smokester

Since initiating this post, I spent some time "googling" re the topic.
What I have found so far:
1. An interesting theory that what is written is true and not a deception or poorly accounted. Literally, there were two Jesus boys who united at the death of one around the time of Jesus' trip to Jerusalem at age 12.
2. One genealogy is of Joseph and the other is of Mary---discussed above.
3. The gospels must be looked at "seamlessly" as a whole and these troublesome things begin to vanish.
4. There is a problem with either our translations of Aramaic or the actual Aramaic writings or logic of the Aramaic writers---I'm not sure I understand which---and it also was discussed in an above thread.
5. The gospels are actually to be interpreted in light of the Mystery tradition and not as the church historically has seen fit.
6. Several Christian Reiincarnation websights with some insights into the whole genealogy
7. Skeptics saying generally what was posted above.
8. Several saying that in time all of these anomalies will become somewhat clearer.

I'm still confused.:huh:

Johnny Skeptic

Very good, now will you please give us some examples that are not anomalies and do not have several possible explanations? How about the claim that Jesus healed people? Today, millions of Christians disagree as to what constitutes a miracle healing. Why should anyone believe that it was any different back then?

John Kesler

Just because Mary was a "cousin" of Elizabeth, said to be of the "daughters of Aaron," doesn't mean that Mary was an Aaronite. Intertribal marriages took place. Aaron married Elisheba, listed in Exodus 6:23 as the "daughter of Amminadab, sister of Nahshon," and Numbers 1:7 lists "Nahshon son of Amminadab" as a Judahite.

Zeichman

Raymond Brown proposed that Matthew used a previously existing "Messianic" geneology and merely adapted the last few (?) begettings for Jesus in particular, and added the women. He finds it hard to believe that Matthew would fabricate the 14 generations thing and then marvel over it several times. However, I believe that Matthean creativity is the best explanation for the inconsistencies between Matthew and the Chronicles geneologies.

Similarly, he believes that the Lucan geneology was a popular one among Hellenistic Jews and was also adapted to fit Luke's theological purposes.

John Kesler

I think that Matthew and Luke took creative liberties with their genealogies, and attempts to harmonize them are unconvincing. If one accepts this premise, then the question is whether the conflicts between the genealogies can rightly be called errors. More broadly, are discrepancies that arise because of differing theological agendas errors?

hatsoff

From a Christian perspective? Oh, let's see... the Crucifixion comes to mind.

How is that relevant?

Johnny Skeptic

Even if the Cruxifixion happened, or for that matter, the Resurrection, so what? From a Christian perspective, all that matters is whether or not God will send Christians to heaven, and if God if evil, don't bet on that happening. An evil God, being omnipotent and omnipresent, would easily be able to masquerade as a good God. In other words, he would easily be able to duplicate anything that the Bible attributes to the God of the Bible, and he could easily deceive Christians. The faith of Christians would be completely inconsequential if such a being exists.

It is relevant because you mentioned anomalies and other possible explanations. Today, as millions of Christians will tell you, there are other reasonably possible explanations than that God heals people today. In addition, some Christians will tell you that there are other reasonably possible explanations other than that Jesus actually healed people. If you still don't think that it is relevant I will start a new thread and we can discuss this issue there.

RUmike

Johnny that is definitely off-topic.

judge

Good answer

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Could be...

I rather doubt this, though! The early church was predominately Jewish. They would have spoken up if Matthew had been taking liberties with an improper genealogy.

On what basis do we know that, though? And I was arguing for both lines being acceptable! Not just one, so the bloodline would be through David, too. Well, they both are...

But the phrase is "as if childless." So this need not mean "childless," and therefore need not mean "no descendent ever reigning."

Yes, and I'm arguing that it was. Also, people would be interested in seeing both lines! That may be why we have them. Do we really think that people reading these two gospels in the early church didn't notice the difference? That's pretty unlikely.

And if the early Christians were taking such liberties with the facts as Diogenes suggests, why didn't they just fix the discrepancy?

Regards,
Lee