Several passages in the Hebrew Bible (which Christians refer to as the Old Testament) prophesy that David’s throne will be established forever: 2 Samuel 7:12–16; Psalm 89:3–4, 132:11; Isaiah 16:5; and Jeremiah 33:17. Jews, therefore, have taken that to mean that the messiah, the future deliverer of Israel, will be descended from David. Christians interpret these prophecies as having been fulfilled in the person of Jesus, to whom they attach the title Christ (Gr.; Heb. Messiah), the “anointed one” of God.
Christians also make the unique claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, per the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 (which Jews say Christians have misunderstood, the Hebrew word almah not necessarily referring to a person who has not had sexual intercourse).
The Christian confession of these two truths—that Jesus is the messiah in the line of David whom God promised to Israel, and that he was conceived by a virgin—creates some complications of ancestry and inheritance.
How does one reconcile the two very different genealogies of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke?
The Bible contains two different genealogical records for Jesus: one in Matthew (1:1–17), the other in Luke (3:23–38).
Matthew, whose purpose is to present Jesus as king of the Jews, starts with Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation, and traces the line of descent through the royal line of David all the way down to Jesus. He skips several generations, though, omitting the names of some of the wicked kings of Judah.
Luke, in backward fashion, starts with Jesus and moves all the way back to Adam, showing that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hopes of all people.
The problem is, the two lists don’t match. Not even close. Well, they match up until David’s name, then they diverge, with Matthew tracing a line of descent through David’s son Solomon, and Luke tracing a line of descent through David’s son Nathan. They come together again at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, but then they diverge again until finally arriving at Joseph.
Biblical scholars have developed various theories to account for such differences. I’ll summarize the two most common ones.
OPTION 1: Matthew’s genealogy goes through Joseph’s biological father, whereas Luke’s goes through Joseph’s legal father by levirate marriage.
Julius Africanus was the first to attempt a solution to the problem, ca. 225 CE. In his Letter to Aristides he claims that Joseph’s grandfather Mattan was the first husband of a woman named Estha, through whom she bore Jacob, but after Mattan died, she remarried Melchi and bore Heli; Jacob and Heli, therefore, were half brothers. Heli married but then died without any offspring, so Jacob married his brother’s widow, in accordance with the Jewish laws of levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5–10). As the offspring of this levirate union, Joseph would have been seen as a perpetuation of the deceased brother’s line, not that of his natural father.
Because all these relationships Africanus posits are difficult to process in paragraph form, I’ve attempted to render them schematically:
The “Africanus solution” to the two disparate lineages of Jesus presented in the New Testament—the left side showing the names given by Matthew; the right side, those given by Luke. The squiggles represent the omission of multiple generations, for the sake of space, and the parenthetical numerals indicate the sequence of husbands in the given row: each woman’s second marriage was prompted by the death of her first husband.
This theory is still presented as a valid option in Bible commentaries, with several scholars holding to it. One academic paper I found that’s available to online lay readers is “Jesus’ Family and their Genealogy according to the Testimony of Julius Africanus” by New Testament studies scholar Christophe Guignard.
OPTION 2: Matthew’s genealogy traces Joseph’s ancestry; Luke’s traces Mary’s.
It appears to me that this is the most widely accepted view among Christians today, even though it arose later in church history, being initially proposed by John of Damascus in the first half of the eighth century.
The obvious objection to this theory is that Luke explicitly lists Joseph as Jesus’s predecessor, with no mention of Mary: “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli” (Luke 3:23 KJV). Supporters, though, say that the genealogical language is not as precise here as it is in Matthew. The early Greek manuscripts read “Joseph, of Heli”—“the son” is an editorial insertion, acknowledged by italics in the King James Version. Luke does not use the verb gennaō (Hebrew for “to father” or “to beget”) that Matthew uses to describe the relationship between the two generations, which leaves it open to speculation that perhaps Joseph was the son-in-law, not the biological son, of Heli.
The punctuation of this verse was also not present in the original, and some translators suggest that the closed parenthesis belongs after “Joseph” instead of after “supposed,” as in “Jesus . . . being the son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Heli.” With this formulation the implication would be that Jesus’s maternal grandfather, Heli, is his closest male ancestor.
Some commentators have gone even further to suggest that Mary’s father, Heli, had no sons, so he made Joseph his adoptive heir when he and Mary wed. (See Numbers 27:1–11, 1 Chronicles 2:34–35, Ezra 2:61, and Nehemiah 7:63 for Jewish precedents of this practice.)
If Luke really is tracing Mary’s ancestry, then why not just say so? Because like most ancient cultures, the Hebrews omitted women’s names from genealogical records. Luke (unlike Matthew, who very brazenly cites four women in his genealogy for Jesus) is simply following custom by sticking to male names only.
It would have been natural for Luke, who acknowledges the unique case of the virgin birth, to give the maternal genealogy of Jesus, even if that meant expressing it a bit awkwardly in the traditional patrilineal style. Not only that, but Luke’s Gospel often focuses on Mary’s perspective, which has led some to believe that she served as a source for some of its material. The Gospel of Matthew, on the other hand, tends to focus on Joseph’s perspective.
How does one explain the convergence at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel?
Scholars have proposed the possibility of two levirate marriages to solve this problem. Less commonly, it is claimed that the Shealtiel and Zerubbabel in the Lukan genealogy are entirely different individuals than the more famous ones listed by Matthew.
Doesn’t the curse of Jeconiah disqualify Jesus from claiming the throne of David?
One common objection to Jesus’s messianic qualifications is that Matthew traces his descent through Jeconiah (also known as Jehoiachin, or Coniah), whose bloodline was cursed by God in Jeremiah 22:30: “Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.”
In response, some biblical scholars claim that after this curse, the legal right to David’s throne was passed to the house of Nathan—an ancestry that Luke ascribes to Jesus. To use the language of Isaiah, the throne “branched.” God’s unconditional promise to David—that his offspring will reign forever—was still good; it was just transferred to the lineage of a different son of his.
Other scholars, however, argue that the curse of Jeconiah was lifted, as history bore out: the curse said that Jeconiah’s offspring would not rule, yet his grandson Zerubabbel (1 Chronicles 3:16–19) became governor of Judah (Haggai 2:2, 23). Not only that, but after Jeconiah was released from prison, he prospered (Jeremiah 52:31–34), suggesting that God’s favor toward him had returned, perhaps because of his (unrecorded) repentance. Rabbinical tradition actually supports this view.
Or else scholars claim that the curse was meant only for the lifetime of Jeconiah: Jeremiah 22:30 says that he would not see his descendants on the throne “in his days.” Or perhaps the curse applied only to those immediately fathered by Jeconiah, which is why his son Shealtiel never held power but his grandson did.
These same scholars point out that for Matthew, Jesus’s standing as the Jewish messiah is predicated on his descent from the royal line of David, which included Jeconiah. Matthew certainly would have been aware of the curse, yet he felt no need to explain his inclusion of the name in Jesus’s genealogy; to him the curse was apparently a nonissue.
If Jesus is not the natural son of Joseph, then how does he have any right to David’s throne?
Opponents of Jesus’s messianic claims say that only gene-carrying descendants of the royal line of David are eligible to inherit the throne of Israel. This is simply not true. It was not unusual for a king to adopt an heir to his throne when he lacked natural children, and furthermore, the laws of levirate marriage stipulated that if a childless widow were to marry her deceased husband’s brother, her first husband’s name and inheritance would be passed on to the child of that union. Legal and kinship standing, therefore, was related to either genes or adoption or marriage.
Even though Jesus didn’t share Joseph’s DNA, he was Joseph’s adopted son, and as such he would have been David’s legal royal heir through Solomon.
Those who believe the curse of Jeconiah is still in effect, however, would claim that Jesus’s maternal connection to David is of utmost importance because it is through Mary that he inherits the throne. Even though thrones were inherited through the male line, there were some exceptions, most notably that of the daughters of Zelophehad, who, lacking brothers, became the ancestresses of clans within the tribe of Manasseh that were named after them—Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah.
Why do some people claim that Mary was from the tribe of Levi, not Judah?
Luke 1:5 states, “In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth.” Then later in verse 36, Elizabeth is referred to as a “relative” (syggenēs) of Mary—translated in some versions as “cousin,” even though their precise relationship is unknown. Because a kinswoman of Mary’s belonged to the priestly tribe of Levi, it is sometimes assumed that she, too, was a Levite.
Some Christians have latched on to this speculation as supportive of the notion that Jesus came to earth as both king (from Judah) and priest (from Levi).
Church tradition and modern scholarship, however, maintain that Mary was from the tribe of Judah, not Levi, and the house of David. The apostle Paul seems to support this view in Romans 1:3, where he writes that Jesus was descended from David “according to the flesh.”
Just because Mary had a relative from outside Judah does not mean that she, too, hailed from outside. Mary’s mother was likely from Levi but married into the line of Judah. Here are just two of several possible scenarios I sketched out to explain Mary’s relationship to Elizabeth, with her Judahite affiliation still intact.
*****
Christians often insist vigorously on the critical importance of both genealogies, and how only together can they show that Jesus is uniquely qualified to be the messiah. I disagree: both genealogies show Jesus’s descent from David, which is what was repeatedly prophesied, so either one, I think, is sufficient to establish Jesus’s messianic eligibility. I don’t know whether Jesus inherited the throne through Joseph or through Mary, and—perhaps controversially—I don’t think it matters, so long as we see that he is on the throne, the Son of David, the Root of Jesse.
People get caught up in tracing the “royal line,” but it’s not clear where that line went after the end of the monarchy in the sixth century BCE—whether it was to stay with Solomon’s descendants or, because of God’s frustration with Jeconiah, branch over to Nathan’s. All we know is that
the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” (Jeremiah 23:5–6)
The Jesus Question 
Great article. I’d heard the argument about the curse of Jeconiah, but hadn’t really made an effort to find the Christian counter-argument. Thanks for that!
Also, it’s interesting that St. John of Damascus seems to have initially made the argument for Luke’s genealogy following Mary’s descent. According to ancient tradition (accepted by both Catholic and Orthodox churches), Mary’s parents were Sts. Joachim and Anna. Do you know if St. John of Damascus made reference to this tradition when proposing his theory?
Good point. I remember Anne and Joachim from my Renaissance art class. 🙂 I’m not sure what John of Damascus said, but I did come across people who’ve tried to resolve the discrepancy between Heli (from Luke) and Joachim (from church tradition). They say that the two names are linguistically related, such that it would be natural for a man to go by both names. “Joachim” is supposedly a variant form of “Eliachim,” which is abbreviated “Eli,” a variant of “Heli.” The Catholic Encyclopedia makes this claim. See also this page from The Life and Glories of Saint Joseph.
I don’t have the necessary learning to determine the validity of this claim, but even if it is a stretch, we do see in the New Testament several individuals who have two names that are used for them interchangeably, like Nathanael (Bartholomew), Thomas (Didymus), and Salome (Mary). It’s possible that could be at play here?
Wow, amazing, knowing the lineage of Jesus Christ Our Lord & Savior! And coming down to the Kings & Queens. And understanding the destiny of Queen Elizabeth the 2nd. Which she has carried out to the fullest! When we are given duties from The Father, we are to step out in faith and trust & love, that he will carry us all the way!
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Regarding the statement:in this article:
“Christians also make the unique claim that Jesus was born of a virgin, per the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 (which Jews say Christians have misunderstood, the Hebrew word almah not necessarily referring to a person who has not had sexual intercourse).”
Firstly, that Christians make a unique claim that Jesus was born of a virgin is not unique, in the Hebrew Bible (aka the Old Testament) itself states in Genesis 3:15 ‘And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ The position that is described here is impossible as a woman cannot have a seed, plus a Female alone cannot have a male child, therefore only God or a fallen angel can be the father (See Genisis 6:2 KJV ‘That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.’). Iaaiah 9 eliminates the possibility of this being the offspring of a fallen angel:
Isaiah 9:6 KJV
6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Secondly, in Luke 1:3, Mary herself confirms that she had never been with a man (even a pragmatic Jew would agree, this would make her a virgin 4:
Luke 1:34 KJV
Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
The prophecy of Isaiah 7 was fulfilled by the birth of Manasseh, who was a type of Christ. The virgin, in this case, is Israel, just as in Revelation 12.
The immediate context is the Syro-Ephramitic war. The land was forsaken of both her kings in 723 for the captivity of Hoshea and 677 BC for the captivity of Manasseh.
Ask thee a sign of the LORD thy God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the LORD. And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also? Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her kings. The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria. (Isa 7:11-17)
Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hephzibah. (2Ki 21:1)
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee. (Isa 62:4-5)
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.(Rev 12:1-6)
IMHO: The “woman in heaven” is the constellation Virgo (Latin for maiden/virgin) and represents redeemed Israel. In Rev 12:1 the sun has passed into the midst of Virgo, the moon has come beneath her feet. The twelve stars (presumably Mercury, Venus, Mars, and the nine stars forming the constellation Leo the lion) have appeared above her head. The dragon in heaven is the constellation Hydra (“water serpent”), representing Satan. The man-child is of course Jesus, “born” of Israel. This battle started in heaven, and spread to earth when Satan was exiled here (“cast down,” Rev 12:9). This flight of Israel will occur at a time future to today. This is the gospel written in the stars!
Galinda noted: “Jesus even quoted Hillel.”
I believe Hillel the Elder said “Do not do unto unt0 others…” whereas Jesus is cited as saying “Do unto others…” (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12). Regardless, I expect numerous religions put forth this idea of fairness / reciprocity.
Psalm 110:1 says,”The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet.'” Whom do you suppose is sitting at God’s right hand?
Galinda noted: “Jesus even quoted Hillel.”
I believe Hillel the Elder said “Do not do unto unt0 others…” whereas Jesus is cited as saying “Do unto others…” (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12). Regardless, I expect numerous
religions put forth this idea of fairness / reciprocity.
Psalm 110:1 says,”The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a foot stool for your feet.'” Whom do you suppose is sitting at God’s right hand?
Isaiah 7:14 Hebrew העלמה = “the marriageable girl” (Koehler Baumgartner Hebrew Dictionary).
Was these references drawn from the Tanakh or from a Christian Bible?
The problem with the Christian Messiah is that he didnt accomplish the Messianic duties which was promised to Israel in the Tanakh.He was to be born normal flesh and blood and not miraculously as in the CB.The word for virgin is betulah but thats not in Tanakh its almah which means a young woman and it’s used in many places in the Tanakh also.The Messiah was supposed to descend from King David from King Solomon,rebuild the temple,gather the lost tribes of Israel,and rule in an era of peace.The temple was destroyed in 70 AD and Jesus Christ never rebuilt it,there was no sign of peace in his days.That’s why we Jews don’t believe in him as the promised one
Thank you for keeping it simple and respectful in your post. I believe Your time frame and understanding of God’s intentions are off. Your description of Tanakh Messiah leaves out the rest of the world, which the Book (Isaiah) clearly includes. Jesus prophesied the long-term destruction of the temple, which came to pass in 70 AD, saying that Israel’s time was up. Abraham is fulfilled in Yeshua. Ruling with peace in this era is internal, the permanent rule of God is not happening in human history until the end. I read the Tanakh and learn what the original hebrew meant, and in context. I ask YhWH to reveal the truth,to me, which is Himself. Ask YHWH to reveal the truth to you as you read the CB once. I believe he will. Surely you’re not afraid of reading Rabbi Jesus, and Rabbi Paul. 🙂
The Messiah has 3 basic functions:
1. A prophet like Moses
2. A non-Kohen “eternal” high priest like Melekh-Tzaddik who brings offerings before God in the third temple
3. The earthly king of Israel’s 12 tribes ruling from Jerusalem when “YaH” returns to “dwell” in the third temple (Ezek 37:15-28)
So, far, he has accomplished number 1 only. Thus, he can be called “Messiah (elect)” [kins of like president elect”] and will become King Messiah upon his taking office in the earthly Kingdom. Shalom.
Yoel Scobak noted:
>Christian Messiah>
Christianity is Jewish. Jesus is Jewish. His disciples were all Jewish. The apostle Paul was Jewish. The early church was Jewish. The gentiles were accepted only after careful consideration. See Acts 10:44-48, 11:4-18.
>He was to be born normal flesh and blood>
Jesus was surely born with normal flesh and blood.
>He didn’t accomplish [all the] the Messianic duties>
He’s not finished yet, rather he is waiting for the full number of Jews and gentiles to be brought into his “sheep fold.”
>It’s almah>
הנה העלמה הרה
“See, the young woman will conceive” (Isaiah 7:14)
Mary was a young woman. “Virgin,” as in the King Janes Version, English of those times, is defined as “an unmarried or chaste maiden or woman.”
>Supposed to descend from King David>
Jesus did descend from King David.
>rebuild lost temple>
Jesus will rebuild the temple, as noted in Zechariah 6:13 and envisioned in Ezekiel chapters 40-47.
>we Jews don’t believe in him>
Some Jews do believe in him, some do not, back then and now.
🙂
you are absolutely right, the claim of a virgin birth, in Isaiah is not referring to the Messiah. There claims not only is the Messiah, he is the Almighty, this is the biggest problem.
Frank Morris noted:
>Isaiah [7:14] is not referring to the Messiah.>
Matthew 1:23 cites Isaiah 7:14, IMO referring to the Messiah.
”Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed……..For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.“
Isaiah 53:1, 3-5, 8, 11-12 NKJV
Very well written article. In my studies of this apparent contradiction of the lineages coming together at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel I discovered a few facts that make it harmonize perfectly. Jeconiah apparently had no real descendants, he was castrated in Babylon fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy to Hezekiah. Obviously, it is very necessary in Jewish culture for the lineage to continue. Though it’s never explicitly stated I believe that he must’ve taken the children of his closest relative to be his own. At this point there must have been very few descendants of Solomon left, Athaliah had killed most of them. He must have reached over and claimed a son of Nathen to continue his lineage.
Very interesting. Is queen Elizabeth the 2nd in lineage with Jesus Christ?
I wonder this also. There is history in the British & Scottish History of Jeremiah coming to the isle bringing the stone of Jacob there with a princess from Israel. It’s easy to look up. There is a hint that Jeremiah is sent on some secret mission from God. Read the end Chapters of Jeremiah yourself see what you think. Its all possible that the UK could have been “a type of Israel” while the real Israel was underwater. Now as Israel is back and gaining function in the world. The UK is losing power. The world may find it needs to build power with Gods Powerful favor toward Israel. Which maybe what leads to the one world order. They may not realize the real reason why they are doing this. The world is afraid of the power of God. The God they denied. But it all hangs on the belief in his son Jesus that he is the savior promised. There is only one way to the universal Father God.
I find the John of Damascus theory to be far fetched given that Luke’s way of getting Jesus born in Bethlehem is reliant on the idea that Joseph was from “the house and lineage of David” (2:4). It would be beyond reason to conclude that in the following chapter, Luke gives us a genealogy of Jesus that starts with Jospeh and goes through David, but is not intended to be the same genealogy of Joseph-David that he mentions in Chapter 2. The simplest explanation for the divergent genealogies appears to be that Matthew and Luke had different opinions on whether the curse of Jeconiah was active.
Luke, Jesus proved the Jeconiah curse was still active and true. Jesus, like all those between him and Jeconiah never sat on the throne as King of Israel. Jesus’s seat on this throne is after this life and for the eternities.
Luke 2:4 mention of lineage has to due with Joesph’s assigned place of temporary abode during the Jerusalem Passover.
Matthew 1:16, when properly translated shows THAT Joseph is the FATHER of Mary, and thus is Mary’s lineage. That leaves Luke 3 her husband Joseph’s lineage.
I have since learned that the Jeconiah, son of Josiah, is the
line Jesus decends from. Where as, the cursed Jeconiah is son of Jehoiakim. There is TWO Jeconiah’s. One cursed, the other not. And Jesus lineage goes throught the one not.
Find explanation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4v1UEZb3Z0
Technically the Bible has three genealogies listed. Matthew chapter 1. Luke chapter 3, and 1 Chronicles chapter 3. Of the three lists, readers of the Scriptures know that Matthew has omitted names for the sake of poetry, Luke’s is the 10 names longer and incorrectly lists Cainan as the son of Arphaxad, and 1 Chronicles extends 9 generations past the Babylonian captivity. I would surmise that the likeliness of childless widows being taken in by kinsman redeemers to continue the eldest son’s lineage is the most probable, though no longer able to be proven, and is one of the things about Jesus being the Christ that must be taken on faith for the Jewish people.
Check out the following: https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter1/16
https://www.conformingtojesus.com/why_are_jesus_genealogies_in_gospels_different.htm
If offers that Matthew 1:16 is mistranslated and correcting from husband to Father adds the generation to fix the checksum error in verse 17.
Regardless of the generations Matthew may have chosen to drop. He lists 3 groups of 14 and states in verse 17 there is 3 groups of 14. Yet without husband as Father, the last group is short one.
This means the Matthew lineage is MARY’s thru a father named Joseph! And her husband Joseph’s lineage is that of Luke 3.
Victoria, of the two proposals for Mary’s Levi relationship to Elizabeth, I think the later one depicting them of the same generation cousins is out. Elizabeth being baron and unable to conceive indicates a much older woman then Mary. Generally woman stop mensuration early to mid 50’s. The genealogy website I user provides a warning anytime a female has a child attached which is born after her age 52. (mother to old to have children). So, if Elizabeth is about 60 years old and Mary is 18, we have 42 years of room for 2 generations between them.
So, Elizabeth may not only be her Aunt, but very conceivably her great Aunt. My understanding is the Greek word translated “cousin” is relative.
Good article. Helpful. I’ve been working on this issue on and off for awhile, so thank you.
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I will be honest I did not read your whole article but I find it extremely simple. Joseph gos all the way back to the lineage of David because he had to go to Bethlehem for the taxes for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem. in his lineage there is a curse upon one of his members that family would never be able to rule Israel.
The second genealogy is of Mary goes all the way back to David because (Joseph is not the father of Jesus God is) so Mary’s lineage had to go all the way back to David. Otherwise he would not have been able to be the son of David
Right on Stephen
WOW! Talk about confused people. Many was a direct descendant of king David thru David’s son, NATHAN. Solomon is not decreed to be a ancestor of the virgin Mary. So simple and plain to those who trace lineage of Joseph and Mary. Jesus was kin to king David by David’s sin, Nathan
Did you follow and read the links in my 3 Aug 2021 post?
IMHO:
Joseph and Mary were both descendants of David. The legal line of Jesus’s right to the throne of David was through Joseph, who was his legal father, since this right passed through the males. The biological line of Jesus’ right to the throne was through Mary alone, since Jesus was born before they came together. Thus the line was intact through the combination of both husband and wife, legal and biological, yet the biological curse on Adam was avoided, since what was in Mary stemmed from the Spirit of God, as noted in Luke 1:35. Jesus was thus truly both son of man and son of God, born of a virgin, as prophesied in Isaiah 7:14, and cited in Matthew 1:23.
Were you aware that Matthew is Mary’s lineage? Check out the links in the 3 Aug 2021 post above.
LeEric Marvin wrote:
“Were you aware that Matthew is Mary’s lineage?”
IMO Matthew is Joseph’s lineage, since the lineage in Matthew ends with Joseph:
“and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus,
Matthew 24:16 Jesus, the one called Christ. “
Hey I have a question, there’s a tablet that date 5years after jeconiah was captured and they mention 5 sons of jeconiah .now we know that jeconiah has 7 sons, does this point out that he actually had children?
I remember reading somewhere that Babylonian documents stated that all of the Royal family was emasculated. I think that he did have children but they left no descendants. Solomons line would have had to “adopt” the nearest family as legal inheritors. They would have had to go all the way back to Solomons brother Nathan. Which is the only possibility in how two lineages can merge at Zerubbabel and then divide again.
Yes, it does prove he had 5 sons by the date of that tablet in 583BC. And that the 2 remaining were born after that date. It helps established birthdates for his 7 sons. The scriptural verbage about him having no children was retorical.
William, check out: https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter1/16 and let me know if it’s plausible for husband to have been mistranslated for father. 😉
Matthew 1:16 says “Jacob begat Joseph” and “Mary, of whom was begotten Jesus” in the original Greek text.
Read the following… https://www.revisedenglishversion.com/Matthew/chapter1/16 and learn something new! 😉
Jesus is son of David through Abraham, David, and Mary: (Matthew 1:1-19).
Jesus is son of David through Joseph: (Luke 3:31).
Promise of Davidic kingship is everlasting (Psalm 132:11-12).
David’s bloodline was cursed no doubt so Christ would have to come through Nathaniel, which is still the seed of David. Same holds true for Mary’s bloodline. There was a legal bloodline through Joseph as he was a stepfather/legal father that is refered to in the book of Matthew. Luke on the other hand gave the bloodline of Mary. They only try to put doubt on the Messiah’s bloodline to disprove the Messiah’s true identity as found in Christianity, Christ of the Messiah. However, Christ is the Son of God, making Him the highest form if royalty and therefore if He says the Throne of David is His to sit upon then who are we to say any differently. I’m struck my the the verse in the Bible that talks about gwtting caught up in vain geology. It removes our attention from the real message that Christ is the Messiah of the World.
Titus 3:9, KJV: But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.
AMEN!
IMHO:
Jesus is not biologically descended from anyone, else he would be under the curse pronounced on Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:17). Mary and Joseph were betrothed, which makes makes Joseph his legal father (and Mary was of course his legal mother). Mary bore him but did not conceive him (Luke 1:35). Joseph protected him and Mary, taking them both to Egypt, in fulfillment of Hosea 11:1.
🙂
William, you posted: “Jesus is not biologically descended from anyone,..” You just made it impossible for any Jew to ever accept Jesus as the Messiah. Scripture is very clear Jesus was the seed of David. And that is only possible throught his mother. As his father’s seed is from God.
When Mary married her husband Joseph, her father Joseph’s inheritance transfered to his son-in-law Joseph. Which in turn transfered to Jesus, thus qualifing Jesus as a King of Davidic descendant.
To be fair, that is very far down the list of why Jews don’t accept Jesus as the messiah.
1: There is no requirement for a messiah to save peoples souls. Forgiveness comes by Hashem alone and example after example in the Tana”kh are given of men who were righteous with zero need of any savior except the one we’ve always had, namely Hashem the one and only God of the universe.
2: The Torah shows us how to judge every prophet in incredibly clear wording. If any dreamer, prophet or miracle worker comes prophecying and even if they raise the dead, if they don’t point you back to returning to the Torah or tell you to do the commandments therein (613 for Jews, 7 for non-Jews) they are a test sent to you by Hashem Himself and DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM.
3: When the messiah comes, it will be bigger than the mass revelation at Sinai, where there was a fiery mountain and the voice of Hashem thundered to 3 million people who died and resurrected at every word… not the hearsay of a small group of nobodies that nobody can trace with any families or first hand accounts based off of the personal revelation of a single man, Paul, who asks us to rely on his lone spiritual divination like Mohammed or Joseph Smith.
4: Literally no true messianic prophecy can be true about Jesus. Even if he were related to David, Solomon had hundreds of wives… that’s shooting fish in a barrel. There are several prophecies messiah NEEDS to bring about that Jesus did nothing for. In fact, there would be no war and many wars were BECAUSE of Christian ideology.
IMO: The Bible is clear that “Mary was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18) Jesus is Yahweh, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:18) “Seed” refers to DNA, and Jesus had neither that of his father nor that of his mother, thus avoiding the curse on Adam.
I see issues with the schematic diagram of Solomon-Mattan and Nathan-Melchi.
If Jacob took the deceased Heli’s’ wife and produced a child for him, that child would inherit from Heli’s line, not Jacob’s. And would Jacob need to be full brother with Heli? I am not sure if half brothers can work here, just as demonstrated above.
Nevertheless, all these guessing games can be set aside, now that we now know Matthew 1 is Mary’s lineage.
IMHO:
Jesus had to be a descendant of Adam, to fulfill Genesis 1:16, that a descendant of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. This “crush” will occur in two stages. First, Jesus will return in vengeance, consign both the human Middle-East ruler (Satan’s false prophet) and Satan himself to the deep pit in the earth. Jesus will then rule the earth for 1000 years (Revelation 19.11-20.6). Second, after the 1000 years (“millennium” from Latin mille=”thousand” + annum=”year”) Satan will be released, lead a desperate final attack on Jerusalem, and be thrown back into a worse depth into the earth. At that time the dead in hell will be resurrected, judged, condemned, and returned to hell. And that will be the end of the fall of man. This current creation will thereupon be abolished and replaced by an entirely new heavens and new earth, in which righteousness dwells (basically a do-over of Genesis chapters 1-2), as noted in Revelation chapter 22.
?? You stated above: ” Jesus had to be a descendant of Adam, to fulfill Genesis 1:16, that a descendant of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. ”
How does the above jive with you prior statement: “Jesus is not biologically descended from anyone, else he would be under the curse pronounced on Adam and Eve “
IMHO: It jives because Jesus was implanted into the womb of the virgin Mary, hence born of her (making him a biological descendant), but not conceived within her, as prophesied in Isaiah 7:14 and quoted in Matthew 1:23: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and shall bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
LeEric Marvin wrote:
“How does the above jive…”
Because the initial placement of the fertilized egg in the womb was not biological, rather it was the direct action of the Spirit of God. That’s how I understand Luke 1:35, and it’s just an opinion. 🙂
Thank you for such a thorough recounting and analysis of these portions of Holy Scripture concerning the lineage of Jesus. There is just one additional point I would like to make. Personally, I am convinced that Jesus is rightfully king of the Jews due to his descent through the royal line of David. However, since that line was cursed through Jeconiah, as you rightfully point out, Jesus would have inherited that curse were he the biological son of Joseph. But if he is of virgin birth, then he would not inherit that curse, yet he would still be legally of the royal line because of his relationship to Joseph, his legal father. However, if Joseph were Jesus’ only line to David, the promise of 2 Samuel 7 would not have come to complete fruition. He must also be of blood descent from David. This, I believe is what the genealogy of Luke shows us.
The point I want to make is this… the line of Jesus through Adam and Eve does exactly the same thing. In the New Testament, Adam is described as the federal head of the human race. Jesus is described as the second Adam, inheriting the representative role of the first. To be such, Jesus must be a legal descendent of Adam. Which he is. The problem is that the line of Adam is cursed, as Genesis 3 describes and human history bears out. Jesus therefore cannot be born of man’s seed, or he would inherit that curse. But again, Jesus fulfills the Messianic promise by being “the seed of the woman” (a nonsensical phrase in Hebrew, because women do not have seed/semen). Per GN 3:15, that Seed would crush the serpent’s head. Adam recognizes the profound significance of this promise/curse and marks it in the most profound way: he renames the woman Eve, because she would be the mother of the living. She would bear the Savior of mankind.
IMHO: Woman ovulate eggs (Latin ova), men discharge sperm (Latin sperma). They thereby each contribute their own DNA to their child. But in this case there was no such process, rather what was in Mary was of the Holy Spirit alone (Matthew 1:18) before they came together. Hence the fetus of Jesus was literally the direct creation of God. Therefore Jesus is in a sense the new Adam, i.e. the progenitor of a new race of people, free of their debt of sin, because a debt that is paid is no longer a debt.
The Matt 1 lineage is NOT cursed. The Jeconiah in verse 11 is not the same Jeconiah as in 1 Chron 3:15.
Matt 1 IS Mary’s lineage (the Joseph in verse 16 is her FATHER), the royal rights conveyed. By her marriage to Joseph, those right transferred per the Mosaic statute in Numbers 36 to her husband and then Jesus.
This royalty is conveyed uncursed both biologically AND legally to Jesus. Biologically via Mary, confirming Jesus is the SEED of David. And legally of Joseph, who in turn inherited from Mary’s father by marriage.
https://www.conformingtojesus.com/why_are_jesus_genealogies_in_gospels_different.htm
IMHO: A priest by definition is a mediator between God and man. The Son of God is the one-and-only such mediator, chosen as such by God, as noted in 1Timothy 1:5: “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and man, even the man Christ Jesus.” As one poster noted, the Messiah as king must be of the line of David, as stated in 2Samuel 7:12. Jesus is indeed of the line of David per the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-16. In addition the Messiah must be a Melchisedek priest (Psalm 110:4). I.e. he must not be part of an order, rather he must be directly appointed by God, as was Melchisedek, and as was Jesus (Hebrews 1:5, 5:5-6).
My understanding of the Jewish wedding in Jesus’s day is that betrothal was as binding as our marriage. After the betrothal the husband would go away and prepare a room for himself and his bride in this father’s house. He would thereafter come with a wedding party to receive his bride at an unexpected time, and take her to their new home. Likewise Jesus said, “In my father’s house are many rooms…I wil come again and take you unto myself..” (John 14:2). This removal will spare believers from the horrific judgments upon the earth described in Revelation chapter 16. The return of Jesus to take his bride to his Father’s house in heaven is popularly called the “rapture” based on the term “caught up” in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 (which is”rapiemur” in the Latin (“Vulgate”) Bible.
To summarize, IMHO:
o God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1).
o The sons of God (angels, cherubim) shouted for joy (Job 38:2).
o Adam and Eve were created (Genesis 1:27).
o Satan and his angels rebelled and were thrown down to earth (Isaiah 14:12).
o Satan provoked Eve to sin (Genesis 3:4).
o Jesus came and paid our penalty for us (John 3:16).
o We hope for a resurrection of our bodies.
o We hope for a new heavens and earth. (Revelation 21:1)
Unfortunately there are 1000’s of proofs against Jesus being Messiah & God, even ONE of which veto him.
1) Messiah means anointed king;
2) End Times’ Nasi (prince) will offer sin-sacrifices for himself (he will be righteous but do unintentional sin), & have biological children (Ezek.45:22; 46:16, 18);
3) Paul points us to Deut.32 as prophesying the church. Well, vs.27-43 is also part of that, & says that their rock is NOT the Rock of Israel;
4) Tribal ID is patrilineal, without biological breaks for adoption, marriage, etc.
While u may claim this is Oral Torah, Oral Torah reveals the cukture & what was acceptable. It is the flesh between the bones, the “how to” between the “what to” of Torah.
So, Torah commands us to remember & observe Shabbat. Oral Torah tells us how to.
The following are also Oral Torah:
– synagogues attendance & study of Parshah under the Elders (Act 13:15; 15:21);
– distances one may travel on Shabbat (Acts 1:12); – Channukah (John 10:22);
– etc.
In fact, Jesus even quoted Hillel the Elder, etc., though he left out the most important parts… and it is said he quoted no-one but had all his own wisdom.
Of course, we see the apostles trashing these rulings more & more, subtracting from the authoritative legally binding rulings of the Elders, so that they could add their own rulings (Acts 18:7; 19:9; see Deut.17:8-13), despite that Jesus rightly said their rulings had to be adhered to.
We need to understand:
Just as the daughters of Zelophehad inquired of Mosheh on how to keep the laws of inheritance in their unique case, and God showed him, & it became the legal ruling (not adding to Torah, but revealing how to keep Torah), so people went to the elders after Mosheh died, and their rulings are legally binding.
No doubt, the ruling that Tribal ID is patrilineal with no biological breaks, was already in the cultural knowledge from the time of Adam, and passed down as such!
5) No female descendant of Solomon (1 Chron.22:9-10) – & God is not man that Je should lie or change His mind – of David of Judah (Isa.11:1) was ever legally recognised as queen – though some wicked ones tried hard – which is what Mary would essentially have had to be, using the argument given in the article.
6) Messiah will be ONE scion of ONE family of ONE tribe, & HE will bear fruit (Isa.11:1). He will NOT the entire vine as Jesus claims, that everyone must graft into so that THEY will bear fruit (John 15). In fact, Israel is the vine / olive, & not all the branches were broken off, so they don’t all need to be grafted back in. They remained in by Torah-observance. The broken off branches which God keeps (Isa.42:6; 49:6), will be brought back by the righteous servant / son of man, which is the remnant of Israel (read Isa.41-60 carefully to see that this doesn’t suddenly change to becoming a singular person; also read Dan.7:13, 14 in Heb, to see he will be served, not worshipped, & in conjunction with vs.17, 22, 27, to.see that this is the righteous of Israel). They will be grafted back in by repentance back to Torah observance (Jer.5:10, 18; 11:16);
7) God does not allow any money, offering, or person to redeem a sinner or stand proxy for them (I am unable to.find the ref, but it is in Torah). Mosheh tried it, but God would not allow it (Ex.32:30-35). Thus, God would not pay any redemptoon price or stand proxy, or allow Jesus to redeem.or stand proxy for anyone. Forgiveness happens one one basis only: repentance & return to Torah.
8) God commanded that we must not make or worship images of anything, as god / God; that we should not even consider Him in any form (Ex.20:1-6; Deut.4:12, 15). God does not lie nor change His mind. He did not make Himself into a man that we should worship. Though all mankind is made in His image, never will He make one special one to be worshipped.
9) The renewed Covenant will be the End Times, after the return of Israel under one king, in a time when Israel.will not again be randsacked (Jer.31:31-40; Ezek.36-48; Hosea, the entire book, BTW, 6:2 is about the resurrection of the dry bones in the 3rd Temple period / day). The Temple was destoyed only a few decades after Jesus. He obviously didn’t bring in the prophesied renewal.
10) Isa.14 links the name “morning star” with evil King Nebuchanetzar of Babylon, who destroyed Jerusalem & God’s Temple, & on whom God said He would pour our judgement. Ever wondered why Jesus “prophesied” the destruction of Jerusalem.& the Temple? Jesus is linked to Nebuchanetzar by title: “the morning star” (2 Pet.1:17-21; Rev.2:28; 22:16);
11) God gave His Law & instuctions for us to keep. It is the snake that questions, “Did God really say xyz?”, in order to get us to follow animal wisdom, instinct rather than God’s instructions. To recon that God can & will bypass His own laws to redeem the world, is to claim God is not Covenant-Keeper, that God is like an animal driven by instinct, and that we should be, too.
Rather, God has given those Laws so that we do not go astray after false gods, false images of God, false messiahs, and do not chase after our animal nature!
Just as Messiah / Nassi / King Josiah was prophesied about in 1 Kings 13 – some 300 years before he was born & perfectly fulfilled everything prophesied – so too, the End Times Messiah will fulfill everything prophesied about him, PERFECTLY. Jesus didn’t fulfil even one Messianic prophecy when he demanded people believe he is Messiah & even God! When they rightly tested him (Deut.13), all he could offer was that “you will.see the sign of Jonah”. Well, Jonah is NOT Messianic prophecy!
12) God has always saved, redeemed, delivered, without any help. He is sovereign and totally capable. He doesn’t need to become flesh to do so. He alone is God, and He is One.
I could go on & on, but there are at least 12, one for each of the tribes of Israel.
God has said that the nations will come to Him and declare, “Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good” (Jer.16:19).
Ten nations will take hold of the hem of one Jew and say, “Let us go with u, because we have heard Gid is with you” (Zech.8:23).
Torah will go out from.Tzyon (Isa.2:2-5), NOT the torah of Jesus which Paul claims replaced Torah of God (2 Cor.3; 1 Cor.9:21).
God’s Torah is alive forever, is easy as long as we lay it up in our hearts & mouths, & is our Life (Deut.30:11-20). Paul of course, changes this, so that we think we are too sinful, we don’t have the divine spark which is capable of keeping Torah, & Torah is so difficult that is was always destined to be replaced, and we desperately need another to do it for us… clever Greek-Roman mix into the DNA of Judaism, in order to colonise Israel & the world.
Truth is: God gives every person choice, because without choice we cannot be either righteous or wicked; we cannot be judged. We are only righteous if we ourselves choose right. And Ex.20:20 teaches us how to choose right, to choose Torah and be righteous!
Gentiles join Judaism & obey ONE Torah (Law), which will be the rule of Law at end-times Judgement (Isa.56; Isa.66:17, 22-24 – all in context), not Jews join Gentile and obey church laws.
To change God’s Law is the sin of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:25-33).
And in fact, the church did just that. The 4th section of the statue in Dan.12, that of iron legs and iron & clay feet, is Rome. The church converted to Rome. The 4th beast in Dan.7 is Rome & the church.
In fact, even “NT” slips up and teaches that Cornelius was cleansed & righteous – after Jesus died and before he believed in Jesus – by his pious, Torah-observant lifestyle. No doubt, he lost all this as he followed the apostles out of synagogue & away from Torah & alms-giving to poor Jews. They believed that the Christians were the “new Israel”.
Funny, coz Moses refused God’s testing of him, concerning making a new Israel through him. Christians claim Jesus to be the prophet “like Moses” (Deut.18:15-20). Why did he succumb to this notion of making a “new Israel” through him??!!!
Funny that Heb.3 claims Jesus is higher than Moses, i.e., anything can go. But, we don’t see this in Tanakh anywhere!
The generation after the disciples were even more Greek-Roman than the disxiples were. Where, then, is Jesus’ fruit? His disciples of all branches of the church, vehemently persecuted God’s set apart people, Israel.
In fact, they will continue to do so as long as they follow the Queen-of-Heaven, aka Mother-and-Child religion of Nimrod (Jer.41-44), which apparitions under any gender or name, e.g., as Fatima in 1917, demaning that manking must convert to her son or there would be a worse war, & Russia will.spread its arrows. So, who did the church blame? The Jews who refuse to worship that idol! And Russia, though many there also worship that idol.
Is this the fruit that God desires, & that is prophesied for Israel’s anointed king??!!! I trust you see it is not!
You could find 1000 vague “shadows, types” etc., to try prove Jesus is Messiah. But in that case, Julius Caesar vould even be Messiah, for he was also ascibed with a virgin birth & resurrection, & even assention, after his death.
I hope you can see by this that neither Jesus nor any one of the 500 or so other false messiahs, are The End Time’s messiah (who, BTW, is never even called “messiah” in Tanakh).
Shalom
IMO nasi (נשיא) does not refer to Jesus, it refers to a prinee making offering in the millennial temple.
Galinda noted: “false messiahs” of Zechariah 6:12-13.
So in your opinion a “false messiah” will be the result of “if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God” (Zechariah 6:15)?
Galinda also noted: “Israel is the vine/olive branch.” If you are referring to Deuteronomy, you might want to consult Deuteronomy (דבךים) chapter 32 for God’s assessment of that generation. They were not allowed to enter the land, not even Moses himself, because of their disobedience. We are all a fallen race, and we all desperately need a Savior to lift us up and heal us, as Moses *lifted up* the serpent in the wilderness. See the New Testament, John 12:32, where Jesus referred to this, noting, “If I be *lifted up* from the earth, I will draw all men unto me.” (John12:32)
Galinda noted:
>Jesus…never even called “messiah” in Tanakh>
Deuteronomy 32:30 speaks of God as “their Rock” (Hebrew צוךם), referring to the rock of the Israelites.
The apostle Paul (who was/is an eminent Hebrew) notes: “that rock is “Christ” (1Corinthians 10:4).
“Messiah” = “Anointed [One]” (Hebrew משח), and Jesus is called “Messiah” in the Tanak in Isaiah 61:1-2, which is in cited in Luke 4:18, referring to Jesus:
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has *anointed* me to preach Good news to the poor.. “