RED DAVE

I have often argued with xtians about the genologies in Matthew and Luke, the discrepancies between them, etc. and felt that I made all kinds of terrific debating points, crushed the opposition and so on. However, it recently occurred to me that there were some other issues there, which, I'm sure someone else has addressed.

1) Given the fact that there are two discrepant genologies, why is this so? Why didn't someone change one of them, as was done with the final chapter of Mark?

2) If both Matthew and Luke depend on Mark, and there is no genology in Mark, where did this genology, in both its versions, come from?

Enlighten this heathen.

REDE DAVE

Doctor X

There were attempts to harmonize the gospels, but I imagine by the time this became a noticable problem it was harder to "correct."

In answer to your second point, I would respond, "from their respective rectums," if I were an unkind man, however I believe both wished to link Junior to epic history and simply came up with their own stories. Similarly, they try to make him a "Nazarene"--which really means a particular type of ascetic!--and part of the epic "house of David."

Neither Lk nor Mt intended to be in the same book together!

--J.D.

Asha'man

I think that both Matthew and Luke were trying to write a definitive replacement for earlier gospels. They imagined that Mark would fade into obscurity, and only their book would continue to be used by the new cult. Both books have additional material that clearly addresses objections that would have been raised against the story in Mark, such as providing more information on where Jesus came from.

It has been suggested that Matthew's author paid a Jewish scholar to write (read: forge) him a genealogy, and the scholar screwed him over. Matthew's genealogy seems to come from all the wrong sides of the OT family tree, from harlots and from cursed sons. Luke's replacement genealogy may have been an attempt at damage control.

Rick Sumner

I'd venture that that's intentional. Four women (other than Mary) are named in Matthew's genealogy--Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. All of them gave birth to sons through relations that were unexpected, to say the least. Yet this is the genealogy that led to the birth of David, the great king, and Solomon, who built the temple.

This prepares the reader for the supreme irregularity in the birth of Jesus to the fifth woman in the geneaology--Mary.

Regards,
Rick

Koyaanisqatsi

The whole thing's screwy. To be (Orthodox) Jewish, one must be born of a Jewish mother. So you'd think they would list their geneologies only through the women.

Not to mention the alleged fact that Jesus was implanted and not actually the result of Joseph's sperm, so no matter how you slice it, the Jesus of the NT couldn't possibly be from the line of David, even if his mother was, because she was immaculatedly conceived.

Amos

To understand it helps to see Matthew as the Jewish perspective, Luke as the omniscient and Mark as the pagan perspective.

There is no genealogy in Mark because [maybe] the birth of Christ -- who was to be called Jesus instead of Christ-- was not a physical event and therefore pagans could not possibly have any knowledge of it.

In Matthew the genealogy was a recorded list according to Jewish tradition and was given to us prior to what they called the birth of Jesus Christ. Notice that the father's name was recorded to identify the *persona* to whom the divine child was to be born.

Luke was an inspired account that was given to us after enlightenment and therefore points at the *son-of-man* here called Jesus who was 'supposed' to be the son of Joseph.

So the difference between the father and the son is that the son is the enlightened father who now is speaking throught his son-of-man identity. Hence Luke is the omniscient perspective.

An added dimension here is that Luke goes back to Adam to God while Matthew goes to the father of the mythology who therefore is the first of the recorded lineage from a religious perspective.

So it is obvious that Matthew and Luke do not depend on Mark nor does Mark depend on the others. They are just perspectives and the apparent descrepancies are there for a purpose because they all depict a reality. This now means that without them the Gospels and the Catholic Church would be a fraud.

judge

The first key to solving this "problem" is to see that Matthew was writen in Aramaic. Once we see this and closely examine the Aramaic peshitta the answer becomes clear.

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 29:9:4)

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)


When we examine the Aramaic we see that the peshitta differentiates between two different men called Joseph.
Both Mary's husband and her father were called Joseph.


The Joseph in Matthew 1:16 is not Mary's husband but her father.

In the Aramaic text this man is called the gowra(father) of Mary.
Elsewhere in Matthews gospel gowra is used to denote a father.

In matthew 1:19 marys husband is referred to as her baala (husband).

This solves the problem of the "missing generration" as well.
Matthew tells us their is 3X14 or 42 generations but only mentions 41 (in our English translation anyway).

Both words gowra and baala were translated as aner in the greek and subsequently as husband in English.

This also solves any problem about Jesus being born of a virgin yet still being a descendent of David and solomon.

All problems are solved by correctly translation one word

Doctor X

Amos:

Read the Basics on NT Scholarship

NOT SUPPORTED BY THE TEXTS

Luke is anything but omniscient!

MARK DID NOT FEEL THE NEED TO CREATE ONE THAT LINKED HIM TO JEWISH HISTORY!

WORD SALAD

ISPSE DIXIT for LK IS NOT "INSPIRED."

No claim of theopneustos is made!

SEE ABOVE . . . READ SOME SCHOLARSHIP

Right.

--J.D.

Koyaanisqatsi

And why would we do this? Just for kicks? How about, Matthew as the Buddhist perspective, Luke as the fraud and Mark as the Hopi Indian perspective?

I mean, if you're going to ascribe religious significance (allegedly inspired by God) to various perspectives, why not branch out a little bit and turn to other borders on the globe? Or was the One True God and Creator of the Universe only concerned with getting His most important words across to Jewish believers and Pagan believers in only one small section of the planet; the rest will have to hear about it a thousand or two years later?

Actually, he was supposed to be called....oh nevermind.

Un hunh. So, Mark is a paganist's interpretation of what went down? Well, that certainly explains why he got so many things wrong about Judaism, but doesn't explain how he got Jesus being so wrong about Judaic messianic prophecy, which is corroborated by Matthew.

Was it now? I thought Matthew was written at least a hundred years after the birth of Jesus the Christ (BTW)? So Matthew just went and looked up Jesus' geneology in the Hall of Jewish Geneologies did he?

Would this be before or after the war of 80 C.E.?

I see. So it's not a geneology at all; just a sort of, bizarre, "well, if he had been your child, this is what he would have looked like," kind of thing?

And the father is....? You said there was a difference, so what is Joseph, since he's not the father?

So the apologetic goes. One might also call his the deification perspective; a logical progression in mythology, much like the children's game of "telephone," where a group of kids starts by whispering a phrase in one person's ear and it goes all the way around the ring until finally announced and everyone giggles when they hear how perverted it got within a thirty to fifty second span of time.

Funny how decades of Christian storytelling don't ever seem to share that same phenomenon. After all, they're the inspired word of God. You know this because the authors were so kind to point that out to their readers.

Yes, well, let's keep emphasizing that "mythology" part and add in the central created character of that mythology; the character of "God" (played by James Mason) and to a lesser extent, Adam. Trace back the facts and you have a lineage of men telling mythical stories to their offspring in order to get them to behave (at best).

Whoa, whoa, whoa there, little horsey. "Obvious?" Only to one who irrationally believes they are "inspired" accounts.

Well, considering that his was supposedly first and Matthew's and Luke's years later, that makes sense, now doesn't it?

But they are not supposed to be "perspectives," according the very same authors who told you they were inspired by God. They are supposed to be eyewitness accounts and inspired "eyewitness" accounts; as if God had shown them what had happened and what was said and so on.

As for "apparent descrepancies," they aren't just "descrepancies," they're contradictory accounts of the alleged actual events of the One True God's son/messiah on Earth.

The authors do not state they are writing mere mythology; they claim that they are recounting factual human history as it actually happened, as inspired by the One True God.

And as for being there "for a purpose because they all depict a reality," the point is that for them to be at all considered factual (non-fictional) accounts of actual events, they cannot be depicting a reality; they must be depicting the reality (as, indeed, they all claim they are).

So if they are either not depicting actual reality or they are lying about depicting actual reality, why would you accept their other claim that they were all inspired by God?

They didn't say, "Here is the mythology of Jesus the Christ as interpreted through my religious beliefs," anywhere while I was out, did they, 'cause if they did, we can finally call this whole charade off and get on with our mental evolution?

"Would" be? Sorry, my friend. That ship sailed long ago...

Doctor X

Offers Koyaanisqatsi a soft leather chair and instructs Seed to hand him an Oban to allow the pain to just flow away. . . .

--J.D.