OneInFundieville

Luke has (at least) 43 generations between David and Jesus.

1 Kings has Solomon with 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Israelite population in the time of David and Solomon, maybe 5,000 to 50,000 persons.

Jewish population in the time of Christ, maybe 6 million.

A person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, etc.

2 ^ 43 is a big number. Assuming virgin birth and genetic clone of Mary 2 ^ 42 is still a big number. Triggers the whole discussion on common ancestry.

Anyhow, I don't know how one would estimate the degree to which a common ancestor's genes would work their way as a percentage into a population.

A few varibles would need to be factored in. Like how many grandchildren David would have had through all those 1,000 combined wives and concubines of Solomon. Degree of inter-breeding across tribe lines, etc.

Even in a few generations, I would think a high percentage of the Israelites would be descended from David.

In fact, I wonder if all living Israelites would have been a descendant of David within a dozen or fewer generations in that small of a popultion.

Ignoring the "throne" of David vs. just being a descendant for the moment (Romans 1:3 refers to Jesus as the "sperma" / G4690 / "seed" of David), I'm just curious...

Wouldn't all Jews have likely have been descended from David in the time of Jesus of Nazareth?

nancynancy

And after you've got all this calculated out, you can begin working on the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. LOL.

OneInFundieville

I find that a weak analogy. A historical Jesus of Nazareth would have had genes coming from his ancestors.

drewjmore

2e40 is around 1 trillion. If I knew how to do the math I would: your OP makes an excellent point, IMO.

JohannGoodflag

The story of Jesus is a sort of an epical myth, which derives it's strength in part by the mere idea of the specialness of the people involved. It doesn't make it any more plausible for the people in the story to be special; but it does make people want to believe in it more.

I do think it's worth noting that one of the standard 'epic' sort of elements of the Jesus story, that Mary was a descendant of a particular great ancient king, would in her case be something extremely mundane. It sounds romantic, but would in fact have the same degree of significance as that Joseph was a carpenter.

OneInFundieville

I'm familiar with such.

Ya know how the math has been done on the absurdity of the gallons of water in a global flood?

I just couldn't find anyone who had done similar math on the 43 generations.

LuisGarcia

OiF, have you read the ancestors tale? There's a section on just this near the beginning

Splarnst

Jesus was a woman?

Sarpedon

Moving to BC&H, our home for most Jeebus speculations

OneInFundieville

Yes I have. I gave it away though.