NOGO

Even in the Gospels there is evidence that persecution had started.
Obviously much more subtle but there nonetheless.
Jesus' death is presented as a role model which even Peter (his denial) fails to follow.

Amaleq13

That portions of Acts are written as if by someone who travelled with Paul is a datum.

That a man by the name of "Luke" was known to Paul is also a datum.

Is the fact that there are indications within the text which suggest to some the author of Luke-Acts relied upon Josephus a datum or would that only refer to the alleged indications?

Johnny Skeptic

Which posts were those? I was not aware that anyone has told me what difference it makes whether we are dealing with one genealogy or two genealogies. As I showed in some of my previous posts, Glenn Miller and James Holding do not have any problems whatsoever with two genealogies. Holding says that it was common to skip names. Abraham lived somewhere between 1500 B.C. and 2000 B.C., in other words, at least 1500 years before the New Testament was written. Can anyone living today accurately trace their genealogy back 1500 years to the year 506 A.D.? If not, then why do some Christians believe that the New Testament writers could accurately trace Mary's genealogy back to Abraham?

Amaleq13

I offered an answer to the "value" question with regard to Christians at the time of authorship ("This genealogy nonsense is simply an ad hoc attempt to harmonize belief in a totally new sort of Messiah with traditional Jewish expectations.) but you seem more interested in modern Christians. Nevermind.

Steven Avery

Is there a special dungeon for Spanish Inquisition discussions, that is more "appropriate" ?

Amaleq13

We don't refer to the General Religious Discussions forum as a "dungeon" due to concerns about the self-esteem of the moderators there but that was considered to be a more appropriate venue for that particular discussion than BC&H.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Roger,

Thank you for relating Eusebius' views on the matter.

Now the problem of reconciling the two geneologies is fairly simply. The author of the Luke genealogy must have been aware of Matthew's formula (going down from Abraham) because he exactly reverses it and goes back up the chain of descendents. He obviously found it a problem that Matthew started with the Jew Abraham and He wanted to work Jesus back to God. The writer of the genealogy was not interested in proving Jesus was Jewish. He was interested in proving that Jesus was from the Jewish God.

The writer of against Heresies (reputedly Ireneaus) makes the point explicitly in 3.28 in arguing against Marcion.

3. Wherefore Luke points out that the pedigree which traces the generation of our Lord back to Adam contains seventy-two generations, connecting the end with the beginning, and implying that it is He who has summed up in Himself all nations dispersed from Adam downwards, and all languages and generations of men, together with Adam himself. Hence also was Adam himself termed by Paul "the figure of Him that was to come,"438 because the Word, the Maker of all things, had formed beforehand for Himself the future dispensation of the human race, connected with the Son of God; God having predestined that the first man should be of an animal nature, with this view, that he might be saved by the spiritual One. For inasmuch as He had a pre-existence as a saving Being, it was necessary that what might be saved should also be called into existence, in order that the Being who saves should not exist in vain.

There are two points here being made by this genealogy in opposition to Matthew's genealogy: 1) Jesus is the savior of the whole human race and not just the Jewish savior, and 2) Jesus comes from the same Jewish God that created Adam. The first point just tells us that it was written when the Christian movement had moved well beyond Matthew's starting idea of Jesus as a Jewish Messiah. The second point can hardly be seen as anything else than a direct attack against Marcion's idea that Jesus came from a God other than a Jewish God. This is the light that the author of "anti-heresies" puts the passage in and I cannot see any other explanation for it.
If we place Macion's gospel in the 160's-180's, we may supose that the writer of the Lucan genealogy is responding subsequent to Marcion's gospel.

I guess the other thing to note is this passage by Tertullian (Marcion 3:21) in which he expresses this idea in arguing againsst Marcion:


Which body is this? David's own? Certainly not. David could
not have been expected to give birth. Nor was it his wife's: for in
that case he would not have said, Of the fruit of thy body, but, Of
the fruit of thy wife's body. So it remains that by the mention of
David's body he indicated one from among his descendants the
fruit of whose body was to be the flesh of Christ: and this came
to flower out of Mary's womb. That is why he made mention
of the fruit of the body only, as of body in particular, as though
it were the body alone, with no mention of a husband: and that
is why he referred the body back to David, as the head of the
race and the forefather of the family. So because it was impossible
for him to refer that body to a virgin's husband, he referred it
back to her forefather. And therefore this new covenant, which
today is found to exist in Christ, must be that which the Creator
was then promising when he told of the religious and faithful
things of David, which were Christ's things, because Christ is
from David. Indeed his flesh itself must be the religious and
faithful things of David, being now holy by sacred usage, and faith-
ful since its resurrection. So Nathan the prophet also, in the first
of Kingdoms, makes a promise to David for his seed, which, says
he, shall proceed out of his body.

Tertullian is clearly saying that the body of the Christ comes physically from the seed of David through Mary. Yet the claim is not substantiated in the genealogies of Matthew or Luke who both trace the genealogy through Joseph.
While we may accept the spiritual geneology of Luke. Clearly, Matthew is giving the physical geneology. This makes little sense if Mary was the mother and the Holy Ghost the father. We therefore have only two options as far as I can see:

1) Matthew was an Ebionite who believed that Joseph was the physical father of Jesus,
2) Matthew did trace the genealogy of Mary, making Joseph (or some prior name) the father of Mary. Subsequently an editor changed this into a genealogy for Joseph.

Since the fourteen generations to Jesus that Matthew makes a truth condition would only be fulfilled on the second option, it seems pretty certain.
that Matthew originally gave the genealogy of Mary and not Joseph.

It is difficult to see how Tertullian could have missed this point unless he was the one responsible for changing Matthew's genealogy. While making the change on paper, in his head he was still thinking of Mary as the recepient of the geneaology. Otherwise, it would have been necessary to provide Mary's genealogy showing her descent from David in order for his point to have any validity.

Warmly,

PhilosopherJay

JoeWallack

JW:
God I hate arguing with Skeptics when I could be arguing Against The Christians.

Here is all of what you need to know from Tertullain:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.co...tullian15.html

"CHAP. XX.--CHRIST BORN OF A VIRGIN, OF HER SUBSTANCE. THE PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTS

OF HIS REAL AND EXACT BIRTH OF A HUMAN MOTHER, AS SUGGESTED BY CERTAIN

PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE.

But to what shifts you resort, in your attempt to rob the syllable ex of its proper force as a preposition, and to substitute another for it in a sense not found throughout the Holy Scriptures! You say that He was born through a virgin, not of" a virgin, and in a womb, not of a womb, because the angel in the dream said to Joseph, "That which is born in her" (not of her) "is of the Holy Ghost." But the fact is, if he had meant "of her," he must have said "in her;" for that which was of her, was also in her. The angel's expression, therefore, "in her," has precisely the same meaning as the phrase "of her." It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord's descent from Abraham to Mary, says, "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ." But Paul, too, silences these critics when he says, "God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Does he mean through a woman, or in a woman? Nay more, for the sake of greater emphasis, he uses the word "made" rather than born, although the use of the latter expression would have been simpler. But by saying "made," he not only confirmed the statement, "The Word was made flesh," but he also asserted the reality of the flesh which was made of a virgin We shall have also the support of the Psalms on this point,not the "Psalms" indeed of Valentinus the apostate, and heretic, and Platonist, but the Psalms of David, the most illustrious saint and well-known prophet. He sings to us of Christ, and through his voice Christ indeed also sang concerning Himself. Hear, then, Christ the Lord speaking to God the Father: "Thou art He that didst draw me out of my 539

mother's womb." Here is the first point. "Thou art my hope from my mother's breasts; upon Thee have I been cast from the womb." Here is another point. "Thou art my God from my mother's belly." Here is a third point. Now let us carefully attend to the sense of these passages. "Thou didst draw me," He says, "out of the womb." Now what is it which is drawn, if it be not that which adheres, that which is firmly fastened to anything from which it is drawn in order to be sundered? If He clove not to the womb, how could He have been drawn from it? If He who clove thereto was drawn from it, how could He have adhered to it, if it were not that, all the while He was in the womb, He was tied to it, as to His origin, by the umbilical cord, which communicated growth to Him from the matrix? Even when one strange matter amalgamates with another, it becomes so entirely incorporated with that with which it amalgamates, that when it is drawn off from it, it carries with it some part of the body from which it is torn, as if in consequence of the severance of the union and growth which the constituent pieces had communicated to each other. But what were His "mother's breasts" which He mentions? No doubt they were those which He sucked. Midwives, and doctors, and naturalists, can tell us, from the nature of women's breasts, whether they usually flow at any other time than when the womb is affected with pregnancy, when the veins convey therefrom the blood of the lower parts to the mamilla, and in the act of transference convert the secretion into the nutritious substance of milk. Whence it comes to pass that during the period of lactation the monthly issues are suspended. But if the Word was made flesh of Himself without any communication with a womb, no mother's womb operating upon Him with its usual function and support, how could the lacteal fountain have been conveyed (from the womb) to the breasts, since (the womb) can only effect the change by actual possession of the proper substance? But it could not possibly have had blood for transformation into milk, unless it possessed the causes of blood also, that is to say, the severance (by birth) of its own flesh from the mother's womb. Now it is easy to see what was the novelty of Christ's being born of a virgin. It was simply this, that (He was born) of a virgin in the real manner which we have indicated, in order that our regeneration might have virginal purity,--spiritually cleansed from all pollutions through Christ, who was Himself a virgin, even in the flesh, in that He was born of a virgin's flesh.

CHAP. XXI.--THE WORD OF GOD DID NOT BECOME FLESH EXCEPT IN THE VIRGIN'S WOMB

AND OF HER SUBSTANCE. THROUGH HIS MOTHER HE IS DESCENDED FROM HER GREAT

ANCESTOR DAVID. HE IS DESCRIBED BOTH IN THE OLD AND IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AS

"THE FRUIT OF DAVID'S LOINS."

Whereas, then, they contend that the novelty (of Christ's birth) consisted in this, that as the Word of God became flesh without the seed of a human father, so there should be no flesh of the virgin mother (assisting in the transaction), why should not the novelty rather be confined to this, that His flesh, although not born of seed, should yet have proceeded from flesh? I should like to go more closely into this discussion. "Behold," says he, "a virgin shall conceive in the womb." Conceive what? I ask. The Word of God, of course, and not the seed of man, and in order, certainly, to bring forth a son. "For," says he, "she shall bring forth a son." Therefore, as the act of conception was her own, so also what she brought forth was her own, also, although the cause of conception was not. If, on the other hand, the Word became flesh of Himself, then He both conceived and brought forth Himself, and the prophecy is stultified. For in that case a virgin did not conceive, and did not bring forth; since whatever she brought forth from the conception of the Word, is not her own flesh. But is this the only statement of prophecy which will be frustrated? Will not the angel's announcement also be subverted, that the virgin should "conceive in her womb and bring forth a son?" And will not in fact every scripture which declares that Christ had a mother? For how could she have been His mother, unless He had been in her womb? But then He received nothing from her womb which could make her a mother in whose womb He had been. Such a name as this a strange flesh ought not to assume. No flesh can speak of a mother's womb but that which is itself the offspring of that womb; nor can any be the offspring of the said womb if it owe its 540

birth solely to itself. Therefore even Elisabeth must be silent although she is carrying in her womb the prophetic babe, which was already conscious of his Lord, and is, moreover, filled with the Holy Ghost. For without reason does she say, "and whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" If it was not as her son, but only as a stranger that Mary carried Jesus in her womb, how is it she says, "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb?

What is this fruit of the womb, which received not its germ from the womb, which had not its root in the womb, which belongs not to her whose is the womb, and which is no doubt the real fruit of the womb--even Christ? Now, since He is the blossom of the stem which sprouts from the root of Jesse; since, moreover, the root of Jesse is the family of David, and the stem of the root is Mary descended from David, and the blossom of the stem is Mary's son, who is called Jesus Christ, will not He also be the fruit? For the blossom is the fruit, because through the blossom and from the blossom every product advances from its rudimental condition to perfect fruit. What then? They, deny to the fruit its blossom, and to the blossom its stem, and to the stem its root; so that the root fails to secures for itself, by means of the stem, that special product which comes from the stem, even the blossom and the fruit; for every step indeed in a genealogy is traced from the latest up to the first, so that it is now a well-known fact that the flesh of Christ is inseparable, not merely from Mary, but also from David through Mary, and from Jesse through David. "This fruit," therefore, "of David's loins," that is to say, of his posterity in the flesh, God swears to him that "He will raise up to sit upon his throne." If "of David's loins," how much rather is He of Mary's loins, by virtue of whom He is in "the loins of David?"

CHAP. XXII.--HOLY SCRIPTURE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, EVEN IN ITS VERY FIRST VERSE, TESTIFIES TO CHRIST'S TRUE FLESH. IN VIRTUE OF WHICH HE IS INCORPORATED IN THE HUMAN STOCK OF DAVID, AND ABRAHAM, AND ADAM.

They may, then, obliterate the testimony of the devils which proclaimed Jesus the son of David; but whatever unworthiness there be in this testimony, that of the apostles they will never be able to efface, There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshly original of Christ, he thus begins his Gospel: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." With a nature issuing from such fountal sources, and an order gradually descending to the birth of Christ, what else have we here described than the very flesh of Abraham and of David conveying itself down, step after step, to the very virgin, and at last introducing Christ,--nay, producing Christ Himself of the virgin? Then, again, there is Paul, who was at once both a disciple, and a master, and a witness of the selfsame Gospel; as an apostle of the same Christ, also, he affirms that Christ "was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh,"--which, therefore, was His own likewise.

Christ's flesh, then, is of David's seed. Since He is of the seed of David in consequence of Mary's flesh, He is therefore of Mary's flesh because of the seed of David. In what way so ever you torture the statement, He is either of the flesh of Mary because of the seed of David, or He is of the seed of David because of the flesh of Mary. The whole discussion is terminated by the same apostle, when he declares Christ to be "the seed of Abraham." And if of Abraham, how much more, to be sure, of David, as a more recent progenitor!

For, unfolding the promised blessing upon all nations in the person of Abraham, "And in thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed," he adds, "He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." When we read and believe these things, what sort of flesh ought we, and can we, acknowledge in Christ? Surely none other than Abraham's, since Christ is "the seed of Abraham;" none other than Jesse's, since Christ is the blossom of "the stem of Jesse;" none other than David's, since Christ is "the fruit of David's loins;" none other than Mary's, since Christ came from Mary's womb; and, higher still, none other than Adam's, since Christ is "the second Adam." The consequence, therefore, is that they must either maintain, that those (ancestors) had a spiritual flesh, that so there might be derived to Christ the same condition of substance, or else allow that the flesh of Christ was not a spiritual one, since it is not traced from the origin of a spiritual stock."


JW:
"There is, first of all, Matthew, that most faithful chronicler of the Gospel, because the companion of the Lord; for no other reason in the world than to show us clearly the fleshly original of Christ, he thus begins his Gospel: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." With a nature issuing from such fountal sources, and an order gradually descending to the birth of Christ, what else have we here described than the very flesh of Abraham and of David conveying itself down, step after step, to the very virgin, and at last introducing Christ,--nay, producing Christ Himself of the virgin?"

Tertullian makes it clear here that he thinks "Matthew's" genealogy is Mary's.

" It is, however, a fortunate circumstance that Matthew also, when tracing down the Lord's descent from Abraham to Mary, says, "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Christ."

So presumably Tertullian was reading the Same Genealogy that we now see which says it was Joseph who was named in the begetting and not Mary.

What Tertullian is writing here is a Reaction to those who are Honestly reading "Matthew" and claiming that it's Joseph's genealogy because "Matthew" says it's Joseph's genealogy. For Tertullian than to argue that it's not Joseph's genealogy he has to Ignore what "Matthew" wrote and argue what "Matthew" didn't write, hence the 3 paragraphs of nonsense. All to avoid "Matthew's" Explicit identification of Joseph's genealogy.

Note that Tertullian's position here, Explicit acknowledgement of Joseph in the Genealogy but argument that it was Mary's genealogy also confused Brown, who wrote The Book on the subject and writes in Footnote on 89, "A converse situation with Matthew giving Mary's ancestors (and Luke giving Joseph's) has minor support - perhaps Tertullian, De carne Christi xx-xxii."

Jay, you are giving Tertullian way too much credit. It's right up his alley to quote "Matthew" as Explicitly giving Joseph's genealogy and than provide Mexican Jumping Bens of superstitious nonsense that it's not. Tertullian was a little man by modern intellectual standards (yes, this is for Pearse).

There are other big problems in your post as well.



Joseph

BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.


http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Lunawalk

I was thinking that David's line was almost wiped out by ahab's daughter, Everyone except one child Joash I think. So therefore David's line though Nathan was wiped out. So the geneology in Luke is fictioal. The writers of the two gospels Matthew and Luke were seprate writings. they did not expect to be in one volume.

Richbee

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