Problem solved! A recent rather ingenious solution to the problem of conflicting gospel genealogies of Jesus. I love this kind of effort. It would make an entertaining book to collect all the attempts to reconcile the differing accounts in the NT. You could have chapters on the Nativity stories, the genealogies, the resurrection accounts, etc. Maybe get Prof Ehrman to write a forward. Or James White!
_Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)_ by Bart D. Ehrman (2009), 292pp. On 36, 37
Joseph is not Jesus’ father. But that creates an obvious problem. If Jesus is not a blood-relation to Joseph, why is it that Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ bloodline precisely through Joseph? This is a question that neither author answers: both accounts give a genealogy that can’t be the genealogy of Jesus, since his only bloodline goes through Mary, yet neither author provides her genealogy. …. Luke explicitly indicates that the family line is that of Joseph, not Mary (Luke 1:23; also Matthew 1:16). ….
There are other problems. In … Matthew’s genealogy …. from the Babylonian disaster to the birth of Jesus, fourteen generations (1:17). Fourteen, fourteen, and fourteen-it is almost as if God had planned it this way. …. The problem is that the fourteen-fourteen-fourteen schema doesn’t actually work. If you read through the names carefully, you’ll see that in the third set of fourteen there are in fact only thirteen generations.
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Matthew 1:17 says there are 14, 14, 14 generations.
Greek manuscripts of Matthew’s genealogy mistakenly list 14, 14, 13 generations.
In Aramaic mss. of Matthew’s genealogy, with Mt 1:16’s “gbra” correctly translated as father/guardian, Matthew’s genealogy lists 14, 14, 14 generations.
Mary had a father/guardian named Joseph (plus a husband also called Joseph).
Jesus is a descendant of King David on his biological mother Mary’s side (per Mt’s genealogy), and on his step-dad Joseph’s side (per Lk’s genealogy).
At least this guy tries to use a documented path.
With modern day Ancestry software that must rely on documented records I can trace my lineage back to the 18th Century, yet we are asked to believe that pseudo anonymous authors in Luke had access to lineage that dates back thousands of years. As though everybody knew in the front end that Mary would be impregnated by God… WAIT! Only males at that time could pass lineage forward?
Again, the Bible succeeds in contortions to sustain the largely mythological history in the Bible.
Angry? Hardly. How can one really get angry over trying to sort out the very, very conflicted, impossible and fanciful tales of Mary being descendent from the House of David. A requirement set forth in an Old Testament prophesy that would serve as a benchmark in realizing who the true Messiah was to be,
Nonetheless I thank you so much for your deep concern over my frustration with this detail in the giant book of make believe, knows as the The Bible.
My question is whether these Messianic genealogies might have pre-dated the gospels and Jesus’ name was just tacked on to a pre-existent listing? Probably no way to tell for sure but it would make sense given that the Messiah was expected to descend from David whoever he turned out to be in the flesh.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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