Johnny Skeptic

The Jews did not KNOW the bloodlines. They ASSUMED the bloodlines. It would have been impossible for the Jews to reliably verify the genalogy of Mary back through Abraham. Abraham lived somewhere between 1500 B.C. and 2,000 B.C. You most certainly could not trace your genealogy back 1500 or 2000 years, and possibly not even 500 years. Is Micah 5:2 an important part of your defense of Jesus' genealogy? If so, I will tell you that even if Micah 5:2 refers to Bethlehem Ephratah as a place and not a person, there is not any reliable evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Micah 5:2 says "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." We know that Jesus did not become ruler in Israel, and there is no reliable evidence that he was from everlasting. The verse must be taken in context in order to be properly understood. Micah considered Jews to be God's chosen people, and he wrote accordingly. Following is all of Micah chapter 5:

5:1 Now gather thyself in troops, O daughter of troops: he hath laid siege against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.

2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

3 Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.

4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.

5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.

6 And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall he deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

7 And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.

8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.

9 Thine hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots:

11 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds:

12 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thine hand; and thou shalt have no more soothsayers:

13 Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thou shalt no more worship the work of thine hands.

14 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so will I destroy thy cities.

15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen, such as they have not

Any unbaised person would conclude that Micah chapter 5 indicates God's vengenace against enemies of Jews, most certainly not a messiah who would tell people to turn the other cheek. Regardless, there is no reliable evidence that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

You are by no means specifically seeking the God of the Bible. The simple truth is that you would accept a comfortable eternal life from any being, whether from a God, or from an advanced alien.

Toto

Hold on there. What are they teaching you in seminary? Do you realize that there is no (repeat NO) support for this idea? Paul records that someone named Luke accompanied him, and Iraeneus inferred that Luke must have written Luke-Acts, BUT the gospel of Luke was clearly written well after the first generation of Christians, and if it was written by Luke, must have been written when he was a very old man.

We can be sure that gLuke was written late because the prologue says so, and because it relies on gMark for much of its language, and we know that all the gospels were written after 70 CE.

Unless you think that Paul lived well past 70 CE and all the Christian stories about Paul dying in Rome under Nero are pure mythology (which is an idea that might bear investigation), Luke did not write his gospel while on mission trips with Paul.

Why should the world be looking for a messiah? Isn't that what got a lot of countries in trouble - looking for a man who is going to save us from ourselves?

Are you claiming that the author of gMatt knew Jesus? When would this have been? Are you claiming that Paul knew the earthly Jesus? Did the risen Jesus tell Paul about his geneology? Why didn't he give Matthew the same story?

Especially if it ignores all of modern critical scholarship on the gospels.

No comment

smokester

I started this thread a while back and have since read a bunch about these Matthew and Luke geneologies. I have some questions re these two accounts.

1. Can we be certain that both accounts are of the the same Jesus? Jesus was a common name and there seems to be enough differences in the Luke/Matthew accounts that the possibility of two different births are being recorded here.
I am asking this in all seriousness---this needs to be settled, at least in my own mind, before other interpretations can be looked at seriously. For me this is step one. Thanks

Toto

Both accounts draw from a common source - the gospel of Mark. This would seem to argue that they both intended to refer to the same person, whether that person was real or legendary.

Johnny Skeptic

As far as sophisticated fundies like Glenn Miller and James Holding are concerned, arguments by skeptics regarding the two geneaologies are not any problem at all. Just go to their web sites and find out for yourself. In addition, you can go to the Theology Web and debate Holding regarding the genealogies. Regarding "this needs to be settled," I respectfully disagree. Even if all that we had was Mary's genealogy, Mary's genealogy cannot reliably be traced back to Micah (eighth century B.C.), let alone to Abraham (between 1500 and 2000 B.C.).

reflector

That's a great question! I appreciate the challenge!

The verses around this one verse shed a little insight on this one.
"Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, 2 (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) 3 Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; 4 And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead:" Rom 1:1-4

The context in which Paul is stressing in his letter is that Christ has come. There was a group that existed in those days and I think that they exist even today to some degree that believe that Jesus was not humanity, only spirit. These were the Gnostics. In addition, there are those that believe that the humanity of Jesus is not important. Paul is writing this letter in advance of a planned trip to Rome and lays down what he is going to be teaching there when he gets there (vs. 10 thru 12).

Therefore, according to the flesh is referring to the fact that Jesus came and was fully man...not just fully deity.

In genuine Christian love,
EV

smokester

Toto quote
me
However, Mark starts with the ministry of Jesus in Gallilee. The Matthew/Luke sources are similar to the Mark account re the ministry, life, death of Jesus, and resurrrection, but give two divergent accounts of the early life(lives) of Jesus.

In both cases, we can say nothing about agreeing or disagreeing with the Mark source re geneologies and early life history.

At least "one" logical supposition for us to make is that both the Matthew and Luke accounts are accurate in re to the early life of Jesus. "If" they are both accurate, what do the accounts mean when taken together?

Johhny Skeptic quote
me
I understand. However, the two different geneologies are accompanied by two different accounts of the early life of Jesus. Remember, Mark starts with the ministry of Jesus.
"If" both accounts are as accurate as could be expected----I understand and agree with your difficulties re the geneologies----what does that mean? Anything? That is what I meant when I mentioned "this needs to be settled".

Roger Pearse

The subject is discussed in Eusebius of Caesarea, Quaestiones ad Stephanum, ca. 310 AD. This issue is questions 3 and 4. I think that he says that Matthew is stating the genealogy as a fact, while Luke says "as was thought"; also that Matthew gives the physical descent, which includes all sorts of sinners, while Luke is giving a 'spiritual descent' -- the people in the OT of whom the Christ is spirtually descended, even if they weren't physically his ancestors; and the two reflect the descent either through the royal ancestors or the priestly ones (this last a quotation from Julius Africanus -- good old Eusebius will always quote someone if he can!). (He does explain this better than I am doing).

So the issue was being kicked around a LONG time ago. At this distance of time, no-one can know. Perhaps there are some cultural factors that come into it. It's fairly unlikely that either account should be understood as if it were a production of the Society of Genealogists done professionally in 2004! (Obvious, but I'm sure some people will be banging away on this strawman). The canons by which such things were composed in antiquity -- a society that had no reliable records -- would need to be understood before we could comment intelligently.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Asha'man

But that's the problem, if we accept both accounts as accurate, we run into numerous logical contradictions. At least one of the accounts absolutely has to be wrong in some form or fashion. They simply can't possibly both be accurate. The genealogies are only one part of the problem, for example Matthew and Luke give birth dates for Jesus that differ by at least 10 years. Jesus can't possibly have been born both in 4BC and 6AD.

On the other hand, we have a very likely explanation that solves this problem neatly: whenever Matthew and Luke tried to fill in gaps that Mark left out, they invented material that suited their needs.

They both had a need to describe the life of Jesus before Mark's story, but the life they describe is radically different. They both tried to justify Jesus in the role of the Messiah, which required Davidic descent, but the genealogy they provide is radically different. It's a simple and obvious pattern.

Old story: several fraternity brothers arrive late to a college exam. They explain to the professor that their car had a flat tire, and ask for a make-up test. The professor agrees, and sits each boy in a separate room. The test consists of a single question: "Which tire was flat?"

Lucretius

I think I have a simple if radical solution to both the fact that there are two genealogies and the discrepancies in the date of Jesus' birth.
How about if they are in fact describing the supposed genealogies of two completely different alleged "Messiah's" who lived in Palestine at roughly the same time and over time their story's got combined and Mark and Matthew are each relating what they had been told about two different but similar people.
We can see from studying other mythological characters how oral traditions can split and then re-combine at a later date so I don't see any reason why this could not be the case here .
In this case BOTH Mark & Matthew are in a way correct in trying to link their own Jesus to David (I am of course leaving aside the fact that biologically Jesus could not be a descendany of David in any case if it was Virgin Birth ).