RUmike

I have some questions on the genealogy mess surrounding Jesus (mainly on how Christians attempt to defend it)...

Obviously Luke's and Matthew's renditions are radically different, and I've read xians attempt to explain this away by saying that the genealogy Luke gives is really that of Mary and not Joseph. This clearly cannot be true, since Luke doesn't even mention Mary and quite clearly states the genealogy is that of Joseph. Either way, the church still has a way out because Luke does claim "so it was thought." Obviously this was added later into the gospel in order to reconcile with the new claim that Jesus was the son of God, but why wasn't something similar done to the gospel of Matthew? I guess what the church may have changed was verse 16 to make it clear Jesus was born of Mary, but isn't the genealogy of Joseph then entirely irrelevant since he took no part in conceiving Jesus? At least in Luke, the church can claim that it's relevant in the bible because people thought that his genealogy was such and such. But in Matthew the genealogy is treated as fact. How do xians explain that Jesus even has a genealogy, then, being that he is the direct descedant of God and Mary only?

Do Christians admit the prophecy of the OT that the messiah would be the descendant of David is wrong, then? How do they get around this, since Jesus can't clearly have David's blood in him through Mary (Mary is never said to have descended from David...or is she?)?

Also, just curious, does anyone know of any evidence (besides the obvious line of reasoning that Jesus wasn't originally thought to be the son of God) for the line "so it was thought" being added at a later date to the gospel or interpolated? For instance, has any leading church father or reputable historian at any time in history ever admitted this, or something to that degree?

I'm only now becoming familiar with all of the contradictions of the bible, and I honestly haven't read a good deal of it, so maybe I have some facts wrong or misconceptions, so any corrections/answers would be appreciated. Thanks.

judge

No Luke gives the geneology of Joseph mary's husband.
Matthew gives the geneology of Mary.

Both Mary's husband and her father were named Joseph. The Aramaic of Matthew gives the Joseph in Chapt 1:16 as the gowra or father of Mary.

The Joseph in verse 19 is the baala or the husband of Mary.

Both these words gowra(father) and baala (husband) were translated into the same greek word aner and subsequently into husband in English.

We need to look at the original Aramaic in this instance to solve the "contradiction"

RUmike

Why isn't this changed in the current versions of the bible, then? Also, does God expect one to know Aramaic in order to understand the reason why the current version makes no sense?

Epictetus

It is somewhat humorous of Judge to post this interesting but entirely irrelevant information about the two aramaic words used for husband/father in an attempt to reconcile the conflict between Matthew and Luke's accounts. There is no basis at all for believing that anything written in Matthew or Luke was originally done so in aramaic. The earliest manuscripts of these two books that we possess are in Greek. We have nothing in aramaic in the NT save for a couple of short quotes from Jesus. Therefore, this line of reasoning is entirely speculative.

Doctor X

Indeed.

If anything it demonstrates an attempt by the Aramaic translator/editor(s) to correct the obvious problem.

What I find maddening with the "it is the genealogy of Mary" argument is that in the area genealogies were not maternal. They really make up a fantasy unsupported by the text and by tradition.

That Lk and Mt date the birth to two different events that must be about ten years appart shows them nothing about why the genealogies are different!

--J.D.

offa

Doctor X
That Lk and Mt date the birth to two different events that must be about ten years appart shows them nothing about why the genealogies are different!

Offa,
Misinformation atop misinformation. Jesus was born two years before Herod's death. He was born in 6 b.c.e. Jesus became a one year old Child in A.D. 6 and is counted in the census as a Child (bar miz). The difference is twelve or thirteen years and not ten. The babe in the manger was a twelve year old trading in his infant clothes into the swaddling clothes of an acolyte.

Everybody tries to count Adam's birth from year one but he was born 12 years before in year 38 and his year one was 50. Using the Jubilee system years 36 to 42 were the sixth Jubilee Week and being the sixth week of seven weeks it is also called the sixth DAY. Adam was Created on the Sixth Day (285 days before his birth).

judge

Well...it's always good to be humorous!

Many of the references to matthew having written his gospel in "the Hebrew dialect" may stem from a saying attributed to Papias.(c.125)


What we have is this (in greek)MATQAIOSMEN OUN hEBRAIDI DIALEKTWi TO LOGIA SUNETAKSATO, hHRMHNEUSEN D AUTA hWSHN DUNATOS hEKASTOSSchollars have argued about the exact meaning of the words here but I beleive the plain reading is as follows...."that Matthew wrote his work in a/the hebrew dialect and each translated as best they could".
Now the immediate question is what was meant by "hebrew dialect".There is some disagreement among scollars but I think the "hebrew dialect" (note not hebrew language) was the dialect of Aramaic spoken by jews at the time of Christ.Hebrew had by this time long ago ceased to be the common tongue of jews.
This view would find support in the catholic Encyclopaedia..
.…Moreover, Eusebius (Hist. eccl., III, xxiv, 6) tells us that the Gospel of Matthew was a reproduction of his preaching, and this we know, was in Aramaic. An investigation of the Semitic idioms observed in the Gospel does not permit us to conclude as to whether the original was in Hebrew or Aramaic, as the two languages are so closely related. Besides, it must be home in mind that the greater part of these Semitisms simply reproduce colloquial Greek and are not of Hebrew or Aramaic origin. However, we believe the second hypothesis to be the more probable, viz., that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Aramaic.”
Catholic Encyclopedia (1913).


An interesting quote from this history is in Book V, chapter 10 concerning an Egyptian father named Pantaenus who lived in the 2nd century:
"Of these Pantaenus was one:it is stated that he went as far as India, where he appears to have found that Matthew's Gospel had arrived before him and was in the hands of some there who had come to know Christ. Bartholomew, one of the apostles, had preached to them and had left behind Matthew's account in the actual Aramaic characters, and it was preserved till the time of Pantaenus's mission."
Quoted from the translation by G. A. Williamson, The History of the Church, Dorset Press, New York, 1965, pages 213-214.


Ireneus (170 C.E.)
Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect. (Irenaeus; Against Heresies 3:1)


Origen (c. 210 C.E.)
The first is written according to Matthew, the same that was once a tax collector, but afterwards an emissary of Yeshua the Messiah, who having published it for the Jewish believers, wrote it in Hebrew. (quoted by Eusebius; Eccl. Hist. 6:25)


Epiphanius (370 C.E.)
They have the Gospel according to Matthew quite complete in Hebrew, for this Gospel is certainly still preserved among them as it was first written, in Hebrew letters. (Epiphanius; Panarion 29 :4)


Jerome (382 C.E.)
"Matthew, who is also Levi, and from a tax collector came to be an emissary first of all evangelists composed a Gospel of Messiah in Judea in the Hebrew language and letters, for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed, who translated it into Greek is not sufficiently ascertained. Furthermore, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected. I also was allowed by the Nazarenes who use this volume in the Syrian city of Borea to copy it. In which is to be remarked that, wherever the evangelist... makes use of the testimonies of the Old Scripture, he does not follow the authority of the seventy translators , but that of the Hebrew." (Lives of Illustrious Men 3) "Pantaenus found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve emissaries, had there preached the advent of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah according to the Gospel of Matthew, which was written in Hebrew letters, and which, on returning to Alexandria, he brought with him."
(De Vir. 3:36)

Isho'dad (850 C.E.)
His book was in existence in Caesarea of Palestine, and everyone acknowledges that he wrote it with his hands in Hebrew... (Isho'dad Commentary on the Gospels)

judge

D'oh!

Doctor X

offa:

That remains your error.

Then he would not be born during the Census:

Quod erat demonstrandum.

--J.D.

Lux Interior

Oh, well, here I go, parading my total ignorance.

I'm assuming you're saying that the Greek Matthew we have is a translation of a (now lost) Aramaic original? If I'm putting words in your mouth, I apologize. But, what really caught my eye was that you're quoting the 1913 Catholic Encylopedia. The latest version seems to waffle on the matter, and allows the possibility that the Greek version of Matthew may be an original in its own right. Is there something flawed with the latest available encylopedia? I'm curious.