JEST2ASK

The Problem:
I observed that the genealogies given for Jesus (called Christ) the son of Mary, listed in; The Gospel according to Matthew (Chapter 1) is considerably different from the genealogy given in The Gospel according to Luke (Chapter 2,3).

It was suggested to me that a possible solution to this apparent contradiction is that GL Vs 23 actually lists Mary’s father Heli (Joseph’s Father-in-law). Therefore the genealogy is the maternal line and GM-1 gives the fraternal line.

I admit that is a possibility; however I must say that answer IMO is not one supported by logic or the texts themselves.

Does anyone know of when this arguement was first put forth and by whom.
Do any of the "early church fathers" make mention of the issue.

andrewcriddle

Although the "church fathers" from Julius Africanus on discuss this issue; this particular solution appears to be late. Maybe late medieval.

Andrew Criddle

Toto

Neil Godfrey has a good post on the geneologies here and the signficance of their differences.

The idea that Luke's geneology goes through Mary's line is argued in the comments by Joe Hinman (aka Metacrock), for those of you who miss him.

JEST2ASK

:notworthy: Andrew / Toto

Thanks will follow up and I remember Metacrock found his post interesting as alternate viewpoints (not sure I would say I miss him / his posts )

neilgodfrey

Justin Martyr does not appear to make specific reference to either of these genealogies but he does have a bit to say about the genealogy of Christ. According to Justin, who appears as a rule to be divining his knowledge of the facts about Jesus mostly from the Jewish scriptures,

• Jesus was born of the stock of Abraham (Trypho 23)
• And also the son of Adam (=son of Man) (Trypho 100)
• Was the son of the patriarchs -- but through a virgin birth (Trypho 100)
• Mary was of the house of David (Trypho 76)
• Jesus was not descended from any human seed - his "generation" was undeclarable -- a miracle of a virgin birth (Various ... see http://members.dodo.com.au/~neilgodfrey/justinnarr.htm) for references.

So whatever Justin knew of the genealogies found in Matthew and Luke, he stresses one thing they do not, and that is that Jesus is traced back to David and the patriarchs through Mary. As does the Protevengelium of James.

hjalti

According to my New international greek testament commentary: Lk (or via: amazon.co.uk), that solution first appeared ~1490 CE, so it appeared after the middle ages!

Toto

Thanks for the reference. Hamilton does not actually say that 1490 was the first time the theory was mentioned, but he does attribute it at p. 158 to Annius of Viterbo (AD 1490)

Wikipedia says that Annius is currently noted for his forgeries.

hjalti

My mistake, I thought that the date referred to the book in which the genealogy-of-Mary theory first appeared.

Marshall also points out that in Lk 1:27 "the Davidic descent of Joseph is stressed." (p. 158) Doesn't really fit with this theory.

DCHindley

JEST2ASK,

Ignoring the issue of when the idea of the genealogy of gLuke being through Mary rather than Joseph originated, I'd say that when comparing the two in order to discern which might be earlier or more likely based on actual genealogical traditions, look at their structure.

Matthew's is schematic, apparently composed (edited or cropped) so as to form 3 groups of 14 generations (yes, one of them is 13, but the author says "14"). Luke's apparently culled his from information found in Jewish scriptures (books of the Law and Writings like Kings/Chronicles, I'd say).

That doesn't answer the question of which is earlier, or more authentic, though. Gospel of Luke's could be first and Matthew either didn't accept it as accurate or know of it, or gospel of Matthew's could be first and the author of Luke didn't accept its accuracy or know of it. Both could be creations of the authors of the individual gospels, made for rhetorical reasons or reconstructed as the most probable based on their understanding of sources like the Jewish scriptures. IMHO, they are so unlike that we can probably rule out use of a common source or tradition.

Going back to Julius Africanus. (1st half of 3rd Century AD):

"Epistle to Aristides" [as cited by Eusebius, History of the Church 1:7]:

“A few, however, of the studious, having private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting at them in some other way from the archives, pride themselves in preserving the memory of their noble descent: and among these happen to be those already mentioned [in a prior paragraph dealing with the “kinsmen of the Savior” and their version of Herod’s ancestry in which he is the son of a slave, who was in turn the son of a servant of the Temple of Apollo in Ascalon, and thus not a true Idumean Jew, and with Herod allegedly burning the public archives to hide the “fact”], called “desposyni”, on account of their connection with the family of the Savior. And these coming from Nazara and Cochaba, Judean villages, to other parts of the country, set forth the above-named genealogy [meaning either Africanus’ earlier attempt to reconcile the two Gospel genealogies by reference to the lack of official records caused by Herod’s supposed burning of the public archives, or to the remarks about Herod’s supposed ancestry mentioned above], as accurately as possible from the Book of Days.*”

*The “Book of Days” is thought to be some sort of public register of births and/or deaths.

The thing about this is that it is in a section of the letter that deals with possible solutions intended to harmonize or reconcile the differences between the two genealogies. His solution, BTW, I believe involved more than one Levirite marriage between a brother and his deceased brother's widow. However, the records he claims the "desposynii" have also claims that Herod destroyed the "official" records of his day in order to hide the "fact" that his own genealogy was tainted, making him unfit as royalty. This may be no more than a dodge to explain how their private genealogy cannot be either proved or disproved.

Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis (4th century), also preserved some traditions about Jesus' genealogy, but I'd have to look deeper into this, if anyone is interested. If memory serves, he also adopted the Levirite marriage solution.

DCH

DCHindley

That excerpt from Julius Africanus Ca. 200-225 CE:

Epistle to Aristides, in Eusebius, History of the Church, 1:7:

Matthew and Luke in their gospels have given us the genealogy of Christ differently, and many suppose that they are at variance with one another. Since as a consequence every believer, in ignorance of the truth, has been zealous to invent some explanation which shall harmonize the two passages, permit us to subjoin the account of the matter which has come down to us, and which is given by Africanus, who was mentioned by us just above, in his epistle to Aristides, where he discusses the harmony of the gospel genealogies. [...]

For the relatives of our Lord according to the flesh, whether with the desire of boasting or simply wishing to state the fact, in either case truly, have banded down the following account: Some Idumean robbers, having attacked Ascalon, a city of Palestine, carried away from a temple of Apollo which stood near the walls, in addition to other booty, Antipater, son of a certain temple slave named Herod. And since the priest was not able to pay the ransom for his son, Antipater was brought up in the customs of the Idumeans, and afterward was befriended by Hyrcanus, the high priest of the Jews. And having, been sent by Hyrcanus on an embassy to Pompey, and having restored to him the kingdom which had been invaded by his brother Aristobulus, he had the good fortune to be named procurator of Palestine. But Antipater having been slain by those who were envious of his great good fortune was succeeded by his son Herod, who was afterward, by a decree of the senate, made King of the Jews under Antony and Augustus. His sons were Herod and the other tetrarchs. These accounts agree also with those of the Greeks. But as there had been kept in the archives up to that time the genealogies of the Hebrews as well as of those who traced their lineage back to proselytes, such as Achior the Ammonite and Ruth the Moabitess, and to those who were mingled with the Israelites and came out of Egypt with them, Herod, inasmuch as the lineage of the Israelites contributed nothing to his advantage, and since he was goaded with the consciousness of his own ignoble extraction, burned all the genealogical records, thinking that he might appear of noble origin if no one else were able, from the public registers, to trace back his lineage to the patriarchs or proselytes and to those mingled with them, who were called Georae.

A few of the careful, however, having obtained private records of their own, either by remembering the names or by getting them in some other way from the registers, pride themselves on preserving the memory of their noble extraction. Among these are those already mentioned, called Desposyni, on account of their connection with the family of the Saviour. Coming from Nazara and Cochaba, villages of Judea, into other parts of the world, they drew the aforesaid genealogy from memory and from the book of daily records as faithfully as possible.

It is not certain whether that final paragraph is Eusebius' comment or a continuation of the text of Africanus' letter.

DCH