Clarphimous
2006-02-04, 21:33
I started out typing this for Digital_Savior, and then I got tired and went off to do other things. Then, on another forum I read somebody else having an argument about the geneologies, and finished the short essay. So here goes...
Edit: this isn't necessarily directed at DS. It's for anyone and everyone to read and respond to.
There are two passages in the New Testament that describe Jesus' geneology. One is Matthew 1:1-17 and the other is Luke 3:23-38. Matthew lists 41 direct male line descendents from Abraham to Jesus. Luke has 20 ancestors from Adam to Terah, and 56 from Abraham to Jesus for a total of 76. It is only necessary to compare the two geneologies from Abraham to Jesus, but before I get to that I'd like to note that there is an additional name between Adam and Terah not found in the Genesis geneology. Cainan is mentioned twice: once as the son of Enosh, as he is in Genesis, and a second time as the son of Arpachshad. Most Bible scholars consider this to be a copyist's error.
Matthew has his geneology split up into 3 groups of about 14, with a significant event at the beginning and end of each division. Abraham marked the beginning of Judaism, David was the great king who led Israel to its highest power in those times, and Jeconiah was a Jewish king who was sent into exile for the Babylonian captivity. And of course, at the end of the list you have Jesus. In the first section from Abraham to David, everything matches both the Luke's and the Old Testament's lists. But after David, the two geneologies follow different sons. Also, four of the kings in Matthew's list are skipped in order to produce the magic number of 14. Like the previous mistake with Cainan, this doesn't affect the general truthfulness of the list, but it's still not right. When counting the number of actual generations, I'll use 18 for the group from David's son Solomon to Jeconiah.
After Jeconiah, we have two names that will be significant later. These are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. Following these two are 11 more descendants, the last of which is Jesus. Of these, only Jesus and Joseph are found elsewhere in the Bible. If the other 9 names were not fabricated, then the author of Matthew may have shortened this part of the list as he did to the second part. Since there are only actually 13 names in this last part, probably one of them has been lost or the author of Matthew felt that he could count Jeconiah as one of the 14.
Now let's review Luke's geneology. There are 42 people from Nathan to Jesus. Once again we find the father/son pair named Shealtiel and Zerubabbel, but these two do not seem to have the same ancestry as the ones mentioned in Matthew. It does seem to be a strange coincidence though, doesn't it? Aside from the possibility of these two, none of the ancestors between Nathan and Joseph have any mention elsewhere in the Bible.
It is estimated that King David was born around 1040 B.C. Jesus is believed to have been born around 6 B.C. Jeconiah, the king of Judah who was sent into exile ruled in 598 B.C. Assuming that he was 18 when he became king, he would have been born around 616 B.C. Now I can make a few quick calculations to see what the average age of the father was at the time the son was born.
Matthew's geneology:
David to Jeconiah -- 1040 - 616 = 424; 424 / 18 = 23.6
Jeconiah to Jesus -- 616 - 6 = 610; 610 / 13 = 46.9
David to Jesus -- (424 + 610) / (18 + 13) = 33.4
Luke's geneology:
David to Jesus -- 1040 - 6 = 1034; 1034 / 42 = 24.6
What this tells us is that the author of Matthew probably DID remove many names from Jeconiah to Jesus, or he just made up the names. People didn't live very long back then, and so they tended to marry early. Luke has a much more reasonable number of men in his geneology, suggesting either that his geneology is fairly accurate or he was clever enough to figure out how many names would be needed.
An important thing about the authors of Matthew and Luke is their differing backgrounds. Most Bible scholars agree that the author of Matthew was Jewish, and Luke was a gentile. You can even notice this difference in the geneologies -- Matthew starts with Abraham, where Judaism begins, and follows it down the line of kings of Judah. Luke begins with Adam, the first man, and only follows the Jewishness of the line down to David, where he veers off with Nathan. However, there is one thing that both have in common when it comes to the geneologies. They both had read the Prophesy of Aggeus. You've probably never heard of it, but it is critical to understanding Salathiel and Zerubabbel.
A common complaint about Matthew's geneology is that it traces it down through Jeconiah, who had supposedly been cursed in such a way that Jesus could not be his descendant. So why did Matthew do it that way if it would invalidate Jesus' claim to be the Jewish Messiah?
http://www.tldm.org/bible/Old%20Testament/aggeus.htm
Here you can read about how God blesses Zerubabbel for his faith, and it actually states that he is of the Messaniac line. It is because of this document that Matthew used Jeconiah as the ancestor of Jesus. And it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to understand why Salathiel and Zerubabbel are seemingly inserted into Luke's geneology. Notice that the Prophesy of Aggeus only mentions those two, and not any of their other ancestors/descendants. Luke, being a gentile without knowledge of Zerubabbel's grandfather being Jeconiah, simply inserted those two names into his geneology.
I find it interesting to wonder why Luke, and maybe Matthew, would fabricate their geneologies. You might think that they thought honesty would be more important than proving Jesus' Messiahhood, but then again, maybe not. Perhaps they thought that God would inspire them with the right names to put in their lists. Whatever the case, I believe that some of the names probably have originated from Matthew and Luke themselves.
Christians intent on proving the "inerrancy" of the Bible have made many attempts to reconcile the two geneologies. The most popular I've heard is that Luke's geneology is through Mary, and Matthew's is through Joseph. This requires a bit of playing with words, in particular the part in Luke 3:23 where it says "... Joseph, son of Heli..." They say that this actually means "son-in-law" instead of "son." Not only is there no indication from Luke that this is the case, but Mary's cousin is supposed to have been a Levite, and therefore not of the tribe of Judah. The odds are that Mary was a Levite herself, although this is not known with absolute certainty.
Another more interesting solution comes from the Peshitta. According to those who think that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, the word in Matthew typically translated as "husband" could also mean "father." The verse in particular I'm talking about is Matthew 1:16.
"...Jacob of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus called Messiah."
Inserting "father" in place of "husband" would seem to make Joseph the name of Mary's father. This also would make a total of 14 descendants for the last group of Matthew's geneology.
There are three problems with this idea, however. The first is simply the fact that by claiming Matthew was written in Aramaic, you're inserting another layer of translation which allows for more liberal interpretations to be made up. I've heard that Mark, the oldest of the gospels, may have originally been written in Aramaic, but Matthew is a lot more iffy. The second problem is the probability of Joseph being the name of both Mary's father and husband. And you would think that if that were the case, an author writing in Aramaic would make it clear that the one being referred to is the father to prevent ambiguity of terms. But no such distinction is made. The third reason why Matthew probably didn't mean Joseph to be Mary's father is because Matthew is a Jewish author writing to a Jewish audience, trying to prove Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah. And to trace Jesus' Davidic heritage down through his mother would not convince the many Jews out there who interpreted their religion so strictly.
[This message has been edited by Clarphimous (edited 02-04-2006).]
Edit: this isn't necessarily directed at DS. It's for anyone and everyone to read and respond to.
There are two passages in the New Testament that describe Jesus' geneology. One is Matthew 1:1-17 and the other is Luke 3:23-38. Matthew lists 41 direct male line descendents from Abraham to Jesus. Luke has 20 ancestors from Adam to Terah, and 56 from Abraham to Jesus for a total of 76. It is only necessary to compare the two geneologies from Abraham to Jesus, but before I get to that I'd like to note that there is an additional name between Adam and Terah not found in the Genesis geneology. Cainan is mentioned twice: once as the son of Enosh, as he is in Genesis, and a second time as the son of Arpachshad. Most Bible scholars consider this to be a copyist's error.
Matthew has his geneology split up into 3 groups of about 14, with a significant event at the beginning and end of each division. Abraham marked the beginning of Judaism, David was the great king who led Israel to its highest power in those times, and Jeconiah was a Jewish king who was sent into exile for the Babylonian captivity. And of course, at the end of the list you have Jesus. In the first section from Abraham to David, everything matches both the Luke's and the Old Testament's lists. But after David, the two geneologies follow different sons. Also, four of the kings in Matthew's list are skipped in order to produce the magic number of 14. Like the previous mistake with Cainan, this doesn't affect the general truthfulness of the list, but it's still not right. When counting the number of actual generations, I'll use 18 for the group from David's son Solomon to Jeconiah.
After Jeconiah, we have two names that will be significant later. These are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. Following these two are 11 more descendants, the last of which is Jesus. Of these, only Jesus and Joseph are found elsewhere in the Bible. If the other 9 names were not fabricated, then the author of Matthew may have shortened this part of the list as he did to the second part. Since there are only actually 13 names in this last part, probably one of them has been lost or the author of Matthew felt that he could count Jeconiah as one of the 14.
Now let's review Luke's geneology. There are 42 people from Nathan to Jesus. Once again we find the father/son pair named Shealtiel and Zerubabbel, but these two do not seem to have the same ancestry as the ones mentioned in Matthew. It does seem to be a strange coincidence though, doesn't it? Aside from the possibility of these two, none of the ancestors between Nathan and Joseph have any mention elsewhere in the Bible.
It is estimated that King David was born around 1040 B.C. Jesus is believed to have been born around 6 B.C. Jeconiah, the king of Judah who was sent into exile ruled in 598 B.C. Assuming that he was 18 when he became king, he would have been born around 616 B.C. Now I can make a few quick calculations to see what the average age of the father was at the time the son was born.
Matthew's geneology:
David to Jeconiah -- 1040 - 616 = 424; 424 / 18 = 23.6
Jeconiah to Jesus -- 616 - 6 = 610; 610 / 13 = 46.9
David to Jesus -- (424 + 610) / (18 + 13) = 33.4
Luke's geneology:
David to Jesus -- 1040 - 6 = 1034; 1034 / 42 = 24.6
What this tells us is that the author of Matthew probably DID remove many names from Jeconiah to Jesus, or he just made up the names. People didn't live very long back then, and so they tended to marry early. Luke has a much more reasonable number of men in his geneology, suggesting either that his geneology is fairly accurate or he was clever enough to figure out how many names would be needed.
An important thing about the authors of Matthew and Luke is their differing backgrounds. Most Bible scholars agree that the author of Matthew was Jewish, and Luke was a gentile. You can even notice this difference in the geneologies -- Matthew starts with Abraham, where Judaism begins, and follows it down the line of kings of Judah. Luke begins with Adam, the first man, and only follows the Jewishness of the line down to David, where he veers off with Nathan. However, there is one thing that both have in common when it comes to the geneologies. They both had read the Prophesy of Aggeus. You've probably never heard of it, but it is critical to understanding Salathiel and Zerubabbel.
A common complaint about Matthew's geneology is that it traces it down through Jeconiah, who had supposedly been cursed in such a way that Jesus could not be his descendant. So why did Matthew do it that way if it would invalidate Jesus' claim to be the Jewish Messiah?
http://www.tldm.org/bible/Old%20Testament/aggeus.htm
Here you can read about how God blesses Zerubabbel for his faith, and it actually states that he is of the Messaniac line. It is because of this document that Matthew used Jeconiah as the ancestor of Jesus. And it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to understand why Salathiel and Zerubabbel are seemingly inserted into Luke's geneology. Notice that the Prophesy of Aggeus only mentions those two, and not any of their other ancestors/descendants. Luke, being a gentile without knowledge of Zerubabbel's grandfather being Jeconiah, simply inserted those two names into his geneology.
I find it interesting to wonder why Luke, and maybe Matthew, would fabricate their geneologies. You might think that they thought honesty would be more important than proving Jesus' Messiahhood, but then again, maybe not. Perhaps they thought that God would inspire them with the right names to put in their lists. Whatever the case, I believe that some of the names probably have originated from Matthew and Luke themselves.
Christians intent on proving the "inerrancy" of the Bible have made many attempts to reconcile the two geneologies. The most popular I've heard is that Luke's geneology is through Mary, and Matthew's is through Joseph. This requires a bit of playing with words, in particular the part in Luke 3:23 where it says "... Joseph, son of Heli..." They say that this actually means "son-in-law" instead of "son." Not only is there no indication from Luke that this is the case, but Mary's cousin is supposed to have been a Levite, and therefore not of the tribe of Judah. The odds are that Mary was a Levite herself, although this is not known with absolute certainty.
Another more interesting solution comes from the Peshitta. According to those who think that the New Testament was originally written in Aramaic, the word in Matthew typically translated as "husband" could also mean "father." The verse in particular I'm talking about is Matthew 1:16.
"...Jacob of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus called Messiah."
Inserting "father" in place of "husband" would seem to make Joseph the name of Mary's father. This also would make a total of 14 descendants for the last group of Matthew's geneology.
There are three problems with this idea, however. The first is simply the fact that by claiming Matthew was written in Aramaic, you're inserting another layer of translation which allows for more liberal interpretations to be made up. I've heard that Mark, the oldest of the gospels, may have originally been written in Aramaic, but Matthew is a lot more iffy. The second problem is the probability of Joseph being the name of both Mary's father and husband. And you would think that if that were the case, an author writing in Aramaic would make it clear that the one being referred to is the father to prevent ambiguity of terms. But no such distinction is made. The third reason why Matthew probably didn't mean Joseph to be Mary's father is because Matthew is a Jewish author writing to a Jewish audience, trying to prove Jesus to be the Jewish Messiah. And to trace Jesus' Davidic heritage down through his mother would not convince the many Jews out there who interpreted their religion so strictly.
[This message has been edited by Clarphimous (edited 02-04-2006).]