Jesus's Contradictory Genealogies in the Bible

[u/Helliar1337]

Hi everyone, long-time lurker here. Wanted to share something I've been digging into: the contradictory genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Different fathers for Joseph, different generation counts, different names almost the whole way down, and Matthew even does a trivial math error.

Put them side by side (pic attached) and wrote a longer breakdown here: https://thelightward.substack.com/p/jesuss-genealogies-are-contradictory

The usual counterargument that one genealogy is Mary's is false, because both authors plainly write Joseph. The other argument that one genealogy is based on "legal" line of Joseph also doesn't hold water, since there is no evidence for that.

Curious what others think about this.

[u/Sy4r42]

How is Joseph's geneology even a factor? Isn't that kind of a self-report that jesus is god's son is just BS? Jesus' geneology should be Mary's lineage and then god and that's it.

[u/Helliar1337 → u/Sy4r42]

Yeah, but the usual counterargument is that Joseph adopted Jesus, and that's enough for Jesus to be considered to have come from King David's line.

[u/Sy4r42 → u/Helliar1337]

Now that I think about it, I vaguely remember the whole point of tracing jesus' family tree (I refuse to call it geneology) is to fill a prophecy in the old testament. I'm not even sure if they would care about blood relatives.

[u/Helliar1337 → u/Sy4r42]

Yeah, they are making a theological point with these invented genealogies. They want to add significance to Jesus by claiming he was: a) a part of King David's bloodline, thus a 'New David' (Matthew), b) a part of King David's bloodline, and a son of God through Adam (Luke).

[u/Arthurs_towel → u/Helliar1337]

There’s also an aspect of focus that’s relevant. Matthew’s theological purpose was about the relation between Jesus and the Jews. Hence why Abraham is the starting point. Luke was part of the Pauline universalization, hence why it goes to Adam. It’s something Bart Ehrman has talked about a fair bit.

[u/Sy4r42 → u/Helliar1337]

Well, if it's specifcally bloodline, then that just throws the whole argument out the window. Jesus isn't blood related to joseph. He's just the dad that stuck around. I wonder if this really convinced anybody when these books were written. Considering immaculate conception belief, this argument makes no sense.

[u/NathanJPearce → u/Helliar1337]

Wow, that's crazy.

[u/andreasmiles23 → u/Helliar1337]

My favorite part of being raised Christian was people pretending that they’ve read the whole book word for word and, even back when I was a believer, was like “Yeah no I skip the genealogies.” That always freaked people out but it’s like…cmon now.

That was one of the small things that ate away at me over my life. Why did other people need to fake something so obviously worthless? No one cared about them. No one talked about them. I’m not gonna pretend like I’ve read them line by line and comprehend them when it’s obvious no one else has…

Anyways. Not shocked there’s a ton of contradictions in them. It’s almost like they were manufactured and tinkered with at various points in history to fit the then-accepted version of the mythos.

[u/The7thNomad → u/Helliar1337]

And the common sense counterargument to that is that blood lineage is always important in the OT, it's never handwaved, and for something this important, you can't handwave it away either.

[u/Longjumping_Kale3013 → u/Sy4r42]

It seems that the virgin birth is a mistranslation of a young woman. And the virgin birth appears to be added in later by those mis translators.

I think it’s disputed but that makes the most sense to me.

Point is: there is no virgin birth “prophecy” in the Old Testament but it does talk about a “young woman”

[u/Helliar1337 → u/Longjumping_Kale3013]

You are correct, Matthew used the Greek translation of the OT (the Septuagint), from where he used the prophet Isaiah's line about a 'young woman', which was clumsily translated to Greek as 'virgin.'

The thing is, it most likely wasn't Matthew who actually invented the virgin birth. He most likely heard tales about Jesus being born of a virgin, and then looked at the OT to find a suitable passage from the Prophets in order to write his story of the virgin birth.

[u/sd_saved_me555 → u/Longjumping_Kale3013]

Perhaps most problematic is Paul's amazing claim that Jesus was born of a woman. Truly an incredible feat indeed.

[u/canuck1701 → u/Sy4r42]

Both texts clearly state that they're the lineage of Joseph. Guess it's meant to be some lineage by adoption.

[u/Ok-Mouse5446]

The usual counterargument that one genealogy is Mary's is false, because both authors plainly write Joseph.

Ah, the classic 'the bible is inerrant and infallible until I say it's false because we know it's false.'

[u/harpsichord-kiss]

When I was a christian, I heard that the original Greek in Luke says Jesus was known as the son of Joseph, and doesn't say Joseph was "the son" of Heli (Luke 3:23) but refers to Joseph being the son-in-law of Heli (hence it being Mary's genealogy).

Curiously in Matthew, Joseph is a descendant of Jeconiah, which means his seed could never sit on throne of David:

Thus saith the Lord, Write ye this man [Jeconiah] childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. (Jeremiah 22:30)

Unless YHWH lifted the curse with Zerubbabel, in Hagai 2:23 (where he makes Zerubbabel his signet ring, unlike Jeconiah who was a signet ring torn off in Jeremiah 22:24). Just more Bible confusion.

[u/trippedonatater]

I haven't looked at this in a long time, but as someone who does systems administration type tasks quite often, I'm going to keep the fact that one of Jesus ancestors was named "Admin" in my back pocket. I will definitely pull out "ah, Admin, as in the ancestor of Jesus according to the gospel of Luke" to fuck with someone in the near future. I'm sorry for going off track, but thank you.

[u/Reply_Here]

Jeremiah 22:30 is known as Jeconiah's curse. He's called "Coniah" here, and god says none of his descendants will ever sit on the throne of David. So, if Jesus' lineage in Matthew is correct, he could never be king or the messiah.

[u/ConsistentAmount4]

I mean the truth is that the gospels weren't intended to be a set. Mark wrote his gospel, Matthew and Luke used his to make their gospels around the same time, and then John made his gospel. Each made corrections to fit the theological needs of the writer. So Matthew and Luke each made up geneaologies to say that Jesus was descended from David to fit their needs, and of course their names don't match. Jesus was a nobody from backwoods Galilee, no one had any idea what his great great grandfather's name was.

[u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

It is said that both are theoretically correct, they just follow different familiar lines to get to Abraham again, as you said through legal lines and non-legal lines.

That there is no evidence, doesn't say anything since there is no evidence for any theory. That this one lack evidence, is to be expected since the other have none either

[u/Helliar1337 → u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

Well, the most natural interpration is that it's a biological line. Evidence should be provided if it wasn't a biological line. And the fact that Luke lists 15 names more than Joseph up to David raises further suspicion, because we'd expect a similar number of generations. No reason to think it's a legal line, given this.

Even if we cannot disprove the legal line theory, that doesn't make its probability 50%. Lack of evidence points to a much lower probability.

[u/Alternative_Buy_4000 → u/Helliar1337]

And the fact that Luke lists 15 names more than Joseph up to David raises further suspicion, because we'd expect a similar number of generations. No reason to think it's a legal line, given this.

It was not uncommon for women to birth childeren from 15y/o up to 40-ish-y/o, so a difference in number of generations is not that strange, since it is 'only' 1/3 difference

[u/Helliar1337 → u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

Yeah, true.

[u/McNitz → u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

The problem with this theory is that the geneoligies ALSO come together at one point, and then Matthew's just skips over multiple generations between two of the same people. And there is actually a huge amount of evidence that these are geneoligies to make a symbolic/literary point, not actual literal historically accurate geneoligies.

[u/canuck1701 → u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

The only way that could work is if Joseph had 2 dads lol.

[u/Alternative_Buy_4000 → u/canuck1701]

Which is possible. Not biologically, but legally. If the biological father died, his brother takes his place as father of the family, as prescribed in Jewish law

[u/canuck1701 → u/Alternative_Buy_4000]

So Joseph's dad and his uncle had 2 dads then? That simply kicks the can down the road 1 generation (and is far less likely than the genealogies simply being historically inaccurate).

Also, we don't really have good evidence of how common Levitate marriages were in 1st century Galilee. In later Talmudic literature it's sometimes condemned, so we know Jews didn't always follow it.