Juststeve

Dot:

According to Matthew Joseph's father is named Jacob.

According to Luke his father is named Heli.

Which is correct? Is either correct? How do you know?

Steve

Little Dot

The only thing that I can assume is he was referring to the fact that there are similar names in the two genealogys of Jesus. The statement in Matt. that "Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary," and the statement in Luke that Joseph (as supposed) the son of Heli is easily reconciled. Joseph couldn't be the son of both Jacob and Heli.

The translators of the King James version use the word "supposed" and the word "son" is in italics (which indicates that it is not in the original but is placed there to make sense), shows that some other wrod could be inserted that would make sense, and that word is 'son-in-law,' and it should read,

"Joseph which was the 'son-in-law' of Heli. Two geneaologies so un-alike couldn't be the same genealogy of Joseph.

Little Dot

Juststeve, Please see my post #32.

avi

Steve, do you mean that I err, and that "messiah" does NOT correspond to:

"saviour",
or
"deliverer",
or
"rescuer" ?

Any old guy can be a King, look at Herod....

But, a Messiah!! Wow!!

My understanding of that word, (perhaps completely wrong) is someone who would LIBERATE the Jews from the oppression of Roman governance.

Such a person, may, or may not be a "king". Look at Napolean, for example. he "liberated" the whole of France, and maybe even a few extra bits, too, for good measure....

Napolean was a "messianic" figure, though he certainly was no King. Was he "annointed". Yes, in my view, he was, at least figuratively, if not literally. Did he place the wreath of olive branches on his head, I think he did....

Can you give me a reference that clarifies the meaning of the Hebrew original 2300 years ago? The same word could have a very different meaning, today.

At that time, if I am not very much mistaken, Palestine was ruled not by the Romans, but by the Greeks, following Alexander. Are you certain that this "kingly" business, and "annointing" doesn't come from the Greeks, rather than the Israelites, Phoenicians, or other Semitic tribes?

Does the Hebrew word for Messiah appear in the old testament? How was it translated in LXX? Does that translation correspond to the same Hebrew word in the most ancient, extant text (e.g. as found in Deuteronomy in DSS?)

avi

gupwalla

The similar names are not the concern. It's the differences that are interesting -- and all the names between David and Joseph are different. All of them.

Oh, now you're just making things up. Luke 3:23 KJV says:

Note that Jesus is the supposed son of Joseph (KJV), not Joseph the supposed son of Heli (Gospel According to Dot). Luke makes this distinction because he's read ahead a bit in the story and knows that Joseph is not the real baby-daddy anyway (which makes one wonder why he bothers with a genealogy of Joseph in the first place, but whatev.)

More from the Gospel According to Dot. The text doesn't say that, you say that. The form of Luke's genealogy is consistently "X of Y, Y of Z" (not "X son of Y, Y son of Z") so by your logic we could just as easily say that Luke's genealogy is a run-down of all the sons-in-law of David down to Joseph. That's a pretty weird way to do a genealogy, but again, whatev.

(Except that, Luke's genealogy is generally more plausible than Matthew's in the first place, minus perhaps a skipped generation or three in the vicinity of the Hasmoneans.)

You won't get any argument from me. But I would add: Just because they both can't be the genealogy of Joseph does not imply that either of them is the genealogy of Joseph. They could both be equally wrong.

Little Dot

Actually avi that is what the Jews wanted, not what God intended.

stephan huller

Eusebius doesn't believe that this argument is true. He merely reports a popular objection to the genealogies in his day.

This argument doesn't work either. The reason a bloodline is being cited is because blood matters here. You can't just be adopted into the line of David.

Yigal Levin in Jesus, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of David’: The ‘Adoption’ of Jesus into the Davidic Line demonstrates that adoption was unknown to Jewish halakhot of this period. What appears in the gospel(s) reflects the pagan adoption practices associated with the Roman aristocracy. As such, it was wholly unknown to Jesus or his earliest followers and can be dated to a period when first century gospel material was being redeveloped for pagan audiences.

spin

I find it interesting that the genealogies are present at all, given the adoption idea in both gospels. Adoption renders the genealogies moot, serving no real purpose. There is no bloodline to Jesus. However, their presence does suggest a change in theology from the time when they represented a bloodline until adoptionism--the adoption of Jesus as god's son--is abandoned, requiring the quick fixes found to dissociate Jesus from the bloodlines, "the supposed son...", "who begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom [fem.] Jesus was born".

Little Dot

Adopting or taking one as your heir that is not a blood relative was not uncommon to the Jews.

Abraham speaks of Eliezer (Gen.15:3), a house-born slave, as his heir, having probably adopted him as his son. Jacob adopted his grandsons Ephraim and Manasseh, and counted them as his sons (48:6), he was able to bestow through them a double portion upon his favorite son Joseph.

Sometimes a man without a son would marry his daughter to a freed slave, the children then being accounted her father's; or the husband himself would be adopted as a son (1Chron.2:34).

Most of the early instances of adoption mentioned in the Bible were acts of women who, because of barrenness, gave their female slaves to their husbands with the intention of adopting any children they might have. Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, and the son (Ishmael) was considered the child of Abraham and Sarah (Gen.16:1-15). The childless Rachel gave her maid, Bilhah, to her husband (30:1-7) and was imitated by Leah (30:9-13).

In such cases the sons were regarded as fully equal in the rifht of heritage with those by the legitimate wife.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Little Dot,

We know from the Bible that Jews kept an accurate record of family descendents from Adam through Jesus about 4,500 years. We know that Christians would be no less zealous in guarding the knowledge of the bloodlines of Jesus and his family. Could you please tell us the descendents of the next generation of this illustrious family?

Warmly,

Jay Raskin