Genealogy of Jesus
Encyclopedia
The genealogy of Jesus is described in two passages of the Gospels: Luke 3:23–38 and Matthew 1:1
–17
.
Both gospels state that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph
, but by God, being born to Mary
through a virgin birth. These lists are identical between Abraham and David, but they differ radically from that point onward.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
(1913) states that aside from a general implication of her Davidic origin
, there is no explicit Biblical record of Mary’s genealogy, but a number of extra-biblical sources, some relatively early, claim to provide her immediate ancestry, as well as an explanation for the divergence between Matthew and Luke. The apparent contradiction of the two gospel genealogies has aroused controversy since ancient times, although modern scholars tend to view the genealogies as theological craftsmanship rather than historical fact.
This genealogy descends from the Davidic line
through Nathan
, who is an otherwise little-known son of King David
, mentioned briefly in the Old Testament. The intervening generations are a series of otherwise unknown names, but the number of generations is chronologically quite plausible. One of the names, Mattathias (of the 69th generation), appears to arrive at a time close to Mattathias
, a leader in the Maccabees
. However, Mattathias never had any son named Joseph, though he had a grandson who was also named Matthiatas, who was not included in the Maccabean dynasty and whose children were not documented. (Thus, it is plausible that the two were conflated
, with the intermediary generation of Simon Maccabeus removed.)
In the ancestry of David, Luke agrees completely with the Old Testament. Cainan
is included between Shelah and Arphaxad, following the Septuagint text (though omitted in the Masoretic text
followed by most modern Bibles). In continuing the genealogy all the way to Adam, the progenitor of all mankind, the gospel is seen as emphasizing Jesus’s universal mission.
Augustine
notes that the count of generations in Luke is 77, a remarkable number symbolizing the forgiveness of all sins. This count also agrees with the seventy generations from Enoch
set forth in the Book of Enoch
, which Luke probably knew. Though Luke never counts the generations as Matthew does, it appears that he too follows the hebdomad
ic principle of working in sevens. However, Irenaeus
, one of the earliest witnesses, counts only 72 generations from Adam.
Since the nature of Luke’s genealogy has made it particularly susceptible to scribal corruption, determining the original text from the manuscript evidence has been especially problematic. The most controversial section, oddly, is in the ancestry of David, which is well established in the Old Testament. Although the reading “son of Aminadab, son of Aram,” in agreement with the Old Testament, is well attested, the Nestle-Aland critical edition, considered the best authority by most modern scholars, accepts the variant “son of Aminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni,” counting the 77 generations from Adam rather than God.
Luke’s qualification “as was supposed” () avoids stating that Jesus was actually a son of Joseph, since his virgin birth is affirmed in the same gospel. There are, however, several interpretations of how this qualification relates to the rest of the genealogy:
, the mother of John the Baptist
, was a "relative" (Greek syggenēs, συγγενής) of Mary, and that Elizabeth was descended from Aaron
, of the tribe of Levi
. Some, such as Gregory Nazianzen, have inferred from this that Mary herself was also a Levite descended from Aaron, and thus kingly and priestly lineages were united in Jesus. Others, such as Thomas Aquinas
, have argued that the relationship was on the maternal side; that Mary's father was from Judah, Mary's mother from Levi.
Modern scholars like Raymond Brown
(1973) and Géza Vermes
(2005) suggest that the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth is simply an invention of Luke.
, the son of Abraham
: Abraham begot Isaac…” and continues on until “…and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 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 emphasizes, right from the beginning, Jesus’ title Christ
—the Greek rendering of the Hebrew title Messiah
—meaning anointed, in the sense of an anointed king. Jesus is presented first and foremost as the long-awaited Messiah, who was expected to be a descendant and heir of King David, so the genealogy serves the essential purpose of demonstrating this line of descent. Thus, Matthew begins by calling Jesus son of David, indicating his royal origin, and also son of Abraham, indicating that he was a Jew; both are stock phrases, in which son means descendant, calling to mind the promises God made to David and to Abraham.
Matthew’s introductory title (, book of generations) has been interpreted various ways, but most likely is simply a title for the genealogy that follows, echoing the Septuagint use of the same phrase for toledot
.
Matthew’s genealogy is considerably more complex than Luke’s. It is overtly schematic, organized into three tesseradecads (sets of fourteen), each of a distinct character:
The total of 42 generations is achieved only by omitting several names, so the choice of three sets of fourteen seems deliberate. Fourteen is seven, symbolizing perfection and covenant, doubled, and is also the gematria
of David. Numerous other explanations have been proposed as well.
The rendering into Greek of Hebrew names in this genealogy is mostly in accord with the Septuagint, but there are a few peculiarities. The form Asaph seems to identify King Asa with the psalmist Asaph
. Likewise, some see the form Amos for King Amon as suggesting the prophet Amos
, though the Septuagint does have this form. Both may simply be assimilations to more familiar names. More interesting, though, are the unique forms Boes (Boaz, LXX Boos) and Rachab (Rahab, LXX Raab).
the harlot, whose story is told in the Old Testament, though some question the identification. Matthew is unique in naming her as the wife of Salmon and mother of Boaz. The Talmud says that Rahab married Joshua
. The unusual spelling of her name, paralleled only in Josephus
, may result from the unique tradition that Matthew drew from here, which Bauckham
suggests is connected to a passage in Chronicles mentioning Salma and Rechab.
That women are mentioned at all, when such genealogies are typically so focused on the male line, is remarkable. Four women are included early in the genealogy—Tamar, Rahab
, Ruth
, and “the wife of Uriah” (i.e., Bathsheba
)—and a fifth, Mary
, concludes the genealogy as the mother of Jesus. Why Matthew chose to include these particular women, while passing over others such as the matriarchs Sarah
, Rebecca
, and Leah
, has been much discussed.
There is assumed to be a common thread among these four women, to which Matthew wishes to draw attention. Some point out their Gentile origin: Rahab was a Canaan
ite, Bathsheba was married to a Hittite
, Ruth was from Moab
and sometimes seen as a Moab
ite, and Tamar’s origin is unclear—thus Matthew prepares the reader for the inclusion of the Gentiles in Christ’s mission, contrasting their faith with the faithlessness of the Jews. Others point out their sinfulness: Rahab was a prostitute, Tamar posed as a prostitute to seduce Judah, Bathsheba was an adulteress, and Ruth is sometimes seen as seducing Boaz—thus Matthew emphasizes God’s grace in response to sin. Still others point out their unusual, even scandalous, unions—preparing the reader for what will be said about Mary. None of these explanations, however, adequately befits all four women. Nolland suggests simply that these were all the known women attached to David’s genealogy in the Book of Ruth.
The conclusion of the genealogy proper is also unusual: having traced the ancestry of Joseph, Matthew identifies him not as the father of Jesus, but as the husband of Mary. The Greek text is explicit in making Jesus born to Mary, rather than to Joseph. This careful wording is to affirm the virgin birth, which Matthew proceeds to discuss, stating that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph but by God.
, Jehoash
, and Amaziah
. The next generation, Uzziah
(also called Azariah), has a Greek name Ozias very similar to that of the first omitted name, Ochozias. Some therefore suggest that the omission arose from a scribal error, homoioteleuton between these two names, after which the groups of fourteen were discovered. Others see it as “a deliberately taken opportunity,” encouraged by the similarity of names. Not only were these three kings especially wicked, violently destroyed by the will of God, they were the cursed line of Ahab
through his daughter Athaliah
to the third and fourth generation. Thus Matthew felt justified in omitting them, with an eye toward forming his second tesseradecad.
Another omitted king is Jehoiakim
, the father of Jeconiah
, also known as Jehoiachin. In Greek the names are even more similar, both being sometimes called Joachim. When Matthew says, “Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile,” he appears to conflate the two, because Jehoiakim, not Jeconiah, had brothers, but the exile was in the time of Jeconiah. While some see this as a mistake, others argue that the omission was once again deliberate, ensuring that the kings after David spanned exactly fourteen generations.
The final tesseradecad seems to contain only thirteen generations. Since it is unlikely that Matthew simply miscounted, a number of explanations have been proposed. A name may have been counted both at the end of one tesseradecad and the beginning of the next—either David or Jeconiah. Or if Josiah’s son was intended as Jehoiakim, then Jeconiah could be counted separately after the exile. Another possibility is that Mary is counted as a generation, proceeding laterally by her marriage to Joseph. Though such a reckoning is otherwise unknown, it may have seemed necessary in light of the virgin birth. Some have even proposed that Matthew’s original text had one Joseph as the father of Mary, who then married another man of the same name.
If only thirteen generations span the time from Jeconiah
, born about 616 BC, to Jesus
, born about 2 BC, as Matthew says, the average generation would be nearly fifty years—rather unlikely, though not impossible. It is generally assumed that, as Matthew has previously taken certain liberties, he continues to do so in this section, omitting several generations. Precedent for such abridged genealogies is found in the Old Testament. The lack here of papponymic
naming patterns, which were common throughout this period, may indicate that Matthew has telescoped this segment by collapsing such repetitions.
These two Gospels declare that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph, but by the power of the Holy Spirit
while Mary was still a virgin, in fulfillment of prophecy. Thus, in mainstream Christianity, Jesus is regarded as being literally the “only begotten son” of God, while Joseph is regarded as his adoptive father.
Matthew immediately follows the genealogy of Jesus with:
Likewise, Luke tells of the Annunciation
:
The question then arises, why do both gospels seem to trace the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, when they deny that he is his biological father? Augustine considers it a sufficient answer that Joseph was the father of Jesus by adoption, his legal father, through whom he could rightfully claim descent from David.
Tertullian
, on the other hand, argues that Jesus must have descended from David by blood through his mother Mary. He sees Biblical support in Paul’s statement that Jesus was “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh”. Affirmations of Mary’s Davidic ancestry are found early and often, and some see a strong implication in these sources that at least one evangelist actually records Jesus’ maternal ancestry.
The Ebionites
, a sect who denied the virgin birth, used a gospel
which, according to Epiphanius
, was a recension of Matthew that omitted the genealogy and infancy narrative.
Unless John of Damascus
and others who see the genealogy of Luke as the genealogy of Mary, not Joseph, are correct, the Bible says nothing explicitly about the ancestry of Mary, nor does it address the apparent inconsistency between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. There are, however, several early sources offering further details.
(probably of the 2nd century) tells of the miraculous birth of Mary to her parents, Joachim
and Anne
. It further relates that Joseph, before his marriage to Mary, was an elderly widower with children of his own. Joachim and Anne, who were eventually accepted into the canon of saints
, are named in a number of other early sources as Mary’s parents, but this apocryphal text, which was later condemned, was so widely influential that it is not clear whether the names rest on any other independent tradition.
This apparent contradiction has been a source of great difficulty. Augustine
, for example, took great care on several occasions to refute every purported inconsistency in the gospel genealogies, not only because the Manichaeans in his day were using these inconsistencies as fodder for attacking Christianity, but also because he himself had seen them in his youth as cause for doubting the veracity of the Gospels.
Several theories have been advanced to explain the divergence of the two gospel genealogies, most notably:
, writing in the 3rd century, is the first to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the two gospel genealogies. Citing the records of the desposyni
, he details a levirate marriage
:
A Jewish tradition relating Mary to Luke’s genealogy is recorded in the Doctrina Jacobi
(written in 634), in which a Tiberian rabbi mocks the Christian veneration of Mary by recounting her genealogy according to the tradition of the Jews of Tiberias. A century later, John of Damascus
and others report the same information, only inserting an extra generation, Barpanther (Aramaic for son of Panther, thus indicating a misunderstood Aramaic source). A certain prince Andronicus later found the same polemic in a book belonging to a rabbi named Elijah:
Each of these texts then goes on to describe, just as in Africanus (but omitting the name of Estha), how Melchi was related to Joseph through a levirate marriage.
Oddly, Melchi is thus always described as the father of Eli, while Luke reads “Eli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi.” Bede
assumed that Africanus was mistaken and corrected Melchi to Matthat. Since papponymic
s were common in this period, however, it would not be surprising if Matthat were also named Melchi after his grandfather.
Controversy has surrounded the name Panther, mentioned above, because of a charge that Jesus' father was a soldier named Pantera
. Celsus
mentions this in his writing, The True Word
, where he is quoted by Origen in Book 1: 32. "But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that "when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera." Epiphanius
, in refutation of Celsus, writes that Joseph and Cleopas were sons of “Jacob, surnamed Panther.” Two Talmudic-era texts referring to Jesus as the son of Pantera (Pandera) are Tosefta Hullin 2:22f: "Jacob ... came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pantera" and Qohelet Rabbah 1:8(3): "Jacob ... came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera" and some editions of the Jerusalem Talmud
also specifically name Jesus as the son of Pandera: Jerusalem Abodah Zarah 2:2/7: "someone ... whispered to him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Shabboth 14:4/8: "someone ... whispered to him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Abodah Zarah 2:2/12: "Jacob ... came to heal him. He said to him: we will speak to you in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Shabboth 14:4/13: "Jacob ... came in the name of Jesus Pandera to heal him". Because some editions of the Jerusalem Talmud do not contain the name Jesus in these passages the association is disputed.
A distinct tradition is found in the Cave of Treasures
, probably composed in Syriac
about the 6th century. The genealogy of Jesus from Adam down to Mary is given much as in Matthew, with the omissions filled in and, remarkably, the mother of each generation provided. Mary is made a cousin of Joseph, as her father Jonachir was a son of Matthan and twin brother of Jacob. Mary’s mother is identified as Anne (Ḥana), daughter of Paqud.
Fascination with the life and family of Anne led to the spread of numerous medieval legends about her and inspired the artistic motif of the Holy Kinship
. A number of medieval sources offer conflicting accounts of the parents of Anne:
The earliest tradition that explains this divergence records a complex scenario involving the Jewish law of levirate marriage
, whereby, upon the death of a childless man, his brother would marry the widow in order to produce a son for the deceased man. Such a son would then have two fathers, one natural and one legal.
Africanus
, in his 3rd-century Epistle to Aristides, reports a tradition of the desposyni
that Joseph was born from just such a levirate marriage involving uterine brothers (see above).
According to Africanus, Joseph’s natural father was Jacob son of Matthan, as given in Matthew, while his legal father was Eli son of Melchi (sic), as given in Luke. Joseph’s grandmother Estha first married Matthan and bore Jacob, then married Melchi and bore Eli. When Eli died without issue, his half-brother Jacob married the widow and begot Joseph.
To many christians, the whole scenario seems rather contrived, as the only explanation for how, under Jewish law, a man could have two completely different ancestries. It has been questioned, for example, whether levirate marriages actually occurred among uterine brothers—they are expressly excluded in the Halakhah Beth Hillel (but permitted by Shammai).
Nevertheless, the patristic tradition eagerly embraced this explanation, and it remained widely accepted until the Reformation
.
Matthew’s immediate goal is therefore not David, but Jeconiah, and in his final tesseradecad, he may freely jump to a maternal grandfather, skip generations, or perhaps even follow an adoptive lineage in order to get there. Attempts have been made to reconstruct Matthew’s route, from the seminal work of Lord Hervey to Masson’s recent tour de force, but all are necessarily highly speculative.
As a starting point, one of Joseph’s two fathers could be by simple adoption, as Augustine suggests, or more likely the special adoption by a father-in-law with no sons, or could be a maternal grandfather. On the other hand, the resemblance between Matthan and Matthat suggests they are the same man (in which case Jacob and Eli are either identical or full brothers involved in a levirate marriage
), and Matthew’s departure from Luke at that point can only be to follow legal line of inheritance, perhaps through a maternal grandfather. Such reasoning could further explain what has happened with Zerubbabel and Shealtiel.
, with Eli being her father, while Matthew’s describes the genealogy of Joseph. This view was advanced as early as John of Damascus
.
Luke’s text says that Jesus was “a son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of Eli” (in the Greek: ). The qualification has traditionally been understood as acknowledgment of the virgin birth, but some instead see a parenthetical expression: “a son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Eli.” In this interpretation, Jesus is called a son of Eli because Eli was his maternal grandfather, his nearest male ancestor. A variation on this idea is to explain “Joseph son of Eli” as meaning a son-in-law, perhaps even an adoptive heir to Eli through his only daughter Mary. An example of the Old Testament use of such an expression is Jair, who is called “Jair son of Manasseh” but was actually son of Manasseh’s granddaughter. In any case, the argument goes, it is natural for the evangelist, acknowledging the unique case of the virgin birth, to give the maternal genealogy of Jesus, while expressing it a bit awkwardly in the traditional patrilinear style.
The reason for the divergence in genealogies, is that Matthew is said to record the actual legal genealogy of Jesus through Joseph according to Jewish custom. In Luke we apparently have the actual biological genealogy of Jesus through Mary which Luke naturally gives as he is writing for the Gentiles.
The reason Mary is not implicitly mentioned by name is because the ancient Hebrews never permitted the name of a woman to enter the genealogical tables, but inserted her husband as the son of him who was, in reality, but his father-in-law.
Lightfoot sees confirmation in an obscure passage of the Talmud
, which, as he reads it, refers to “Mary daughter of Eli”; however, both the identity of this Mary and the reading are doubtful. Patristic tradition, on the contrary, consistently identifies Mary’s father as Joachim
. It has been suggested that Eli is short for Eliakim, which in the Old Testament is an alternate name of King Jehoiakim
, for whom Joachim is named.
The theory neatly accounts for the genealogical divergence while accepting the text of the Gospel. It is consistent with the early tradition ascribing a Davidic ancestry to Mary. It is also consistent with Luke’s intimate acquaintance with Mary
, in contrast to Matthew’s focus on Joseph
’s perspective. But there is no explicit indication that the genealogy is Mary’s.
The claim that Luke gives Mary’s genealogy is mentioned in a single extant medieval text, in which pseudo-Hilary cites it as an opinion held by many, though not himself. This claim was revived by Annius of Viterbo in 1498 and quickly grew in popularity. It has gained acceptance by some scholars (though by no means all)..
of Matthew used the word gowra (which could mean father), which, in the absence of vowel markings, was read by the Greek translator as gura (husband). In any case, an early understanding that Matthew traced Mary’s genealogy would explain why the contradiction between Matthew and Luke apparently escaped notice until the 3rd century.
Of the two, Matthew is argued to be the more suspect. Gundry
regards the series of unknown names connecting Joseph’s grandfather to Zerubbabel as an outright fabrication, produced by collecting and then modifying various names from 1 Chronicles.
Sivertsen, while accepting that Matthew’s version may derive from temple records, sees Luke’s as artificially pieced together out of oral traditions. The pre-exilic series Levi, Simeon, Judah, Joseph consists of the names of tribal patriarchs, far more common after the exile than before, while the name Mattathias and its variants begin at least three suspiciously similar segments. Kuhn likewise suggests that the two series Jesus–Mattathias (77–63) and Jesus–Mattatha (49–37) are duplicates.
a third century Roman historian described the variation this way;
1. Matthan, of Solomon's descent, marries Estha and gives birth to Jacob. [Matthew]
2. Matthan dies. Matthat, of Nathan's descent, marries Estha and gives birth to Heli. [Luke]
3. Jacob and Heli are uterine brothers (same mother but different fathers).
4. Heli marries a wife but dies childless.
5. Keeping Jewish Law in view, Jacob (Heli's brother) marries his brother's wife to raise up seed for him.
6. Joseph is born.
7. Joseph is naturally Jacob's son. [Matthew]
8. But, is, according to Law, Heli's son. [Luke]
In the Old Testament, Zerubbabel
was a hero who led the Jews back from Babylon about 520 BC, governed Judah, and rebuilt the temple. Several times he is called a son of Shealtiel. He appears once in the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles, where his descendants are traced for several generations, but the passage has a number of difficulties. While the Septuagint text here gives his father as Shealtiel, the Masoretic text
instead substitutes Shealtiel’s brother Pedaiah—both sons of King Jeconiah
, according to the passage. Some, accepting the Masoretic reading, suppose that Pedaiah begot a son for Shealtiel through a levirate marriage
, but most scholars now accept the Septuagint reading as original, in agreement with Matthew and all other accounts.
The appearance of Zerubbabel and Shealtiel in Luke may be no more than a coincidence of names (Zerubbabel, at least, is a very common Babylonian name). Shealtiel is given a completely different ancestry, and Zerubbabel a different son. Furthermore, interpolation between known dates would put the birth of Luke’s Shealtiel at the very time when the celebrated Zerubbabel led the Jews back from Babylon. Thus, it is likely that Luke’s Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were distinct from, and perhaps even named after, Matthew’s.
If they are the same, as many insist, then the question arises of how Shealtiel, like Joseph, could have two fathers. Yet another complex levirate marriage
has often been invoked. Bauckham
, however, argues for the authenticity of Luke alone. In this view, the genealogy in Chronicles is a late addition grafting Zerubbabel onto the lineage of his predecessors, and Matthew has simply followed the royal succession. In fact, Bauckham says, Zerubbabel’s legitimacy hinged on descending from David through Nathan rather than through the prophetically cursed ruling line.
The name Rhesa, given in Luke as the son of Zerubbabel, is usually seen as the Aramaic word rēʾšāʾ, meaning head or prince. It might well befit a son of Zerubbabel, but some see the name as a misplaced title of Zerubbabel himself. If so, the next generation in Luke, Joanan, might be Hananiah in Chronicles. Subsequent names in Luke, as well as Matthew’s next name Abiud, cannot be identified in Chronicles on more than a speculative basis.
descended from King David
. Thus, in tracing the Davidic ancestry of Jesus, the Gospels aim to show that these messianic prophecies are fulfilled in him.
The prophecy of Nathan—understood as foretelling a son of God who would inherit the throne of his ancestor David and reign forever—is quoted in Hebrews and strongly alluded to in Luke’s account of the Annunciation. Likewise, the Psalms record God’s promise to establish the seed of David on his throne forever, while Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of the coming reign of a righteous king of the house of David.
David’s ancestors are also understood as progenitors of the Messiah in several prophecies. Isaiah’s description of the branch or root of Jesse
is cited twice by Paul as a promise of the Christ. Even Genesis is seen as promising the Messiah’s descent from Judah and from Abraham
. In the earliest messianic prophecy of all, immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God promises that the serpent’s head will be crushed by “the seed of the woman”—in the simplest sense, this refers to Eve
, the first woman, but Christian exegesis sees a reference to Mary.
More controversial are the prophecies on the Messiah’s relation, or lack thereof, to certain of David’s descendants:
The promise to Solomon, if applicable, argues against Luke, while Jeconiah’s curse, if applicable, argues against Matthew. Yet evidently neither evangelist found his respective genealogy incompatible with these prophecies.
Matthew also presents the virgin birth of Jesus as fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14
, which he quotes.
to refer to the relatives of Jesus. The Gospels mention four brothers of Jesus—James
, Joses
, Simon
, and Jude
—along with sisters, named by Epiphanius as Mary and Salome. These and their descendants were prominent in the early Church down to the 2nd century.
Since ancient times, it has been debated precisely how these siblings were related to Jesus, or rather to Joseph and Mary, with her perpetual virginity at issue. There are three principal views on who these siblings were, named for their respective proponents:
There is no suggestion in ancient sources that Jesus himself had any physical children, but the theory that a bloodline of Jesus
, through Mary Magdalene
, survived down through the ages has been popularized in recent decades, most notably in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
.
upholds the virgin birth of Jesus (ʻĪsā) and thus considers his genealogy only through Mary (Maryam), without mentioning Joseph.
Mary is very highly regarded in the Qurʼan, the nineteenth sura
being named for her. She is called a daughter of ʻImrān, whose family is the subject of the third sura. The same Mary (Maryam) is also called a sister of Aaron (Hārūn) in one place, and although this is often seen as an anachronistic conflation with the Old Testament Miriam (having the same name), who was sister to Aaron
(Hārūn) and daughter to Amram
(ʻImrān), the phrase is probably not to be understood literally.
Matthew 1:1
Matthew 1:1 is the opening verse of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. Since Matthew is traditionally placed as the first of the four Gospels, this verse commonly serves as the opening to the entire New Testament....
–17
Matthew 1:17
Matthew 1:17 is the seventeenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse is the conclusion to the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the father of Jesus, is listed.-Text:...
.
- Matthew's genealogy commences with AbrahamAbrahamAbraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
and then from King DavidDavidDavid was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
's son SolomonSolomonSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
follows the legal line of the kings through JeconiahJeconiahJeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...
, the king whose descendants were cursed, to JosephSaint JosephSaint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
, legal father of JesusJesusJesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. - Luke's genealogy goes back to AdamAdamAdam is a figure in the Book of Genesis. According to the creation myth of Abrahamic religions, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim , and the first woman, Eve was formed from his rib...
, through a minor son of David, NathanNathan (son of David)Nathan was the third of four sons born to King David and Bathsheba in Jerusalem. He was an older brother of Solomon.In the New Testament, the genealogy of Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke traces Jesus' lineage back to King David through the line of Nathan, although the Gospel of Matthew...
and apparently again to JosephSaint JosephSaint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
.
Both gospels state that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
, but by God, being born to Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
through a virgin birth. These lists are identical between Abraham and David, but they differ radically from that point onward.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
(1913) states that aside from a general implication of her Davidic origin
Davidic line
The Davidic line refers to the tracing of lineage to the King David referred to in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the New Testament...
, there is no explicit Biblical record of Mary’s genealogy, but a number of extra-biblical sources, some relatively early, claim to provide her immediate ancestry, as well as an explanation for the divergence between Matthew and Luke. The apparent contradiction of the two gospel genealogies has aroused controversy since ancient times, although modern scholars tend to view the genealogies as theological craftsmanship rather than historical fact.
Luke’s genealogy
Luke 3:23–38, after telling of the baptism of Jesus and the commencement of his ministry, states, “He was the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, [the son of] Eli…” and continues on until "Adam, which was of God." The Greek text of Luke's Gospel does not use the word "son" in the genealogy after "being as was supposed the son of Joseph" and continues "of Heli... of Matthat... of Levi" and so on.
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This genealogy descends from the Davidic line
Davidic line
The Davidic line refers to the tracing of lineage to the King David referred to in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the New Testament...
through Nathan
Nathan (son of David)
Nathan was the third of four sons born to King David and Bathsheba in Jerusalem. He was an older brother of Solomon.In the New Testament, the genealogy of Jesus according to the Gospel of Luke traces Jesus' lineage back to King David through the line of Nathan, although the Gospel of Matthew...
, who is an otherwise little-known son of King David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
, mentioned briefly in the Old Testament. The intervening generations are a series of otherwise unknown names, but the number of generations is chronologically quite plausible. One of the names, Mattathias (of the 69th generation), appears to arrive at a time close to Mattathias
Mattathias
Mattathias ben Johanan was a Jewish priest whose role in the Jewish revolt against the Syrian Greeks is related in the Books of the Maccabees...
, a leader in the Maccabees
Maccabees
The Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
. However, Mattathias never had any son named Joseph, though he had a grandson who was also named Matthiatas, who was not included in the Maccabean dynasty and whose children were not documented. (Thus, it is plausible that the two were conflated
Conflation
Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost...
, with the intermediary generation of Simon Maccabeus removed.)
In the ancestry of David, Luke agrees completely with the Old Testament. Cainan
Cainan
Cainan can refer to either:*A variant of the name Kenan in the generations of Adam, the lists of antediluvian patriarchs given in the Torah;*Cainan, the son of the Arpachshad mentioned in most manuscripts of the Gospel of Luke 3:36...
is included between Shelah and Arphaxad, following the Septuagint text (though omitted in the Masoretic text
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
followed by most modern Bibles). In continuing the genealogy all the way to Adam, the progenitor of all mankind, the gospel is seen as emphasizing Jesus’s universal mission.
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
notes that the count of generations in Luke is 77, a remarkable number symbolizing the forgiveness of all sins. This count also agrees with the seventy generations from Enoch
Enoch (ancestor of Noah)
Enoch is a figure in the Generations of Adam. Enoch is described as Adam's greatx4 grandson , the son of Jared, the father of Methuselah, and the great-grandfather of Noah...
set forth in the Book of Enoch
Book of Enoch
The Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel...
, which Luke probably knew. Though Luke never counts the generations as Matthew does, it appears that he too follows the hebdomad
Hebdomad
Hebdomad may refer to:* On Hebdomads, a work of the Hippocratic Corpus* hebdomad, a term used by Neoplatonist philosophers such as Iamblichus and Proclus in reference to the intellect...
ic principle of working in sevens. However, Irenaeus
Irenaeus
Saint Irenaeus , was Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, then a part of the Roman Empire . He was an early church father and apologist, and his writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology...
, one of the earliest witnesses, counts only 72 generations from Adam.
Since the nature of Luke’s genealogy has made it particularly susceptible to scribal corruption, determining the original text from the manuscript evidence has been especially problematic. The most controversial section, oddly, is in the ancestry of David, which is well established in the Old Testament. Although the reading “son of Aminadab, son of Aram,” in agreement with the Old Testament, is well attested, the Nestle-Aland critical edition, considered the best authority by most modern scholars, accepts the variant “son of Aminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni,” counting the 77 generations from Adam rather than God.
Luke’s qualification “as was supposed” () avoids stating that Jesus was actually a son of Joseph, since his virgin birth is affirmed in the same gospel. There are, however, several interpretations of how this qualification relates to the rest of the genealogy:
- Some see the remainder as the true genealogy of Joseph, despite the different genealogy given in Matthew.
- Others see the lineage as a legal ancestry, rather than an ancestry according to blood—Joseph is thus a legal son of Eli, perhaps a son-in-law or adopted son.
- Still others suggest that Luke is repeating an untrustworthy record without affirming its accuracy.
- Lastly, some, from as early as John of DamascusJohn of DamascusSaint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
, view “as was supposed of Joseph” as a parenthetical note, with Luke actually calling Jesus a son of Eli—meaning, it is then suggested, that HeliHeli (Bible)Heli is a Biblical individual mentioned in Luke 3:23 whom many Protestant scholars consider is the father of Mary, mother of Jesus.The Lukan genealogy mentions Joseph, not Mary, but does not have the word "son of" in the Greek text, leading to the suggestion that "son-in-law" of Heli is...
(, Heli) is the maternal grandfather of Jesus, and Luke is actually tracing the ancestry of Jesus according to the flesh through Mary. Therefore per Adam ClarkeAdam ClarkeAdam Clarke was a British Methodist theologian and Biblical scholar, born in the townland of Moybeg Kirley near Tobermore in Ireland...
(1817), John WesleyJohn WesleyJohn Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, John KittoJohn KittoJohn Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.-Biography:Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three...
and others the expression "Joseph, [ ] of Heli", without the word "son" being present in the Greek, indicates that "Joseph, of Heli" is to be read "Joseph, [son-in-law] of Heli".
Mary's kinship with Elizabeth
Luke states that ElizabethElizabeth (Biblical person)
Elizabeth is also spelled Elisabeth or Elisheva...
, the mother of John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
, was a "relative" (Greek syggenēs, συγγενής) of Mary, and that Elizabeth was descended from Aaron
Aaron
In the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Aaron : Ααρών ), who is often called "'Aaron the Priest"' and once Aaron the Levite , was the older brother of Moses, and a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites...
, of the tribe of Levi
Levi
Levi/Levy was, according to the Book of Genesis, the third son of Jacob and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Levi ; however Peake's commentary suggests this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite...
. Some, such as Gregory Nazianzen, have inferred from this that Mary herself was also a Levite descended from Aaron, and thus kingly and priestly lineages were united in Jesus. Others, such as Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
, have argued that the relationship was on the maternal side; that Mary's father was from Judah, Mary's mother from Levi.
Modern scholars like Raymond Brown
Raymond E. Brown
The Reverend Raymond Edward Brown, S.S. , was an American Roman Catholic priest, a member of the Sulpician Fathers and a major Biblical scholar of his era...
(1973) and Géza Vermes
Geza Vermes
Géza Vermes or Vermès is a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He is a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient works in Aramaic, and on the life and religion of Jesus...
(2005) suggest that the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth is simply an invention of Luke.
Matthew’s genealogy
Matthew 1:1–17 begins the Gospel, “A record of the origin of Jesus Christ, the son of DavidDavid
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
, the son of Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
: Abraham begot Isaac…” and continues on until “…and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon
Babylonian captivity
The Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....
, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.”
Matthew emphasizes, right from the beginning, Jesus’ title Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
—the Greek rendering of the Hebrew title Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
—meaning anointed, in the sense of an anointed king. Jesus is presented first and foremost as the long-awaited Messiah, who was expected to be a descendant and heir of King David, so the genealogy serves the essential purpose of demonstrating this line of descent. Thus, Matthew begins by calling Jesus son of David, indicating his royal origin, and also son of Abraham, indicating that he was a Jew; both are stock phrases, in which son means descendant, calling to mind the promises God made to David and to Abraham.
Matthew’s introductory title (, book of generations) has been interpreted various ways, but most likely is simply a title for the genealogy that follows, echoing the Septuagint use of the same phrase for toledot
Toledot
Toledot, Toldot, or Tol'doth is the sixth weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It constitutes Genesis...
.
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Matthew’s genealogy is considerably more complex than Luke’s. It is overtly schematic, organized into three tesseradecads (sets of fourteen), each of a distinct character:
- The first is rich in annotations, including four mothers and mentioning the brothers of Judah and the brother ZerahZerahZerah or Zérach refers to five different people in the Hebrew Bible.-The Cushite:...
of Pharez. - The second spans the Davidic royal line, but omits several generations, ending with “Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.”
- The last, which appears to span only thirteen generations, connects Joseph to Zerubbabel through a series of otherwise unknown names, remarkably few for such a long period.
The total of 42 generations is achieved only by omitting several names, so the choice of three sets of fourteen seems deliberate. Fourteen is seven, symbolizing perfection and covenant, doubled, and is also the gematria
Gematria
Gematria or gimatria is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase, in the belief that words or phrases with identical numerical values bear some relation to each other, or bear some relation to the number itself as it may apply to a person's age, the calendar year, or the like...
of David. Numerous other explanations have been proposed as well.
The rendering into Greek of Hebrew names in this genealogy is mostly in accord with the Septuagint, but there are a few peculiarities. The form Asaph seems to identify King Asa with the psalmist Asaph
Psalms of Asaph
The Psalms of Asaph are the twelve psalms numbered 50 and 73 – 83 of the Book of Psalms. The origin and identity of the person of Asaph is ambiguous, and it is difficult to know whether or not there was an identifiable progenitor for this family name...
. Likewise, some see the form Amos for King Amon as suggesting the prophet Amos
Amos (prophet)
Amos is a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and the author of the Book of Amos. Before becoming a prophet, Amos was a sheep herder and a sycamore fig farmer. Amos' prior professions and his claim "I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet" indicate that Amos was not from the school of prophets,...
, though the Septuagint does have this form. Both may simply be assimilations to more familiar names. More interesting, though, are the unique forms Boes (Boaz, LXX Boos) and Rachab (Rahab, LXX Raab).
Women
This Rachab is most likely RahabRahab
Rahab, was, according to the Book of Joshua, a woman who lived in Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites in capturing the city...
the harlot, whose story is told in the Old Testament, though some question the identification. Matthew is unique in naming her as the wife of Salmon and mother of Boaz. The Talmud says that Rahab married Joshua
Joshua
Joshua , is a minor figure in the Torah, being one of the spies for Israel and in few passages as Moses's assistant. He turns to be the central character in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Joshua...
. The unusual spelling of her name, paralleled only in Josephus
Josephus
Titus Flavius Josephus , also called Joseph ben Matityahu , was a 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian and hagiographer of priestly and royal ancestry who recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the 1st century AD and the First Jewish–Roman War, which resulted in the Destruction of...
, may result from the unique tradition that Matthew drew from here, which Bauckham
Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham is a widely published scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament. He is currently working on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John as a Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge....
suggests is connected to a passage in Chronicles mentioning Salma and Rechab.
That women are mentioned at all, when such genealogies are typically so focused on the male line, is remarkable. Four women are included early in the genealogy—Tamar, Rahab
Rahab
Rahab, was, according to the Book of Joshua, a woman who lived in Jericho in the Promised Land and assisted the Israelites in capturing the city...
, Ruth
Book of Ruth
The Book of Ruth is one of the books of the Hebrew Bible, Tanakh, or Old Testament. In the Jewish canon the Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings . In the Christian canon the Book of Ruth is placed between Judges and 1 Samuel...
, and “the wife of Uriah” (i.e., Bathsheba
Bathsheba
According to the Hebrew Bible, Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, king of the United Kingdom of Israel and Judah. She is most known for the Bible story in which King David seduced her....
)—and a fifth, Mary
Mary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
, concludes the genealogy as the mother of Jesus. Why Matthew chose to include these particular women, while passing over others such as the matriarchs Sarah
Sarah
Sarah or Sara was the wife of Abraham and the mother of Isaac as described in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran. Her name was originally Sarai...
, Rebecca
Rebecca
Rebecca a biblical matriarch from the Book of Genesis and a common first name. In this book Rebecca was said to be a beautiful girl. As a name it is often shortened to Becky, Becki or Becca; see Rebecca ....
, and Leah
Leah
Leah , as described in the Hebrew Bible, is the first of the two concurrent wives of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob and mother of six of sons whose descendants became the Twelve Tribes of Israel, along with at least one daughter, Dinah. She is the daughter of Laban and the older sister of Rachel, whom...
, has been much discussed.
There is assumed to be a common thread among these four women, to which Matthew wishes to draw attention. Some point out their Gentile origin: Rahab was a Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ite, Bathsheba was married to a Hittite
Biblical Hittites
The Hittites and children of Heth are a people or peoples mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. They are listed in Book of Genesis as second of the twelve Canaanite nations, descended from one Heth...
, Ruth was from Moab
Moab
Moab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
and sometimes seen as a Moab
Moab
Moab is the historical name for a mountainous strip of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, which describes the Moabite victory over...
ite, and Tamar’s origin is unclear—thus Matthew prepares the reader for the inclusion of the Gentiles in Christ’s mission, contrasting their faith with the faithlessness of the Jews. Others point out their sinfulness: Rahab was a prostitute, Tamar posed as a prostitute to seduce Judah, Bathsheba was an adulteress, and Ruth is sometimes seen as seducing Boaz—thus Matthew emphasizes God’s grace in response to sin. Still others point out their unusual, even scandalous, unions—preparing the reader for what will be said about Mary. None of these explanations, however, adequately befits all four women. Nolland suggests simply that these were all the known women attached to David’s genealogy in the Book of Ruth.
| Old Testament | |Matthew |
|---|---|
The conclusion of the genealogy proper is also unusual: having traced the ancestry of Joseph, Matthew identifies him not as the father of Jesus, but as the husband of Mary. The Greek text is explicit in making Jesus born to Mary, rather than to Joseph. This careful wording is to affirm the virgin birth, which Matthew proceeds to discuss, stating that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph but by God.
Omissions
Three consecutive kings of Judah are omitted from the genealogy: AhaziahAhaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....
, Jehoash
Jehoash of Judah
Jehoash or Joas , sometimes written Joash or Joás , was the eighth king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba ....
, and Amaziah
Amaziah of Judah
Amaziah of Judah, Amasias , pronounced , and Amatzyah was the king of Judah, the son and successor of Joash. His mother was Jehoaddan and his son was Uzziah . He took the throne at the age of 25...
. The next generation, Uzziah
Uzziah of Judah
Uzziah , also known as Azariah , was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father...
(also called Azariah), has a Greek name Ozias very similar to that of the first omitted name, Ochozias. Some therefore suggest that the omission arose from a scribal error, homoioteleuton between these two names, after which the groups of fourteen were discovered. Others see it as “a deliberately taken opportunity,” encouraged by the similarity of names. Not only were these three kings especially wicked, violently destroyed by the will of God, they were the cursed line of Ahab
Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....
through his daughter Athaliah
Athaliah
Athaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
to the third and fourth generation. Thus Matthew felt justified in omitting them, with an eye toward forming his second tesseradecad.
Another omitted king is Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim .On Josiah's death, Jehoiakim's younger brother Jehoahaz was proclaimed king, but after three months pharaoh Necho II deposed him and replaced him with the eldest son, Eliakim, who adopted the name Jehoiakim and became king at the age of twenty-five...
, the father of Jeconiah
Jeconiah
Jeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...
, also known as Jehoiachin. In Greek the names are even more similar, both being sometimes called Joachim. When Matthew says, “Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile,” he appears to conflate the two, because Jehoiakim, not Jeconiah, had brothers, but the exile was in the time of Jeconiah. While some see this as a mistake, others argue that the omission was once again deliberate, ensuring that the kings after David spanned exactly fourteen generations.
The final tesseradecad seems to contain only thirteen generations. Since it is unlikely that Matthew simply miscounted, a number of explanations have been proposed. A name may have been counted both at the end of one tesseradecad and the beginning of the next—either David or Jeconiah. Or if Josiah’s son was intended as Jehoiakim, then Jeconiah could be counted separately after the exile. Another possibility is that Mary is counted as a generation, proceeding laterally by her marriage to Joseph. Though such a reckoning is otherwise unknown, it may have seemed necessary in light of the virgin birth. Some have even proposed that Matthew’s original text had one Joseph as the father of Mary, who then married another man of the same name.
If only thirteen generations span the time from Jeconiah
Jeconiah
Jeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...
, born about 616 BC, to Jesus
Chronology of Jesus
The chronology of Jesus aims to establish a historical order for some of the events of the life of Jesus in the four canonical gospels. The Christian gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than historical chronicles and their authors showed little interest in an absolute...
, born about 2 BC, as Matthew says, the average generation would be nearly fifty years—rather unlikely, though not impossible. It is generally assumed that, as Matthew has previously taken certain liberties, he continues to do so in this section, omitting several generations. Precedent for such abridged genealogies is found in the Old Testament. The lack here of papponymic
Papponymic
A papponymic is a personal name based on the name of one's grandfather, similar to a patronymic, a name derived form the name of one's father. Papponyms have been common in a number of societies such as Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel...
naming patterns, which were common throughout this period, may indicate that Matthew has telescoped this segment by collapsing such repetitions.
Virgin birth
These two Gospels declare that Jesus was begotten not by Joseph, but by the power of the Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit
Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...
while Mary was still a virgin, in fulfillment of prophecy. Thus, in mainstream Christianity, Jesus is regarded as being literally the “only begotten son” of God, while Joseph is regarded as his adoptive father.
Matthew immediately follows the genealogy of Jesus with:
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
Likewise, Luke tells of the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...
:
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”
The question then arises, why do both gospels seem to trace the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, when they deny that he is his biological father? Augustine considers it a sufficient answer that Joseph was the father of Jesus by adoption, his legal father, through whom he could rightfully claim descent from David.
Tertullian
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicised as Tertullian , was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He is the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of Latin Christian literature. He also was a notable early Christian apologist and...
, on the other hand, argues that Jesus must have descended from David by blood through his mother Mary. He sees Biblical support in Paul’s statement that Jesus was “born of a descendant of David according to the flesh”. Affirmations of Mary’s Davidic ancestry are found early and often, and some see a strong implication in these sources that at least one evangelist actually records Jesus’ maternal ancestry.
The Ebionites
Ebionites
Ebionites, or Ebionaioi, , is a patristic term referring to a Jewish Christian sect or sects that existed during the first centuries of the Christian Era. They regarded Jesus as the Messiah and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites...
, a sect who denied the virgin birth, used a gospel
Gospel of the Ebionites
Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given to the description by Epiphanius of Salamis of a gospel used by the Ebionites. All that is known of the gospel text consists of seven brief quotations found in Chapter 30 of a heresiology written by Epiphanius known as the Panarion...
which, according to Epiphanius
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
, was a recension of Matthew that omitted the genealogy and infancy narrative.
Extra-biblical accounts
John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
and others who see the genealogy of Luke as the genealogy of Mary, not Joseph, are correct, the Bible says nothing explicitly about the ancestry of Mary, nor does it address the apparent inconsistency between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. There are, however, several early sources offering further details.
New Testament Apocrypha
The apocryphal Protevangelium of JamesGospel of James
The Gospel of James, also known as the Infancy Gospel of James or the Protoevangelium of James, is an apocryphal Gospel probably written about AD 145, which expands backward in time the infancy stories contained the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, and presents a narrative concerning the birth and...
(probably of the 2nd century) tells of the miraculous birth of Mary to her parents, Joachim
Joachim
Saint Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne appears first in the apocryphal Gospel of James...
and Anne
Saint Anne
Saint Hanna of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian and Islamic tradition. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah...
. It further relates that Joseph, before his marriage to Mary, was an elderly widower with children of his own. Joachim and Anne, who were eventually accepted into the canon of saints
Canonization
Canonization is the act by which a Christian church declares a deceased person to be a saint, upon which declaration the person is included in the canon, or list, of recognized saints. Originally, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process...
, are named in a number of other early sources as Mary’s parents, but this apocryphal text, which was later condemned, was so widely influential that it is not clear whether the names rest on any other independent tradition.
- The Cave of TreasuresCave of TreasuresThe Cave of Treasures, sometimes referred to simply as The Treasure, is a book of the New Testament apocrypha.-Origin:This text is attributed to Ephrem Syrus, who was born at Nisibis soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or...
(6th C) names Anne’s father as Paqud son of Eleazar. - The Gospel of Pseudo-MatthewGospel of Pseudo-MatthewThe Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is a part of the New Testament apocrypha, and sometimes goes by the name of The Infancy Gospel of Matthew, but the actual name of the text in antiquity was The Book About the Origin of the Blessed Mary and the Childhood of the Savior...
names her father as Issachar of the tribe of Judah. Later elaborations name her mother as Susanna. - By the 15th century, another account was current naming her parents as Stollanus and EmerentiaEmerentiaEmerentia is the name given for a grandmother of Mary, mother of Jesus, in some European traditions and art from the late 15th century.-2nd to 14th centuries:...
. - Anne Catherine EmmerichAnne Catherine EmmerichBlessed Anne Catherine Emmerich was a Roman Catholic Augustinian nun, stigmatic, mystic, visionary and ecstatic....
, a 19th-century mystic, claimed to have visions revealing the ancestry of Mary in some detail—combining several medieval versions, she names Anne’s parents as Eliud and Ismeria. - The esotericist Rudolf SteinerRudolf SteinerRudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
posited two children named Jesus and two women named Mary involved: one child descendant from Solomon died at the age of twelve; the other child from Nathan lived on.
Explanations for divergence
The two Biblical genealogies seem to disagree not only on on the name of Joseph’s father, but on the entire lineage back to David.This apparent contradiction has been a source of great difficulty. Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
, for example, took great care on several occasions to refute every purported inconsistency in the gospel genealogies, not only because the Manichaeans in his day were using these inconsistencies as fodder for attacking Christianity, but also because he himself had seen them in his youth as cause for doubting the veracity of the Gospels.
Several theories have been advanced to explain the divergence of the two gospel genealogies, most notably:
- That Joseph had two fathers—one natural and one legal—as a result of a levirate marriageYibbumYibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
involving uterine brothers. - Legal inheritance.
- That Luke’s genealogy is actually through Mary rather than her husband Joseph.
- That Matthew’s genealogy is actually through Mary rather than her husband Joseph.
- That one or both of the genealogies are invented.
Levirate Marriage
AfricanusSextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He is important chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.His name indicates that...
, writing in the 3rd century, is the first to reconcile the apparent contradiction between the two gospel genealogies. Citing the records of the desposyni
Desposyni
The term Desposyni refers to alleged blood relatives of Jesus. The term was coined by Sextus Julius Africanus, a writer of the early 3rd century. Some scholars argue that Jesus' relatives held positions of special honor in the Early Christian Church...
, he details a levirate marriage
Yibbum
Yibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
:
Matthan and Melchi, having taken the same woman to wife in succession, begat children who were uterine brothers, as the law did not prevent a widow, whether such by divorce or by the death of her husband, from marrying another. By Estha, then—for such is her name according to tradition—Matthan first, the descendant of Solomon, begets Jacob; and on Matthan’s death, Melchi, who traces his descent back to Nathan, being of the same tribe but of another family, having married her, as has been already said, had a son Eli. Thus, then, we shall find Jacob and Eli uterine brothers, though of different families. And of these, the one Jacob having taken the wife of his brother Eli, who died childless, begat by her the third, Joseph—his son by nature and by account. Whence also it is written, “And Jacob begat Joseph.” But according to law he was the son of Eli, for Jacob his brother raised up seed to him.
A Jewish tradition relating Mary to Luke’s genealogy is recorded in the Doctrina Jacobi
Doctrina Jacobi
The Teaching of Jacob, is a 7th century Greek Christian anti-Jewish polemical tract set in Carthage in 634 but written in Palestine sometime between 634 and 640...
(written in 634), in which a Tiberian rabbi mocks the Christian veneration of Mary by recounting her genealogy according to the tradition of the Jews of Tiberias. A century later, John of Damascus
John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
and others report the same information, only inserting an extra generation, Barpanther (Aramaic for son of Panther, thus indicating a misunderstood Aramaic source). A certain prince Andronicus later found the same polemic in a book belonging to a rabbi named Elijah:
Why do Christians extol Mary so highly, calling her nobler than the Cherubim, incomparably greater than the Seraphim, raised above the heavens, purer than the very rays of the sun? For she was a woman, of the race of David, born to Anne her mother and Joachim her father, who was son of Panther. Panther and Melchi were brothers, sons of Levi, of the stock of Nathan, whose father was David of the tribe of Judah.
Each of these texts then goes on to describe, just as in Africanus (but omitting the name of Estha), how Melchi was related to Joseph through a levirate marriage.
Oddly, Melchi is thus always described as the father of Eli, while Luke reads “Eli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi.” Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
assumed that Africanus was mistaken and corrected Melchi to Matthat. Since papponymic
Papponymic
A papponymic is a personal name based on the name of one's grandfather, similar to a patronymic, a name derived form the name of one's father. Papponyms have been common in a number of societies such as Ancient Greece and Ancient Israel...
s were common in this period, however, it would not be surprising if Matthat were also named Melchi after his grandfather.
Controversy has surrounded the name Panther, mentioned above, because of a charge that Jesus' father was a soldier named Pantera
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera
Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera was a Roman solder whose tombstone was found in Bingerbrück, Germany in 1859.Historically, the name Pantera is not an unusual name and had been in use among Roman soldiers in the second century....
. Celsus
Celsus
Celsus was a 2nd century Greek philosopher and opponent of Early Christianity. He is known for his literary work, The True Word , written about by Origen. This work, c. 177 is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity.According to Origen, Celsus was the author of an...
mentions this in his writing, The True Word
The True Word
The True Word is a treatise in which Celsus addressed many principal points of Early Christianity and refuted or argued against their validity...
, where he is quoted by Origen in Book 1: 32. "But let us now return to where the Jew is introduced, speaking of the mother of Jesus, and saying that "when she was pregnant she was turned out of doors by the carpenter to whom she had been betrothed, as having been guilty of adultery, and that she bore a child to a certain soldier named Panthera." Epiphanius
Epiphanius of Salamis
Epiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
, in refutation of Celsus, writes that Joseph and Cleopas were sons of “Jacob, surnamed Panther.” Two Talmudic-era texts referring to Jesus as the son of Pantera (Pandera) are Tosefta Hullin 2:22f: "Jacob ... came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pantera" and Qohelet Rabbah 1:8(3): "Jacob ... came to heal him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera" and some editions of the Jerusalem Talmud
Jerusalem Talmud
The Jerusalem Talmud, talmud meaning "instruction", "learning", , is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the 2nd-century Mishnah which was compiled in the Land of Israel during the 4th-5th century. The voluminous text is also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmud de-Eretz Yisrael...
also specifically name Jesus as the son of Pandera: Jerusalem Abodah Zarah 2:2/7: "someone ... whispered to him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Shabboth 14:4/8: "someone ... whispered to him in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Abodah Zarah 2:2/12: "Jacob ... came to heal him. He said to him: we will speak to you in the name of Jesus son of Pandera"; Jerusalem Shabboth 14:4/13: "Jacob ... came in the name of Jesus Pandera to heal him". Because some editions of the Jerusalem Talmud do not contain the name Jesus in these passages the association is disputed.
A distinct tradition is found in the Cave of Treasures
Cave of Treasures
The Cave of Treasures, sometimes referred to simply as The Treasure, is a book of the New Testament apocrypha.-Origin:This text is attributed to Ephrem Syrus, who was born at Nisibis soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or...
, probably composed in Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
about the 6th century. The genealogy of Jesus from Adam down to Mary is given much as in Matthew, with the omissions filled in and, remarkably, the mother of each generation provided. Mary is made a cousin of Joseph, as her father Jonachir was a son of Matthan and twin brother of Jacob. Mary’s mother is identified as Anne (Ḥana), daughter of Paqud.
Fascination with the life and family of Anne led to the spread of numerous medieval legends about her and inspired the artistic motif of the Holy Kinship
Holy Kinship
Holy Kinship was a popular theme in religious art throughout Germany and the Low Countries, especially during the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Holy Kin were the extended family of Jesus descended from his maternal grandmother St. Anne. According to this tradition, St...
. A number of medieval sources offer conflicting accounts of the parents of Anne:
- Byzantine sources record a tradition showing precisely how Mary was related to Elizabeth. Andronicus quotes this passage from the same book:
There were three sisters of Bethlehem
BethlehemBethlehem is a Palestinian city in the central West Bank of the Jordan River, near Israel and approximately south of Jerusalem, with a population of about 30,000 people. It is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority and a hub of Palestinian culture and tourism...
, daughters of Matthan the priest, and Mary his wife, under the reign of Cleopatra and Sosipatrus, before the reign of HerodHerod the GreatHerod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
, the son of Antipater: the eldest was Mary, the second was Sobe, the youngest’s name was AnneSaint AnneSaint Hanna of David's house and line, was the mother of the Virgin Mary and grandmother of Jesus Christ according to Christian and Islamic tradition. English Anne is derived from Greek rendering of her Hebrew name Hannah...
. The eldest being married in Bethlehem, had for daughter Salome the midwife; Sobe the second likewise married in Bethlehem, and was the mother of ElizabethElizabeth (Biblical person)Elizabeth is also spelled Elisabeth or Elisheva...
; last of all the third married in GalileeGalileeGalilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, and brought forth Mary the mother of Christ.
The earliest tradition that explains this divergence records a complex scenario involving the Jewish law of levirate marriage
Yibbum
Yibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
, whereby, upon the death of a childless man, his brother would marry the widow in order to produce a son for the deceased man. Such a son would then have two fathers, one natural and one legal.
Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He is important chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.His name indicates that...
, in his 3rd-century Epistle to Aristides, reports a tradition of the desposyni
Desposyni
The term Desposyni refers to alleged blood relatives of Jesus. The term was coined by Sextus Julius Africanus, a writer of the early 3rd century. Some scholars argue that Jesus' relatives held positions of special honor in the Early Christian Church...
that Joseph was born from just such a levirate marriage involving uterine brothers (see above).
According to Africanus, Joseph’s natural father was Jacob son of Matthan, as given in Matthew, while his legal father was Eli son of Melchi (sic), as given in Luke. Joseph’s grandmother Estha first married Matthan and bore Jacob, then married Melchi and bore Eli. When Eli died without issue, his half-brother Jacob married the widow and begot Joseph.
To many christians, the whole scenario seems rather contrived, as the only explanation for how, under Jewish law, a man could have two completely different ancestries. It has been questioned, for example, whether levirate marriages actually occurred among uterine brothers—they are expressly excluded in the Halakhah Beth Hillel (but permitted by Shammai).
Nevertheless, the patristic tradition eagerly embraced this explanation, and it remained widely accepted until the Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
.
Legal inheritance
One of the traditional explanations is that Matthew traces not a genealogy in the modern biological sense, but a record of legal inheritance, equally valid in his view, showing the succession of Jesus in the royal line.Matthew’s immediate goal is therefore not David, but Jeconiah, and in his final tesseradecad, he may freely jump to a maternal grandfather, skip generations, or perhaps even follow an adoptive lineage in order to get there. Attempts have been made to reconstruct Matthew’s route, from the seminal work of Lord Hervey to Masson’s recent tour de force, but all are necessarily highly speculative.
As a starting point, one of Joseph’s two fathers could be by simple adoption, as Augustine suggests, or more likely the special adoption by a father-in-law with no sons, or could be a maternal grandfather. On the other hand, the resemblance between Matthan and Matthat suggests they are the same man (in which case Jacob and Eli are either identical or full brothers involved in a levirate marriage
Yibbum
Yibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
), and Matthew’s departure from Luke at that point can only be to follow legal line of inheritance, perhaps through a maternal grandfather. Such reasoning could further explain what has happened with Zerubbabel and Shealtiel.
Maternal ancestry in Luke
A more straightforward and the most common explanation is that Luke’s genealogy is of MaryMary (mother of Jesus)
Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...
, with Eli being her father, while Matthew’s describes the genealogy of Joseph. This view was advanced as early as John of Damascus
John of Damascus
Saint John of Damascus was a Syrian monk and priest...
.
Luke’s text says that Jesus was “a son, as was supposed, of Joseph, of Eli” (in the Greek: ). The qualification has traditionally been understood as acknowledgment of the virgin birth, but some instead see a parenthetical expression: “a son (as was supposed of Joseph) of Eli.” In this interpretation, Jesus is called a son of Eli because Eli was his maternal grandfather, his nearest male ancestor. A variation on this idea is to explain “Joseph son of Eli” as meaning a son-in-law, perhaps even an adoptive heir to Eli through his only daughter Mary. An example of the Old Testament use of such an expression is Jair, who is called “Jair son of Manasseh” but was actually son of Manasseh’s granddaughter. In any case, the argument goes, it is natural for the evangelist, acknowledging the unique case of the virgin birth, to give the maternal genealogy of Jesus, while expressing it a bit awkwardly in the traditional patrilinear style.
The reason for the divergence in genealogies, is that Matthew is said to record the actual legal genealogy of Jesus through Joseph according to Jewish custom. In Luke we apparently have the actual biological genealogy of Jesus through Mary which Luke naturally gives as he is writing for the Gentiles.
The reason Mary is not implicitly mentioned by name is because the ancient Hebrews never permitted the name of a woman to enter the genealogical tables, but inserted her husband as the son of him who was, in reality, but his father-in-law.
Lightfoot sees confirmation in an obscure passage of the Talmud
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
, which, as he reads it, refers to “Mary daughter of Eli”; however, both the identity of this Mary and the reading are doubtful. Patristic tradition, on the contrary, consistently identifies Mary’s father as Joachim
Joachim
Saint Joachim was the husband of Saint Anne and the father of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican traditions. The story of Joachim and Anne appears first in the apocryphal Gospel of James...
. It has been suggested that Eli is short for Eliakim, which in the Old Testament is an alternate name of King Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim
Jehoiakim .On Josiah's death, Jehoiakim's younger brother Jehoahaz was proclaimed king, but after three months pharaoh Necho II deposed him and replaced him with the eldest son, Eliakim, who adopted the name Jehoiakim and became king at the age of twenty-five...
, for whom Joachim is named.
The theory neatly accounts for the genealogical divergence while accepting the text of the Gospel. It is consistent with the early tradition ascribing a Davidic ancestry to Mary. It is also consistent with Luke’s intimate acquaintance with Mary
Mary
Mary is a female given name.Mary may also refer to:-Religious contexts:* Mary , also called the Blessed Virgin Mary* Mary in Islam, mother of Jesus* Mary Magdalene, devoted disciple of Jesus...
, in contrast to Matthew’s focus on Joseph
Joseph
-Media:* YosepH, album by Luke Vibert* Josef , a Croatian television movie from 2011*Various works based on the life of Joseph in the Hebrew Bible:** Joseph and his Brethren, oratorio by George Frideric Handel...
’s perspective. But there is no explicit indication that the genealogy is Mary’s.
The claim that Luke gives Mary’s genealogy is mentioned in a single extant medieval text, in which pseudo-Hilary cites it as an opinion held by many, though not himself. This claim was revived by Annius of Viterbo in 1498 and quickly grew in popularity. It has gained acceptance by some scholars (though by no means all)..
Maternal ancestry in Matthew
A minority view holds that while Luke gives the genealogy of Joseph, Matthew gives the genealogy of Mary. A few ancient authorities seem to offer this interpretation. Although the Greek text as it stands is plainly against it, it has been proposed that in the original text Matthew had one Joseph as Mary’s father and another as her husband. This neatly explains not only why Matthew’s genealogy differs from Luke’s, but also why Matthew counts fourteen generations rather than thirteen. Blair sees the various extant versions as the predictable result of copyists repeatedly attempting to correct an apparent mistake. Others argue that here the Aramaic originalAramaic primacy
The hypothesis of Aramaic primacy holds that the original text of the New Testament was not written in Greek, as held by the majority of scholars, but in the Aramaic language, which was the primary language of Jesus and his Twelve Apostles....
of Matthew used the word gowra (which could mean father), which, in the absence of vowel markings, was read by the Greek translator as gura (husband). In any case, an early understanding that Matthew traced Mary’s genealogy would explain why the contradiction between Matthew and Luke apparently escaped notice until the 3rd century.
Fabrication or error
A common explanation for the inconsistency of the two genealogies is that at least one of them, or possibly both, are incorrect, perhaps even fabricated.Of the two, Matthew is argued to be the more suspect. Gundry
Robert H. Gundry
Robert Horton Gundry is a Biblical scholar. He received a B.A. and a B.D. degree from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Manchester University in Manchester, England in 1961 and has taught for several decades at Westmont College in California...
regards the series of unknown names connecting Joseph’s grandfather to Zerubbabel as an outright fabrication, produced by collecting and then modifying various names from 1 Chronicles.
Sivertsen, while accepting that Matthew’s version may derive from temple records, sees Luke’s as artificially pieced together out of oral traditions. The pre-exilic series Levi, Simeon, Judah, Joseph consists of the names of tribal patriarchs, far more common after the exile than before, while the name Mattathias and its variants begin at least three suspiciously similar segments. Kuhn likewise suggests that the two series Jesus–Mattathias (77–63) and Jesus–Mattatha (49–37) are duplicates.
According To Eusebius
Eusebius of CaesareaEusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea also called Eusebius Pamphili, was a Roman historian, exegete and Christian polemicist. He became the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine about the year 314. Together with Pamphilus, he was a scholar of the Biblical canon...
a third century Roman historian described the variation this way;
1. Matthan, of Solomon's descent, marries Estha and gives birth to Jacob. [Matthew]
2. Matthan dies. Matthat, of Nathan's descent, marries Estha and gives birth to Heli. [Luke]
3. Jacob and Heli are uterine brothers (same mother but different fathers).
4. Heli marries a wife but dies childless.
5. Keeping Jewish Law in view, Jacob (Heli's brother) marries his brother's wife to raise up seed for him.
6. Joseph is born.
7. Joseph is naturally Jacob's son. [Matthew]
8. But, is, according to Law, Heli's son. [Luke]
Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel
The genealogies in Luke and Matthew appear to briefly converge at Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, though they differ both above Shealtiel and below Zerubbabel. This is also the point where Matthew departs from the Old Testament record.Zerubbabel
Zerubbabel was a governor of the Persian Province of Judah and the grandson of Jehoiachin, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian Captivity in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia . The date is generally thought to...
was a hero who led the Jews back from Babylon about 520 BC, governed Judah, and rebuilt the temple. Several times he is called a son of Shealtiel. He appears once in the genealogies in the Book of Chronicles, where his descendants are traced for several generations, but the passage has a number of difficulties. While the Septuagint text here gives his father as Shealtiel, the Masoretic text
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible and is regarded as Judaism's official version of the Tanakh. While the Masoretic Text defines the books of the Jewish canon, it also defines the precise letter-text of these biblical books, with their vocalization and...
instead substitutes Shealtiel’s brother Pedaiah—both sons of King Jeconiah
Jeconiah
Jeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...
, according to the passage. Some, accepting the Masoretic reading, suppose that Pedaiah begot a son for Shealtiel through a levirate marriage
Yibbum
Yibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
, but most scholars now accept the Septuagint reading as original, in agreement with Matthew and all other accounts.
The appearance of Zerubbabel and Shealtiel in Luke may be no more than a coincidence of names (Zerubbabel, at least, is a very common Babylonian name). Shealtiel is given a completely different ancestry, and Zerubbabel a different son. Furthermore, interpolation between known dates would put the birth of Luke’s Shealtiel at the very time when the celebrated Zerubbabel led the Jews back from Babylon. Thus, it is likely that Luke’s Shealtiel and Zerubbabel were distinct from, and perhaps even named after, Matthew’s.
If they are the same, as many insist, then the question arises of how Shealtiel, like Joseph, could have two fathers. Yet another complex levirate marriage
Yibbum
Yibbum , or levirate marriage, in Judaism, is one of the most complex types of marriages mandated by Torah law by which, according to the law, the brother of a man who died without children has an obligation to marry the widow...
has often been invoked. Bauckham
Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham is a widely published scholar in theology, historical theology and New Testament. He is currently working on New Testament Christology and the Gospel of John as a Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge....
, however, argues for the authenticity of Luke alone. In this view, the genealogy in Chronicles is a late addition grafting Zerubbabel onto the lineage of his predecessors, and Matthew has simply followed the royal succession. In fact, Bauckham says, Zerubbabel’s legitimacy hinged on descending from David through Nathan rather than through the prophetically cursed ruling line.
The name Rhesa, given in Luke as the son of Zerubbabel, is usually seen as the Aramaic word rēʾšāʾ, meaning head or prince. It might well befit a son of Zerubbabel, but some see the name as a misplaced title of Zerubbabel himself. If so, the next generation in Luke, Joanan, might be Hananiah in Chronicles. Subsequent names in Luke, as well as Matthew’s next name Abiud, cannot be identified in Chronicles on more than a speculative basis.
Fulfillment of prophecy
By the time of Jesus, it was already commonly understood that several prophecies in the Old Testament promised a MessiahMessiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
descended from King David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
. Thus, in tracing the Davidic ancestry of Jesus, the Gospels aim to show that these messianic prophecies are fulfilled in him.
The prophecy of Nathan—understood as foretelling a son of God who would inherit the throne of his ancestor David and reign forever—is quoted in Hebrews and strongly alluded to in Luke’s account of the Annunciation. Likewise, the Psalms record God’s promise to establish the seed of David on his throne forever, while Isaiah and Jeremiah speak of the coming reign of a righteous king of the house of David.
David’s ancestors are also understood as progenitors of the Messiah in several prophecies. Isaiah’s description of the branch or root of Jesse
Jesse
Jesse, Eshai or Yishai, is the father of the David, who became the king of the Israelites. His son David is sometimes called simply "Son of Jesse" ....
is cited twice by Paul as a promise of the Christ. Even Genesis is seen as promising the Messiah’s descent from Judah and from Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
. In the earliest messianic prophecy of all, immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve, God promises that the serpent’s head will be crushed by “the seed of the woman”—in the simplest sense, this refers to Eve
Eve
Eve is the first woman created by God in the Book of Genesis.Eve may also refer to:-People:*Eve , a common given name and surname*Eve , American recording artist and actress-Places:...
, the first woman, but Christian exegesis sees a reference to Mary.
More controversial are the prophecies on the Messiah’s relation, or lack thereof, to certain of David’s descendants:
- God promised to establish the throne of King SolomonSolomonSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
over Israel forever, but the promise was contingent upon obeying God’s commandments. Solomon’s failure to do so is explicitly cited as a reason for the subsequent division of his kingdom. Thus, although the Messiah still could descend from Solomon, there was no guarantee. - Against King JehoiakimJehoiakimJehoiakim .On Josiah's death, Jehoiakim's younger brother Jehoahaz was proclaimed king, but after three months pharaoh Necho II deposed him and replaced him with the eldest son, Eliakim, who adopted the name Jehoiakim and became king at the age of twenty-five...
, Jeremiah prophesied, “He shall have no one to sit on the throne of David,” and against his son King JeconiahJeconiahJeconiah "; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin , was a king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon in the 6th Century BCE and was taken into captivity. Most of what is known about Jeconiah is found in the Hebrew Bible. After many excavations in Iraq, records of Jeconiah's...
, “Write this man childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed will prosper, sitting on the throne of David or ruling again in Judah.” Some see this prophecy as permanently disqualifying Jeconiah from the ancestry of the Messiah (though not necessarily of Joseph). More likely, the curse was limited to Jeconiah’s lifetime, and even then, rabbinical tradition has it that Jeconiah repented in exile and the curse was lifted. - To ZerubbabelZerubbabelZerubbabel was a governor of the Persian Province of Judah and the grandson of Jehoiachin, penultimate king of Judah. Zerubbabel led the first group of Jews, numbering 42,360, who returned from the Babylonian Captivity in the first year of Cyrus, King of Persia . The date is generally thought to...
, God declares through Haggai, “I will make you like my signet ring,” in clear reversal of the prophecy against his grandfather Jeconiah, “though you were a signet ring on my right hand, yet I would pull you off.” Zerubbabel ruled as governor, though not as king, and has been regarded by many as a suitable and likely progenitor of the Messiah.
The promise to Solomon, if applicable, argues against Luke, while Jeconiah’s curse, if applicable, argues against Matthew. Yet evidently neither evangelist found his respective genealogy incompatible with these prophecies.
Matthew also presents the virgin birth of Jesus as fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14
Isaiah 7:14
Isaiah 7:14 is a verse of the Book of Isaiah in which the prophet Isaiah, addressing king Ahaz of Judah , promises the king a sign that his oracle is a true one...
, which he quotes.
Desposyni
Desposyni (Greek δεσπόσυνοι, desposynoi, “those of the master”) is a term used uniquely by AfricanusSextus Julius Africanus
Sextus Julius Africanus was a Christian traveller and historian of the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He is important chiefly because of his influence on Eusebius, on all the later writers of Church history among the Fathers, and on the whole Greek school of chroniclers.His name indicates that...
to refer to the relatives of Jesus. The Gospels mention four brothers of Jesus—James
James the Just
James , first Bishop of Jerusalem, who died in 62 AD, was an important figure in Early Christianity...
, Joses
Joses
Saint Joses is the second of the brothers of Jesus appearing in the New Testament. Joses is first mentioned in , which related people talking about Jesus:...
, Simon
Simon (brother of Jesus)
Simon was the brother of Jesus in the New Testament. It is implied that his mother was Mary, and his other brothers were James the Just, Joses and Jude....
, and Jude
Jude, brother of Jesus
Jude was the brother of Jesus, according to the New Testament. He is traditionally identified as the author of the Epistle of Jude, a short epistle which is reckoned among the seven General epistles of the New Testament and considered canonical by Christians.-Sources: and write of Jesus family:...
—along with sisters, named by Epiphanius as Mary and Salome. These and their descendants were prominent in the early Church down to the 2nd century.
Since ancient times, it has been debated precisely how these siblings were related to Jesus, or rather to Joseph and Mary, with her perpetual virginity at issue. There are three principal views on who these siblings were, named for their respective proponents:
- The HelvidianHelvidiusHelvidius was the author of a work written before 383 against the belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary.Helvidius maintained that the mention in the Gospels of the "sisters" and "brethren" of our Lord was proof that the Blessed Virgin had subsequent issue, and he supported his opinion by the...
view—subsequent children of Joseph and Mary. - The EpiphanianEpiphanius of SalamisEpiphanius of Salamis was bishop of Salamis at the end of the 4th century. He is considered a saint and a Church Father by both the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He gained a reputation as a strong defender of orthodoxy...
view—children of Joseph by a previous marriage. - The HieronymianJeromeSaint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
view—first cousins of Jesus, and that Joseph was himself a virgin.
There is no suggestion in ancient sources that Jesus himself had any physical children, but the theory that a bloodline of Jesus
Jesus bloodline
A Jesus bloodline is a hypothetical sequence of lineal descendants of the historical Jesus and Mary Magdalene, or some other woman, usually portrayed as his alleged wife or a hierodule...
, through Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
, survived down through the ages has been popularized in recent decades, most notably in the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail is a book by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln....
.
Islam
The QurʼanQur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
upholds the virgin birth of Jesus (ʻĪsā) and thus considers his genealogy only through Mary (Maryam), without mentioning Joseph.
Mary is very highly regarded in the Qurʼan, the nineteenth sura
Maryam (sura)
Sura Maryam is the 19th sura of the Qur'an and is a Makkan sura with 98 ayat . It is named after Maryām, the actual name for Mary, Mother of Jesus . The popular variant of the name Maryam, Mary, is a Westernized or Anglicized version...
being named for her. She is called a daughter of ʻImrān, whose family is the subject of the third sura. The same Mary (Maryam) is also called a sister of Aaron (Hārūn) in one place, and although this is often seen as an anachronistic conflation with the Old Testament Miriam (having the same name), who was sister to Aaron
Aaron
In the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, Aaron : Ααρών ), who is often called "'Aaron the Priest"' and once Aaron the Levite , was the older brother of Moses, and a prophet of God. He represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first High Priest of the Israelites...
(Hārūn) and daughter to Amram
Amram
In the Book of Exodus, Amram Arabic عمران Imran, is the father of Aaron, Moses, and Miriam and the husband of Jochebed.-In the Bible:In addition to being married to Jochebed, Amram is also described in the Bible as having been related to Jochebed prior to the marriage, although the exact...
(ʻImrān), the phrase is probably not to be understood literally.
See also
- Genealogies of GenesisGenealogies of GenesisThe genealogies of Genesis record the descendants of Adam and Eve to Abraham, including the age at which each patriarch fathered his named son and the number of years he lived thereafter. The genealogy contains two branches: for Cain, given in Chapter 4, and for Seth in Chapter 5...
- Tree of JesseTree of JesseThe Tree of Jesse is a depiction in art of the Ancestors of Christ, shown in a tree which rises from Jesse of Bethlehem, the father of King David; the original use of the family tree as a schematic representation of a genealogy...
— Christ’s ancestry in art - Timeline of the Bible
External links
- Information on the Michelangelo frescoes
- Multiple translations
- Anne Catherine Emmerich, Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary
- Bible Study Manual on Genealogy of Jesus
- Genealogy of Jesus at Complete-Bible-Genealogy.com
- Dueling Genealogies Why there are two different genealogies for Jesus.
- New Light on the Genealogies of Jesus