, until recently scholars believed the Book of Enoch originated in the beginnings of the Christian era. With the discov
An Old Testament tradition underpinning the notion of a "chosen" people, ancestral genealogies were mandatory in ancient Israel to prove "purity" of blood descent. Since ancient Israel was arguably the world's most patriarchal society, Israelite genealogies were strictly paternal. As the lawyers of their day, responsible for compiling genealogies, Jewish scribes were notoriously creative. An invaluable trait when the subject's biological father was either unknown or an embarrassment.
So well-known was the prophecy that the Messiah would be a descendant of King David, two of the four Gospels, Matthew and Luke, include genealogies to authentic Jesus' Davidic heritage. While both authors insist Joseph was only Jesus' step-father, they fail to name Jesus' biological father. Such an obvious omission strongly suggests the lists of names were compiled for pedagogical reasons. Matthew's list of ancestors begins with Abraham, the so-called Father of Faith; Luke traces Jesus back to Adam, the supposed first man. But it was not necessary for an Israelite genealogy to go back as far as Abraham, and none that did would be believed.
Virgin Birth
According to the early Church's doctrinal position, Matthew and Luke do not name Jesus' biological father because he had none. Mary's perpetual virginity was justified mainly by use of the Greek word for €virgin€ in the infancy narratives when a literal reading of €virgin" was entirely out of context. All Jewish girls were described as virgins before marriage, and nothing extraordinary was invoked by use of the word.
Absent an explicit identification of the father, the Church was able to force its own interpretation onto the text. In an ancient world accustomed to tales of gods descending to earth to impregnate women, virgin birth was an ideal vehicle with which to derail or forestall questions about the biological father.
Some scholars still insist Matthew and Luke advocate a virgin birth. And because virgin birth is so totally alien to Judaic thought, it is assumed Luke was a pagan convert. No one has yet explained from where Matthew got the idea; nor has anyone clarified why the word €virgin€ is no longer used to describe Mary after Jesus was born, which was the whole point of the doctrine.
Ironically, the dynamics of how Mary conceived a child while preserving her virginity intact provided fertile breeding ground for all manner of cerebral hypotheses by Greek-speaking intellectuals. In due course, the world was introduced to the high theological concept of the Trinity. Simultaneously God, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus was the world's first and only hermetically sealed individual; spontaneously generated inside the womb of his mother; without sexual intercourse, lacking the sperm, chromosomes, and DNA of a human father, and devoid of the particular genetic signature of a paternal ancestry.
Nonetheless, by its very existence a family tree or genealogy constituted proof that the subject's father was known. Virgin birth not only negates the centrality of the bloodline principle upon which messianic Judaism was founded, it contradicts the requirement for genealogies.
The Davidic Divide
Since biblical genealogies do not make scintillating reading (so and so begat so and so etc), most readers skip them altogether. But anyone taking the time to study the genealogies of Jesus will notice Matthew and Luke differ not only on the identity of Joseph's father, whose name was presumably in living memory, but on the entire Davidic lineage.
Several unconvincing solutions to this thorny problem are offered. A Google search confirms the following explanation as the most popular: Matthew's genealogy follows Old Testament tradition so lists the names of Joseph's forefathers. Luke, on the other hand, cites Mary's paternal ancestry - despite no precedent for maternal genealogies existing anywhere in the archives of Judaism. Though extremely knowledgeable about Israelite history, Luke, we are told, was not as "Jewish" as Matthew, so observed customs less rigorously.
For skeptics, the gross discrepancies between the lists of names proves that at least one, if not both, genealogies is fraudulent. Believers nor skeptics, however, have explained why Luke prefers the relatively unknown Nathan as Jesus' predecessor over his brother, the greatly revered and much-loved Israelite hero King Solomon of whom the Old Testament famously prophesies, €the throne of King Solomon would last forever over Israel€ (I Chronicles 22: 9-10), or why Matthew includes the somewhat obscure name of Jeconiah, of whom the prophet Jeremiah predicts, €He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David, or rule anymore in Judah€ (Jeremiah 22:30).
In compiling their genealogies, Matthew and Luke patently utilized sources from different traditions in circulation during the first century. Even though both genealogies purport to fulfill the messianic prophesy, it is safe to say that neither source tradition represents mainstream Judaism of that period.
Matthew
Without exception, Israelite genealogies precluded the names of women. Names of Gentile, or non-Israelite, women were therefore unthinkable. So how come Matthew names four foreign women, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the €wife of Uriah€ (Bathsheba) in the pre-monarchic (from Abraham to David) list of Jesus' ancestors? The standard theological response to this anomaly is that Matthew cites these foreigners to emphasize Jesus as a savior for the whole world, not only Jews. A pious ideal, but one which conveniently overlooks the racial exclusivity expressed by Matthew's adult Jesus:
€Go nowhere among the Gentiles... but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.€ (Mt 10:6-7)
€I have come only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel.€ (Mt 15:24)
Each of these four women violated sacrosanct rules of sexual conduct which made them liable to punishment by death according to the Law of Moses. As described in the Old Testament, Tamar seduced her father-in-law; Rahab was a €prostitute;€ the unmarried Ruth sneaked into Boaz's bed; and Bathsheba was an adulteress. Yet all of them are regarded by Jews as heroines of Israel as they risked their lives to further the Israelite cause. The Bible describes how Tamar, Ruth, and Bathsheba willingly participate in scandalous liaisons that produce offspring with men of a specific Israelite bloodline. Matthew's source for Rahab's role in this messianic lineage is unknown.
Reportedly, the Israelite forefathers had no foreknowledge of these foreign women's "sacred mission.€ So, while the mission's success did not depend entirely on non-Israelites, the provenance of the "sacred mission" did.
Luke
Luke's pre-monarchic genealogy is basically the same as Matthew's (minus the four foreign women), except Jesus' ancestry is traced all the way back to €Adam, son of God.€ As Israelite genealogies did not trace back to God, the €son of God€ phraseology is usually attributed to pagan influences. Full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, has proven that divine begetting was thematic to the particular school of Judaism that secreted away its sacred texts among the caves at Qumran before the Roman army arrived in 68 C.E.
"When God has begotten the Messiah among them." (1QSa 2:11)
Not by chance does Luke list 77 names in Jesus' genealogy. A prophecy in the apocalyptic Book of Enoch, also found at Qumran, foretells that the Messiah would deliver Israel 77 generations after the fall of the angels (1 Enoch 10:11-12). Enoch also predicts the coming of an eschatological €Elect One;€ Luke is the only other writer to apply the same epithet to Jesus (Lk 9:35).
Because so much of its content was paraphrased, even quoted, in the New Testament, until recently scholars believed the Book of Enoch originated in the beginnings of the Christian era. With the discov
