spin

That means the Hebrew bible.

As I've just indicated, "prophets".

That's what xians say.

I think people have already given some good ideas here. The genealogies are a link with the biblical past, a type of self-justification, a maintenance of good Jewish blood.

Well, maybe one, but two (from Matthew and Luke) simply don't show anything as they are two separate masculine lines that end up with the same male. And if you think that's bad enough, neither coincides with the Chronicles genealogy from Zerubbabel onward.


spin

spin

Yeah, I've heard this woeful excuse before. The Greek doesn't allow the fudging.


spin

diana

Good morning, CJD.

So...what I already said, then.

To wit: Only I didn't use the words "Tanak" or "nevi'im". Same idea, seems to me. Thank you for your confirmation.

I'm more interested in your mind, your words, and your arguments than your ass, Sir Christian. But thanks for the offer.

And I meant what I said, oh ye of little faith. These discussions are quite uninteresting unless someone takes up a contrary position. So again, thank you for dropping in.

Thank you for that remark, as well. I do so love irony.

To clear the air, I did admit up front where I was being sarcastic--in another thread in a flippant remark to a fellow atheist who was likely to enjoy the humor (and it was so). My tone here, however, was of a slightly different variety. It came of having been up this road and back down until there's a discernible rut, and having encountered no constructions or improvements from the apologist side. That is, my attitude was more one of mild boredom combined with the amusement that comes of the game of predicting what the other side will say. "Veiled pomposity" was a bit on the harsh side, but...that is your opinion, and far be it from me to argue that that isn't the way you perceived my words.

Let's see.

First, JoeNothin asked what the point is in the first place. I think that's an interesting question in and of itself. The Christian answers that it's the bloodline of the messiah, you silly atheists. Or:

...which is just a high-falootin' way of saying "it substantiates the bloodline of the messiah, you silly atheists." You get points for originality, though.

My points were, IMO, a natural side note. The Chronicles genealogies do not match the bloodline in Matthew, and neither matches the bloodline in Luke. I find this interesting, as the rote response to the disparate genealogies in the NT is "one is Mary's and the other is Joseph's." So, to take the Mary/Joseph genealogy position, one essentially must

(1) claim God made/allowed a typo,
(2) ignore/justify why we care about Joseph's genealogy anyway,
(3) give some reasonable explanation as to why the Davidic "kingly" bloodline would somehow be transferred through the mother (a problem that arose when the "Christ was the literal Son of God" part of the story was created, no doubt),
(4) ignore the fact that the "divine bloodline" listed in Chronicles doesn't match either of them,
(5) justify Jeconiah's cursed appearance in the NT lineup with an Appeal to Ignorance, and
(6) ignore Jeconiah's non-inclusion in the Chronicles lineup (probably because those who wrote the Chron genealogies were more familiar with the Jec story, so they didn't make that booboo ).
[(7) AND, after one has rationalized all the missing pieces with the argument that "son of" can mean grandson or further down the line, and one attempts to reconcile all the bloodlines by this rationale, one must then reconcile the inordinately long bloodlines with the "generational counts" given in the NT.]

Now that you have me looking at it again (thank you), I noticed that Shieltiel had three daddies: Jehoakin, Jeconiah, and Neri. The hoops that must be jumped through to deal with the Joseph has two daddies problem are convoluted enough. I can't wait to see how someone deals with the three daddies problem.

Problems with the Chronicles genealogies? Whatever gave you that idea?

Merry Christmas!

d

[Edited to add point 7.]

Doctor X

Is that not a children's book condemned by Jerry Falwell?

--J.D.

diana

Just to make a comment about the spreadsheet on the link I posted: the author makes the generational split in Matthew at the wrong place, making it appear as though the count before is 16 and the count after is 11.

Matt 1:17 states that the count from "David to the exile to Babylon" is 14. According to verse 11, the exile to Babylon happened with our friend Jeconiah--not at Zarubbabel. The generation count still doesn't work out right, either way you slice it, but I did notice this problem.

I wonder if the author had justification for where he split it, or if it was an oversight. I tried to email him, but found no feedback link.

d

JoeNothin

Spin,

Thanks for the definitions and for helping make sense of what turned out to be very simple ideas.

Diana,

It's all starting to come back to me now. I never worked out the geneologies in the way the link you posted presented them. Very interesting. I remember reading the geneologies as a teenager wondering why God would include such things in his inerrant word. I understand why the lineage of kings might be important to people. I also understand why the the lineage of Hebrew kings might have some significants to Hebrews. But I couldn't understand why God would bother with it in the one book (supposedly) designed to guide the lives of all people. However, I now remember the answer I was given:

(3) give some reasonable explanation as to why the Davidic "kingly" bloodline would somehow be transferred through the mother (a problem that arose when the "Christ was the literal Son of God" part of the story was created, no doubt),

Essentially, I was told that it showed Jesus came from the royal blood line of David, and that the blood line was always determined by the mother, not the father, because you *always* know who the mother is. Yep, that's what they told me. Though I don't know if it's true.

diana

Good morning, JoeNothin!

Interesting you should mention it. I spent a few hours yesterday doing something I've wanted to do for a very long time, but still fell short of my "thoroughness" goal: I compiled my own chart (after noting that there is at least one error in the chart I linked to, but also knowing there are names that are unaccounted for and things unexplained in the genealogies). As it turns out, the chart I linked to was still quite a simplified breakdown of the mess that we have when we compare 1 Chronicles, Matthew and Luke.

A few of the things I noticed as I went (some more important than others; btw, I've politely overlooked almost all of the name discrepancies, as most can be explained as transliterations from different languages):

1. The NRSV lists the names "Arni" and "Admin" between Hezron and Amminidab. All other versions/bibles remove Admin altogether. All the rest but NASB change Arni to Ram or Aram. (This is a "too many manuscripts" problem, at least; at most, it's an effort on the part of the translators to make things agree.)

2. All three bloodlines include Salmon/Sala/Salma (who wed Rahab the harlot--non-Jewess), as well as Boaz their son, who wed a Moabite (also non-Jewess)--Ruth. This is important to mention to those who would argue that the bloodline of the mother is important, as it would make everyone from Salmon onward in that line of questionable ancestry.

3. Chronicles says David's wife was Bath-shua, daughter of Ammiel. 2Sam 1:3 says she was the daughter of Eliam.

4. Matthew's and Chronicles' bloodlines part ways under Solomon at Joram then re-merge at Jotham, five generations later.

5. According to the KJV and the NRSV (the only texts I checked, pretty much), Sheiltiel only had two daddies. The author of that page mentions this alternate translation, although his version lists "Jehoikim" in 1 Chron.

6. Matthew and Luke both list Zarubbabel as the son of Shealtiel, who was the son of Jeconiah. 1 Chron says Zarubbabel was the son of Pedaiah (3:19), Jeconiah's other son. IOWs, Matthew and Luke both list Z as S's son when in fact he's his nephew--according to 1 Chron. (Again, as the author of the page mentions, other OT writers agree with the "son of" thing, which suggests...somebody goofed somewhere.)

7. 1 Chron lists several sons of Zarubbabel: Meshullam, Hananiah, Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, Jushab-heseed. Matthew lists Z's "son" as Abiud-->(was was father of) Eliakim-->Azor-->Zadok-->Achim-->Eliud-->Eleazar-->Matthan-->Jacob, none of which can be made to match anyone in Z's bloodline in 1 Chronicles. Luke lists Z's "son" as Rhesa-->Joanan-->Joda-->Josech-->Semein-->Mattathias-->Maath-->Naggai-->Esli (etc), with disagrees vehemently with Matthew's genealogy and does not match anyone in Z's bloodline in 1 Chron, either.

8. In Matthew's chart, there are 14 generations listed (and confirmed in v. 17) between King David and the Babylonian captivity. However, if you add in the apparently missing generations that 1 Chron includes (since "son of" doesn't mean literal "son of," you know ), you get 18 that we know of. (After Babylon to Jesus, we have no additions to Matthew's list on account of Abiud et al don't appear elsewhere in the Bible; hence, we get only 13 generations, probably because the scribe who wrote Matthew was so busy making up names that he forgot to count.)

And just for fun:

9: 1 Chron 1: 36: The sons of Eliphaz: Teman, Omar, Zephi, Gatam, Kenaz, Timna, and Amalek.

v. 38: Lotan's sister was Timna.

Gen 36:12: Timna was Eliphaz's concubine and mother of Amalek.

I have this listed as an "oopsie."

Questions:

1. If Jewish lineage is traced through the female bloodline, then tracing Mary's lineage makes sense. So why do none of these trace through the female bloodline?

2. If Jewish royal lineage is traced through the men, then how does Mary count?

3. How is it that a known bastard child is in any way justified as the rightful heir to the throne, regardless of which argument you pursue?

Here's an interesting effort to deal with the problem, but dances around the issue of Jeconiah's curse. The assumption is made that Luke is Mary's genealogy based on her Talmudic connection to Eli (Heli).

4. How, exactly, is Joseph's bloodline important as the "adoptive father"?

5. Don't forget to deal with Jeconiah. Here's a fun essay on the subject written by a rabbi.

6. Upon further research, I see Jeconiah is included in my version of Chronicles, but his (I don't know which version he uses) uses "Jehoiachin." Hm. Guess the one to include leans heavily on which manuscript you consider most trustworthy--either that, or whether you're trying to make Chronicles agree with the NT lineups or attempting to respect Jeconiah's curse. Interesting problem.

7. In Luke's lineup, we have "Shelah, son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem...." According to 1 Chronicles 1:17-18, Arphaxad is the "son of" Shem, but Cainan is the "son of" Ham--Shem's bro. "Luke" goofs and lists Cainan as Shem's grandson. Another oopsie.

Here's a link that stomps every apologetic avenue of escape in the genealogies. It covers the Greek interpretation argument for "Luke" "intending" his genealogy to be Mary's; then it assumes, for the sake of argument, that Luke's lineup is Mary's after all--then stomps it; then it deals with the standard "property bequeathed to females" argument. And there's more. Good read.

Here's an apologist posing as a skeptic then answering the "apparent" contradictions. He goes with the Luke/Mary interpretation, of course (that's standard), then makes the "female inheritance" argument noted above--the one that conveniently overlooks the Num 36 reference that suggests that it is only the property that they have inherited, and the II Samuel 7:12-13, I Chronicles 28:4-7 messianic requirements.

And here's one who uses the genealogies to argue that Jesus' kingdom is not of this world, because obviously they disqualify him for worldly kingship, duh.

And here's one that makes the argument that if we remember that Luke's genealogy was supposed to be that of Jesus, not Joseph, then it makes sense to trace it through Mary. I rather like this approach. It makes sense. It says "(as was supposed) the son of Joseph," then goes on to make Jesus the "son" of Heli, etc. Of course, this only solves one problem. There are hordes to take its place.

And here's a page, for those of you who'd like a rundown of the actual criteria for the Jewish Messiah: Messiah Wanted!

d

JoeNothin

Wow, Diana!!! Great work! I haven't had the time to look at all the sites you've linked, but I'm looking forward to it. Instead of God's master plan being a convoluted mess of confused ideologies, here's another example of it just being wrong. Thank you for all the hard work.

ElectEngr

The talked about this on " Southwest Radio Church Ministries today. I like to listen for the 'train wreck' factor and to see if ol' "Brother Noa" keels over on air.

the web site is : http://swrc.com/broadcasts/2003/dec.htm

Basically they said that this Kings seven sons were "adopted" and there for Joseph wasn't in the "legal" line of the curse IIRC.

Go to the December 26 show. It's in the "Bible in the News Section"

Later,
ElectEngr

PS Don't flame me...I'm just the piano player...

diana

My pleasure, Joe. (Really. Geek I am, when I have the time to indulge myself with research.)

I'm doing a bit more looking into how lineage was and could be traced, in order to shed more light on my first four (intertwined) questions.

First, I've heard that the child of a Jewish woman and non-Jewish man is considered a Jew, but the offspring of the opposite pairing is considered Gentile. Here's a rabinnical explanation of this issue, and how it's derived.

An interesting note from here: This is getting closer to answering my questions about non-Jewess mothers of men in Jesus' lineage. Now I'm thinking to myself, Self...what does this say about the marriages of Salmon and Boaz?

According to the information at my disposal, Salmon married Rahab (harlot of Jerico, iirc), and they bore Boaz. This makes Boaz non-Jewish by descent. Boaz marries a non-Jewess named Ruth and they bear Obed. At best, Boaz and Ruth are both only converts--but not Jewish by birth.

However, as I understand these things (shakily, shakily), tribal lineage is determined patrilineally. Hrm. So that means...Boaz and Obed, lacking completely in bonafide Jewish credentials, still qualify as direct and pure lineal descendants of David.

Huh?!

And I'm still no closer to figuring out the Jewish explanation on adoptive fathers when it comes to kingly bloodlines.

d