Llyricist

, I'd almost agree, except that they actually had a purpose in providing the bloodline, i.e. to crowbar this pagan savior god, virgin birth (etc.) religion into Jewish prophesy of their Messiah. Thus creating the contradiction between the virgin birth and Jesus: Line of David through Joseph.

Unless you are going along with the Apologetic line that one of the geneologies was actually Mary's, if so you would be correct that the Joseph bloodline is pointless.

Heck they even used a mistranslation of an unrelated prophesy to crowbar the virgin birth aspect into Jewish prophesy.

Asha'man

This is one of those places where the order things were written becomes clear. The author of Mark didn’t want to mention where Jesus came from, because folks knew he was a (literal) bastard.

However, somebody was preaching from the book of Mark, and some wise Jew in the back of the crowd spoke up and asked: “Hey, wait a second. If Jesus is the Messiah, then isn’t he supposed to be of the line of David?”

When the authors of Luke and Matthew wrote their replacements for Mark, they made some “improvements” and each added a forged genealogy without consulting the other. (Remember, they weren’t writing supplements, they figured the older book would be retired and lost.)

Still later, the bastard issue was becoming a problem again, so these early preachers came up with a permanent fix: they stole the idea of a virgin birth from some of the other religions in the area, and edited that into the existing books.

This made the genealogies pointless, but they had already been incorporated into the manuscripts, and nobody wanted to just erase all that fine work.

That’s my speculation, at least.

diana

Since there are no surnames, it may be safe to assume that preserving "the name of the father" simply means that the children of these women take their bloodline instead of their husbands' bloodlines as their proper lineage, yes?

I was in a bit of a hurry this morning when I wrote this, so I didn't have time to finish the thought. The point I was making is this:

Even if you convince me that the meaning behind the text of Luke when it was written was that it was meant to be Mary's bloodline--thanks to common practices or idioms among the Jews at the time of writing--you're also asking me to make the leap into believing that any woman with no brothers would essentially pass her own name (heritage, lineage) on to her children for the purposes of "ranking" in society and such.

This is how I understand your argument. I find this hard to believe because this would mean one of two things:

1. Her children would reap the benefits of both her husband's and her bloodlines--as though the children had not one mother and one father, but (for legal purposes) two daddies.

2. Her children would not reap the benefits of her father's bloodline, but hers--regardless of the benefits of his lineage.

The first asks her children to carry both their names (ye olde hyphenated handle, so to speak), and the second asks her children to carry her name and not his. I can't imagine women and men doing that in modern society, and we've advanced quite a bit since the time Numbers was written.

Because I can't imagine any of the patriarchs immasculating himself thusly with his wife in regards to lineage rights, I tend to interpret the Numbers passage to mean that the orphaned daughters asked to carry on their father's name, but were only granted the right to inherit his belongings according to the law.

I'd be very interested to see how Rabbis interpret this passage, though.

d

Amos

What do mean? scripture reference. Don't you have the genealogies in your bible?

Synoptic means from a different perspectives and since there are four Gospels there will be four different perspectives. Matthew was Jewish, Mark was pagan or gentile, Luke omniscient and John was Catholic (or what was soon to become Catholic).

The genealogy of Jesus has nothing to do with the family tree, except to show that indeed Joseph was a Jew, was from the line of David and was recorded the way back to Abraham. Further it showed that Jesus was a Messiah (Christ) in his own right who decided to start a new religion.

Notice that the genealogy of Matthew was recorded (on paper), through the father of the son [of God] while in Luke it was not recorded but "supposed" that he was the son of Joseph, while in fact he was the son of God born to Joseph and this same sonship of God goes all the way back to son of Adam, to son of God. Son of God is created in the image of God and therefore is God in the image of man here reborn to Joseph the Jew.

From reading the Gospels it is my opinion that Christ was born to Joseph and the new dual identity was called Jesus who must now carry the burdens of Joseph (sins of the world that prompted the rebirth) to the cross and set free the man-as-God identity that was reborn to Joseph.

To be sure, Joseph could not do this on his own because religion itself must be annihilated (get thee behind me satan), and faith must be exhausted (Peter defrocked), and in fact all of the qualities of Joseph must be left behind (in the garden) if Christ (young man) is to be set free in the end. Therefore a new identity is needed and this new identity is called Jesus to make this distinction.

Better yet, when the Magi arrived they found [only] "Mary and her child" when they entered. Had any sign of Judaism (Joseph) been visible to them they would not have paid homage or epiphanies. Compare this with the shepherds who did not enter but saw Joseph and Mary and the child and now first understood why they were out herding sheep at night (herding sheep at night is the Advent equivalent of catching fish on the wrong side of the boat during Lent).

Mary is all woman and all woman means not human because woman is opposite to human with man being the neuter form created in the image of God. Mary is without sin and therefore not human to be the Immaculate Conception needed for the virgin birth that was confirmed by the Magi's epiphanies. Notice that the Eastern Church does not celebrate Christmas until Jan.6 because a non-virgin birth from a malevolent female (not woman) is the alternative to a virgin birth.

You may be confusing woman with female. The difference is that females are part human and part woman. Woman is a descriptive concept of a quality and females are human beings. Do not forget that this is about rebirth.

What I wrote before should still be sufficient: I should add here that "without any obligation or loyalty" does not suggest envy or animosity.

Bob K

An individual who is a professor at the University of New Hampshire (who does not want to be named) stated that the Greek word huios translates as 'biological son of' (as in the individual's father's penis ejaculated into his mother's vagina and he was the result—I cannot make this any clearer without using pornographic terminology) and definitely not 'legal son of.'

Thus, in Luke, written in Greek, huios translates as 'biological son of' and thereby eliminates any claims that the Lukan genealogy is that of adopted 'sons.'

Bob K

One of the problems in discussions concerning so-called holy books is not having standards for evaluating the so-called holy books.

Here are mine:

<a href="http://www.bobkwebsite.com/stndrdsholybks.html" target="_blank">http://www.bobkwebsite.com/stndrdsholybks.html</a>

The last, #7, deals with the requirement that the gods should inspire/guide/supervise/etc. the writings of holy books in such manner that nonscholars can read them and understand clearly the content of the words, that no one should have to be a scholar of ancient cultures to be able to read and understand the writings of the gods.

Clearly, and obviously, this standard is not met by the Xn Bible.

Amos

No problem Bob. In Luke the exact genetic identity that belonged to Joseph was reborn into the conscious mind of Joseph the Jew. This made Jesus the dual God-human identity (God from Joseph the man and human from Joseph the Jew). This new identity came from woman, here called Mary, who is the blueprint (tree of wisdom) of Joseph the man.

diana

Interesting, Bob. (BTW, how ya been?)

I was looking for some backup from Strong's, but there doesn't seem to be much available, but the explanation for huios is quite long.

The closest it comes to disproving this position is to point out where huios is used to denote "sons of God" to mean the Children of Israel (OT) and Christians (NT).

Other than that, there is no indication that this term is intended to mean "son-in-law," as the "Joseph, son[-in-law] of Heli" argument necessitates. It clearly means actual son or in the direct bloodline.

Or so it seems to me.

And while I personally agree with your list of requirements for an inspired text (at least, the item you listed here), this doesn't make for a sound argument against textual confusion. Who are you to impose your rules on God?

d

Bob K

Diana:

You can imagine how much fun I have when Xn fundies scream that re: Standards for so-called holy books I should not 'tempt Gawd.'

That's when I trot out my Standards for the Analysis, Evaluation, and Judgement of Gods:

<a href="http://www.bobkwebsite.com/stndrdsgods.html" target="_blank">http://www.bobkwebsite.com/stndrdsgods.html</a>

Heh, heh, heh!!!

Iasion

Greetings Amos et al,

Amos said :
Synoptic means from a different perspectives and since there are four Gospels there will be four different perspectives.

Hmm..
actually, "syn" mean "same"

The Synoptics are the Gospels which "see the same" or "look the same" or "see it the same"

The 3 Synoptics do not include G.John - because it "sees" different.

Quentin David Jones