More Biblical Genealogy

Here's where we left Jesus' genealogies from the Gospels: So is Matthew's take on it better, or is Luke's? Or is there any way to reconcile the two?

Here's one way: Some scholars say that Matthew's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Joseph, that is, his legal claim to be a descendant of King David, and Luke's genealogy is Jesus' descent from Mary, that is, his physical human descent from King David (both Joseph and Mary were of the house of David). So when Luke says, "Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli," he was just using the then-typical convention of leaving the women out of things. He was really saying"Jesus was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the 'son' (son-in-law) of Heli," that is, "Jesus was the son of Mary, the daughter of Heli."

Now, just to confuse the issue, some scholars say that, no, Matthew's genealogy was the full legal line of descent from David to Jesus through Joseph, while Luke's genealogy was the physical line of descent from David to Jesus, still through Joseph. What that means is that the Mosaic/Levitic law has lots of ways to be a legal heir ("son"). For example, it says that if a man dies without an heir, his brother (or closest male relative) must marry the widow and raise up a son who is the legal heir of the dead man; also that a couple beyond childbearing without a male heir were permitted to adopt an adult male servant to be their heir, and so forth. That would seem to indicate that the differences between the genealogies in the two gospels are entirely from these kind of situations. So for example, Matthew says Joseph son of Jacob son of Matthan, while Luke says Joseph son of Heli son of Matthat (spelling or transcription error accounting for the difference between Matthan and Matthat, presumably)--so the idea is that Matthan/t had two sons, Jacob the elder and Heli the younger, that Jacob died without sons and Heli married the widow to raise up an heir for Jacob, Joseph being the heir in question. In other words, legally Joseph was the son of Jacob while the physical DNA came from Heli.

I find that I strongly disagree with this second stance--that the two trees are a legal versus physical line of descent, both down to Joseph. Scholars need to check the internal consistency of their logic... Logically, the two trees ought to be fairly similar, with one or two names different here or there, if they differ only in being legal versus physical, since the legal inheritance must come from a close male relative of the deceased. Which means the physical father must be a brother or cousin of the legal father (or even, in a worst case scenario, the father of the legal father--I found at least one case like that in the Scriptures, in this lineage in fact), which means the legal father and the physical one would share a parent or grandparent or other direct male ancestor. And those two trees are just NOT that similar.

Here's my main objection to the legal vs. physical argument, based on an inconsistency in the logic. In Matthew, you find that the descent from Abraham to King David contains the following sequence: "Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David." And Luke has the same thing (note, Matthew was counting down the generations and Luke counting up, but they add up to the same names): "David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon"--but here's the kicker: they should NOT say the same thing if one is a legal line and the other a physical line.

The book of Ruth is quite clear: Ruth was the wife of Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi; Elimelech dies, then Mahlon and Mahlon's brother Kilion die without heirs. Naomi goes back to Israel (the family was living in Moab at the time), taking Ruth, who refused to go home to her parents. When they arrive in Israel, Naomi is quite poor with no husband or sons or grandsons to care for her. But there is one wealthy close kinsman, Boaz (the son of Salmon and the harlot Rahab), who steps in to marry the widow Ruth (though she was a despised Moabite) and raise up an heir to her deceased husband. Obed is in fact the child of this marriage and is heir to Mahlon. So Matthew, if he were doing the full legal descent down to Christ, should have said, "Elimelech, the father of Mahlon, the father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David" while Luke would still be permitted to follow the DNA from David up through Jesse, Obed, Boaz, and Salmon. [Presumably, Elimelech and Salmon were brothers or close cousins and within a generation or two, the lineage would merge into the joint ancestors.] So the claim that the differences between the trees are legal vs. physical lines of inheritance just doesn't hold up.

(The other example I found was this: Judah, son of Israel, had twin sons by Tamar, his son Er's widow. There's a whole big story; look it up on Bible Gateway if you've forgotten it. Anyway, Matthew and Luke both list Perez as a son of Judah. But to be a strict interpretation of legal lineage, Matthew should have said Perez son of Er son of Judah. Luke was okay with the direct DNA on that one. I'm sure there are further examples, I just haven't located them yet.)

Oho! I thought when I noticed this. This is going to be more involved than I thought! And maybe more interesting and more fruitful, both in learning about genealogy and learning about the Bible. It will certainly take more than a day or two of quiet time to sort out. I probably should break here and do a separate blog for the next stuff, so look for the follow-on in my next post.