On first sights, one of the strangest phenomena in the Bible is the the multiple genealogies of Jesus. Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 have quite different lists of Jesus' ancestors. Matthew moves from Abraham to Joseph, whereas Luke moves from Joseph back to Adam. Matthew traces Joseph through David's son Solomon whereas Luke traces Joseph through David's son Nathan. This seems to be a major contradiction. Here are three thing to bear in mind.
1. Genealogies are very complicated. Try tracing your own genealogy back 28 generations. Which lines would you go with?
2. Genealogies are also complicated by name variants - since many in the Hebrew world has two or more names.
3. Genealogies are complicated by adoption. Whose parents do you go for if someone is
4. Genealogies are not a record of DNA. They are records of both DNA and legal ancestry. We know it is not DNA because in Matthew and Luke's gospel it is said that Joseph was the father of Jesus and in the Luke's gospel it is said God was the father of Adam. With high premature mortality rates, particularly amongst the royal line, there are probably many adoptions. You have to make choices at every point. Do I go back to the DNA line or parents of the legal line? For instance in Luke's genealogy - Joseph is Jesus' adopted father, perhaps Heli is Mary's father ... perhaps he has moved back to the 'DNA' line?
In conclusion ... I have been thinking about the genealogies of Jesus ... here are my thoughts ...
1. In actual fact there could be even more genealogies of Jesus. I could probably write up a third variety if I had more information.
2. It is astounding how important Joseph's line seems to be - even though he was not connected to Jesus biologically. This shows that the legal has more significance than the biological.
3. If Luke's genealogy is through Mary's father's line - then perhaps Jesus is related to David on both his mother and father's side.
4. Both genealogical trees seem to trace Jesus as also coming through Zerubbabel. His significance in the Biblical story is immense and is probably source for a whole entry of its own.
1 comment:
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for sharing your blog - it makes interesting reading. Perhaps part of the importance of tracing the line to Joseph is his status as a godly man who was obedient nd did the right thing.
By the way, I can't say I loved the video, I'm afraid. A loud american accent bombarding me with slogans for a long time was waaay too much. Even though the words were great, they lost meaning b ecause it went on too long. Anyway, I know somepeople loved it, and some didn't.
Cheers
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