ichabod crane

OK, there is some theological confusion going on here. Let me start out by saying that I am not orthodox; but I understand orthodox theology well, and you have misunderstood it. Many average Christian believers think something along the lines that you have claimed, but that isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of Christian theology.

Orthodoxy holds that Jesus was one person but had two natures, human and divine. Jesus' divine nature was shared with the Father; but his human nature was entirely derived from Mary. Chalcedon is quite clear on this: "begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin". Note that he is said to be begotten in his divinity ("before the ages") by the Father, but begotten as regards his humanity by Mary the Virgin. In short, God was not the Father of his human nature. Jesus was not a human-divine crossbreed. By some miraculous means, Jesus (allegedly) derived his entire humanity from Mary, and so in terms of his humanity can be said not to have a father at all. This is how orthodoxy understands the statement that he was "the seed of the woman".

So the argument doesn't work. Jesus' conception was unique on the orthodox view, and the newly formed human zygote derived entirely from Mary, not from God. Hope this is clear.

Why look at a document written hundreds of years after the event by someone who only had a very poor second hand knowledge of stories of Jesus from the gospels and apocryphal works? The Quran is absolutely useless as a historical source for pretty much anything, and particularly Jesus' life.

Dr_Paine

"Apologetic" - in other words rationalized attempt at harmonization of contradictory information by means of ad hoc hypotheses.

The books of Matthew and Luke are very clear that the genealogies are BOTH through Joseph.

The attempt to explain away this problem is a perfect example of the creativity and penchant of the human mind for rationalization and avoidance of cognitive dissonance.

That Heli was the father of Mary appears to be an ad hoc hypothesis in order to harmonize one's beliefs. I would like more info on this. Is there compelling evidence to reach such a conclusion, other than to not reach the conclusion would result in dissonance? Compelling evidence outside of the genealogies in question, that is.

In addition, why is it important to establish both a legal lineage and a natural one?

Remember these writings were put to paper decades after Christ and they were addressed to various Christian communities. Who cares what the "people thought?" There was no need to legally validate Christ's ancestry to believers.

Apologetics is most certainly an art form.


Note the perfect numerical consonance in Matthew's version: 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the Babylonian captivity, and 14 from the captivity to Jesus. (Matthew 1:17). Is it just me or does that sound a bit too nice and neat - perhaps a bit contrived?

GakuseiDon

Yep. That's why I used the word "apologetic".

From the same link I gave before:

Chili

I find this an interesting passage. It tells me that a bastard will never find salvation ("enter the congregation of the Lord") and even for ten generations afterwards will his descendants be victimized by such irresponsible action. To me it speaks against mixed marriages and has nothing to do with marriage beyond that. In other words, the children born in mixed marriages are still bastards in this sense.

dado

what is amusing is how they went to the trouble to invent not one but two geneological lines and managed to make them *both* incompatible with the HaMashiak prophetic requirements. IMO that argues very strongly for much later, non-Jewish redaction of whatever constituted the original stories (i know, like we need more evidence...)

dado

the original word is mamzer and it refers to the offspring of forbidden union (adultery, incest, etc). it specifically doesn't apply to children of two unmarried people. in the context of the time, it almost certainly did - as you suggest - also refer to mixed marriages since those would be "forbidden" if the non-Jewish party didn't convert.

starling

Sorry, if Jesus's humanity had been entirely derived from Mary, he would have been a woman. Only X chromosomes in Mary, guys have the Y chromosome. Unless Mary was a hermaphrodite.

In all seriousness, Jesus's parents weren't the first or the last to claim an unexpected birth wasn't the father's fault but a divine visitation. Just look at Greek legends of Leda (sp?) and the swan! Also humans (the people who wrote the bible) have a tendancy to glorify their idols (Jesus) and attribute to them a higher status than normal man. Many past heroes have been given the status of a god, or son of a god. (See Sieglinde, Sigmunde in Wagner and the tales he drew from) Chances are Jesus wasn't any different. Of course there's no way to know for sure, but it does make a lot more sense given human nature that Jesus was made the Son of God fictionally in the bible, and was born of Mary and Joseph.

Or that Roman soldier. Life of Brian rocks!

ichabod crane

Um, the problem with this argument is that it fails to take into account that the event in question was supposed to be supernatural or miraculous. Obviously, some rearrangement of genetic material would be involved. But think about the story of Eve being created from Adam's rib. The same objection would apply; each cell would need to have its chromosomes altered. There isn't any good reason that an omnipotent God couldn't reconstruct chromosomes though. I'm just playing the devil's advocate here.

I don't think we can know much about Jesus' parentage. The story of the virgin birth seems to me a later addition, and probably derived from some other source as you mention. But I think we should always be fair in our presentation of opposing points of view, and not present straw men.

Chili

That would have to be true because ten generations is a long time to remember. So according to this scripture there is reason not to marry outside the church which lies much deeper than our faculty of reason can comprehend. I am a firm believer of tradition and the effect it has upon our spiritual well being.

Chili

Yes it is clear but wrong. Mary was fully woman and not human which makes it impossible for the human nature of Jesus to come from Mary. Mary was therefore also without sin and worthy to be conceived by the HS (thanks to Gabriel) etc.

The human nature of Jesus came from Joseph and only from Joseph and it was his upon the sins of Joseph that Jesus was first convicted and later crucified. In fact, the sins of Joseph were Jesus' cross and that is how he died to the sins of his world. Understand well here that Joseph was an entrepreneur and a businessman long before he knew Mary and that kind of goes hand in hand with deception and sin . . . wherefore he was pregnant with despair and eagerly looking towards the reign of God. Hence his betrothal to Mary and subsequent return to Bethlehem.

Lucky for Jesus that Joseph was not his father and that Jesus was born of a benevolent virgin so he could awaken and develop the long lost first nature of man in Joseph (and thusly become the father of man).

The above does not mean that God was the father of his human nature for it hath no father or it would not have been human to start with. Our humanity is an illusion and we only think it is more than that.