Amos

I suppose "first begotten" means he only "came once?"

diana

Hm. In that case, I'm a "first begotten" type of woman, Amos. I know women who are "begotten" several times in a row, but alas...I'm not so lucky.

d

(i.e., *bump*. epoq? Paging epoq.)

[ November 02, 2002: Message edited by: diana ]</p>

NOGO

That this is shear nonsense is evident by the fact that Matthew is trying to give a genealogy of Jesus and that in each case "begat" means "father of" as verified by the OT.

There are exceptions and only exceptions are the four names which Matthew removed to get is 14-14-14 combination.

To claim that Matthew in the middle of the genealogy switched meaning of the word "begat" from meaning "father of" to "ancestor of" is just apologetic nonsense.

Matthew's intention is quite clear since he states that there are 14 generations then "Begat" cannot mean anything else but "father of". Matthew must have counted the generations.
He can count.
He just can't copy.

[ November 05, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

CX

Furthermore, discussion of Hebrew is irrelevant. The text was written in Greek. There is no ambiguity whatsoever in the clear meaning of the Greek text.

Patrick Bateman

You guys are lucky Nomad's not here anymore. The old-timers will know what I mean.

lpetrich

I don't remember that much of Nomad, however.

Patrick Bateman

I (and diana, I believe) had quite a long "discussion" with him about this.

NOGO

One more apologist wont make any difference.

Aphelion

So is there a clear contradiction or not ? I never really followed the issue before but having come to these boards ( very interesting boards btw, love the philosophy and science sections) with this thread grabbing my attention Ive learnt a great deal about this often remarked upon issue.


As best I can ascertain there are three particular issues and all have been addressed although some have different but still seemingly sound resolutions.


The first is Mary’s relation to Elizabeth, my knowledge of Biblical law is limited however I think the point made in this respect may be assuming too much. Mary and Elizabeth are related, could it not be on the mother’s side ? Which I guess would not confer the tribal identification.. maybe there is a rule against interfaith marriage, actually just typing this I realise there is not since that leads to the next point.

Diana indeed the Bible does come across as a bit misogynic but thankfully there is proto-feminist Paul to instill equal rights ^^ But in all seriousness I assume you know more about this issue than I and so are aware of the law in Numbers 27 (or thereabouts and so on through the law books) which states that if there are no male offspring leaving only women who are otherwise not entitled to heir ship, that in these circumstances the title and goods can be passed onto the female. Thereby to her own children, or something to that effect. So Mary who the NT says is devoid of male siblings can pass the royal heritage onto Jesus. If you look at Luke’s genealogy it does go through both David and Judah (I think). So Jesus has royal blood ties through Mary that meet all the genetically ordained criteria. On Joseph’s side there is a curse which prevents any descendents of this blood line. Except aptly enough by Christian standards Jesus does not qualify as "of the seed" from this blood curse, yet still legally inherits Joseph’s legal connections to royalty.


I also found the Catholic article very interesting, although it goes another route and suggests that Luke is the adopted genealogy for Joseph.

CX can you refer me to some articles on the point you are making, I think I understand what you are saying but some more detail would be helpful.

diana

I remember having a protracted discussion specifically concerning the curse of Jeconiah with some apologist (Nomad sounds about right). He essentially argued that the curse was removed as evidenced by the fact that Jeconiah did, indeed, procreate. To the apologist in question, this was not evidence of a failed prophesy, but evidence of God's mercy.

O the mem'ries....

d