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The genealogies of the Lord Jesus recorded
in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 differ widely. One way they differ is
in grammatical structure: Matthew is straightforward and uses the
indicative form of the Greek verb, GENNAW, (pronounced, as with the
g in beginning, ge nah' oh) roughly forty times in his seventeen verse
genealogy. GENNAW means to "beget, sire, become the
father of." Luke, on the other hand, is more vague than
Matthew, and Luke simply uses the genitive of relationship throughout,
without telling his readers what that relationship is.
Furthermore, in the biblical view, a man not only begets his children but
his grandchildren, or great, great, great grandchildren, as well. We must
remember Hebrews 7:9, 10: "One might even say that Levi, who collects
the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, because when Melchizedek met
Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor." Matthew
gives us an abridged account of the ancestors of the Lord Jesus, clustered
in three groups of fourteen: "Thus there were fourteen generations in
all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon,
and fourteen from the exile to the Christ." (Matthew 1:17) Matthew,
whose primary audience is the nation of Israel, traces the ancestry of
Joseph through the line of the kings of Judah back to David, and then back
to Abraham. He makes it very clear that Joseph is Jesus' legal father, not
his biological father (1:18-25). Matthew demonstrates that Jesus is the
legal heir to the throne of David.
Matthew's legal line has some sordid twists and turns, not only in the
four women who are mentioned -- Tamar (who disguised herself as a
prostitute to get her father-in-law, Judah, to fulfil the levirate
obligations); Rahab (who was a prostitute), Ruth (the Moabitess descendant
of the incestuous union of Lot and one of his daughters); and the wife of
Uriah, Bathsheba (the adulteress) -- but also in those who are not
mentioned, such as Jezebel, because the kings of Judah from the time of
King Joash have a greater percentage of Jezebel in them than King David.
But a biological genealogy is not Matthew's concern; he is an apologist to
the Jewish people, and his Old Testament quotations and allusions are more
numerous than even Hebrews, Romans and Revelation. His purpose is to prove
from the Bible that Jesus is the Messiah, the legal heir of King David.
Luke's interests are different; his primary audience appears to be the
Greek world, and he lays great stress on the humanness of Jesus, tracing
his ancestry back beyond Abraham, back to Adam. Luke uses the vague,
genitive of relationship: Jesus "was the son, so it was thought, of
Joseph, the son of Heli." (Luke 3:23) One should notice that Luke
says, "so it was thought," because Luke, too, makes it plain
that Mary was a virgin (Luke 1:26-37). The New International Version's use
of the phrase "the son of" is an interpretive translation of
Luke's phraseology, because Luke's original Greek text does not actually
tell us who Heli is in relation to Joseph. However, many of Luke's
readers would probably have known what that relationship was because the
Jewish Talmud implies that Heli is the father of Mary, and therefore the
father-in-law of Joseph. (John Lightfoot, Hebrew and Talmudical
Exercitations upon the Evangelist St. Luke, Oxford: 1859, p.
55.) Luke is giving Jesus' biological genealogy. He is the son of
Mary, the daughter of Heli, a descendant of King David, not through his
son, Solomon, but through his son, Nathan.
Legally, Jesus is the son of David through the royal line coming down to
his lawful father, Joseph, according to Matthew. Biologically, according
to Luke, Jesus is the son of David through his mother, the Virgin Mary. So
both genealogies are important to our understanding of whom Jesus is.
It is also important to affirm the fact that the Mother of our Lord did
not have sexual relations until after she had given birth to the Lord
Jesus; in other words, she was a virgin when she conceived him. All
Christians historically have accepted this truth. There is no biblical
reason whatsoever to question the virgin conception of our Lord. The only
reason that anyone has ever questioned this is because of bigotry against
the possibility of miracles. Christians may disagree over a lot of things,
but this issue of our Lord being born of the Virgin Mary is a theological
watershed, with believers on one side and unbelievers on the other.
For more on the virginity of Mary, you may
want to read "Perpetual Virginity and
Tradition."
Bob
Vincent |
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