# Jesus: flesh-descendant of David



## nwink (Jul 17, 2014)

Could someone help me reconcile Romans 1:3 with Matthew and Luke's genealogies? Romans 1 says Jesus "was descended from David according to the flesh." Matthew and Luke both trace the genealogy of Christ through Joseph (Matt 1:16; Luke 3:23), yet Joseph was not his father. So how then is Jesus a flesh-descendant of David, if Joseph was (obviously) not his father? Thank you so much!


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## whirlingmerc (Jul 17, 2014)

I lean toward the view that Matthew traces Joseph who in a sense was Jesus actual 'legal adopted' father, Luke traces Mary who was his actual physical mother, .... a complication.... both descended form David. Matthew has a king in his list who Jeremiah cursed as would never have a descendant becoming a ruler, that some claim lean in the direction of needing an alternative geneology, the Mary one and supports a virgin birth because in some sense Jesus was fully legally Jewish through Joseph but could NOT be a physical flesh descendant through Joseph to David In this view, Matthew traced Jesus legal adopted genealogy with a Jewish audience, Mary his physical with a Greek audience and brought up more stories about women than any other gospel Mary's generology does not list the King mentioned in Jeremiah and avoids that problem.

Not everyone agrees with that view I think Henrietta Miers didn't I am interested in hearing other views on this.


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## nwink (Jul 17, 2014)

whirlingmerc said:


> Luke traces Mary who was his actual physical mother


Michael, where in Luke 3 do you gather that it says Luke is tracing the genealogy through Mary?


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## whirlingmerc (Jul 17, 2014)

First, in Luke, in the as was supposed phrase ".... being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph..." then switching to Mary 
Second in Genesis, in the 'seed of the woman', because what would be the point of Luke tracing Jesus to Adam. 

but not everyone sees it this way, some take both as Jospeh


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 17, 2014)

Even if it hadn't been given to us in a genealogy (which I also suppose it was, i.e. Mary's biological heritage and Joseph's, which was legal as well), Paul declares that Jesus' heritage goes back to David. In which case it is both parents (only one of which contributes to Jesus' bodily DNA) who claim linkage to David's blood line.

I'm not sure I understand what needs reconciliation. BOTH of the genealogies--Matthew and Luke--include David as a distinct progenitor. Paul's declaration is therefore rather confirmative of both/either.

Even if one is disinclined to think that Luke's genealogy gives Mary's descent, both antecedent prophecy (concerning the virgin birth) and the declaration of Paul are strong indicators that Mary should be regarded among the descendents of David.


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## whirlingmerc (Jul 17, 2014)

Nathan,

Like I said... there are other theories as well... I just said the one I lean toward. Matthew and Luke were widely distributed at the time and the hearers didn't seem to have a problem with the two lists.

A number of other theories are given here.... they include things like perhaps Joseph himself had a father die and a legal and physical father of his own named: Heli and Jacob Another theory is that some geneologies will skip generations. Yet another says a person may go by more than one name Explaining Differences in the Genealogies of Jesus
In this view, both lists are through Joseph. 


Mike


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## nwink (Jul 18, 2014)

Michael and Bruce, thank you for your responses. The genealogies have been something I've wondered about for a while, but only recently have been studying it in some more depth. I have some more questions as I try to understand these passages all together. Michael and Bruce, feel free to provide your thoughts on any of these questions.



whirlingmerc said:


> First, in Luke, in the as was supposed phrase ".... being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph..." then switching to Mary


I still don't see how Luke 3 is the genealogy of Mary. Luke 3:23 mentions someone (Joseph) who is the SON of Heli (not daughter-of). And Matthew 1:16 speaks of Mary's husband Joseph, whose father was Jacob.

(1) At first glance, I would wonder since these passages are both appearing to trace Joseph's lineage...I would wonder if "Heli" and "Jacob" are maybe synonymous names for the same person? Or maybe as Michael mentioned, maybe they could be a physical and a legal father (who knows?). But then again, why would a genealogy choose to list Joseph as the "son" of his legal father, instead of mentioning his physical father primarily who he truly is the son of?

(2) If Heli and Jacob are two different individuals, then that would initially seem to lend support to Matthew being about Joseph and Luke maybe being about Mary. However, Luke still talks of the "son" of Heli (not daughter-of).

(3) Further, related to #2, Matthew traces Jesus through David's son Solomon, and Luke traces Jesus through David's son Nathan. That would seem to initially indicate maybe one account is for Joseph (via Solomon) and one is for Mary (via Nathan)...but Luke still talks of the "son" of Heli. (If I can see how Luke is talking about Mary's lineage, I think that would resolve this confusion in my mind.)

(4) Matthew traces the lineage via David's son Solomon, whose throne God would establish forever (not Nathan). So wouldn't the Christ need to be a descendant of David's son Solomon, via Joseph's line? (Is legal adoption enough for one to be a descendant of the kingly line?) If Luke 3 was Mary's lineage, then I think that passage would show how Jesus could be a flesh-descendant of David via David's son Nathan...but then Jesus is not a flesh-descendant of David's son Solomon, whose throne would be established by God forever. (???)

Thank you both very much for helping me wrap my head around these details!!


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## whirlingmerc (Jul 18, 2014)

And as mentioned.... some genealogies skip generations which would apply to Mary or Jospeh... also some make a big deal of the man Jeremiah cursed who is in the Matthew list and not the Luke list "... write this man down childless, no ruler will arise from his descendants ..."


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## py3ak (Jul 18, 2014)

This was discussed previously:

http://www.puritanboard.com/f16/jeconiahs-curse-two-genealogies-Christ-48736/

I think the most critical part of the thread is the link to Patrick Fairbairn's interesting treatment of the question.


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## nwink (Jul 18, 2014)

Thanks for the resources, Ruben!


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## nwink (Jul 18, 2014)

Ruben, would you mind answering my questions in short/summary (give the gist of Fairbairn's conclusions)? I definitely appreciate the resources, but it'll be a while before I have some time to chew through 20-some pages of Fairbairn.


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## py3ak (Jul 18, 2014)

Nathan, I'm supposed to be working on a radio broadcast, so please excuse me for just pasting in some notes from when I was looking at this subject a few years ago, which I hope will point you in the direction of an answer.



> The basic difficulty that confronts us in these passages is that both genealogies say they are genealogies of Christ, and yet they have striking differences. Two of those differences don't affect the matter at all. Matthew goes back to Abraham, while Luke goes back to Adam, but this is no contradiction. Luke begins with Christ and works his way back up, and Matthew begins with Abraham and works his way down, but that again is not a contradiction, simply a methodological difference. However, from Abraham to Christ there is overlap, and yet there are remarkable differences, all the way down to Joseph. Matthew lists Jacob as the father of Joseph, whereas Luke speaks of Heli as Joseph's father. Now one solution that has been put forward can be dismissed very quickly. It is the suggestion of many that Luke actually gives the genealogy of Mary. This is based on the fact that Luke tells us more about Mary than the other gospels, and the words "as was supposed" about Christ's relation to Joseph. Although it has been around since the time of the Reformation, and has been adopted by many good men (Lightfoot, Ryle, Hendriksen), this interpretation can be dismissed because the text does not allow it. Luke and Matthew are equally clear in stating who was Joseph's father. Mary's name is not in there and cannot be introduced. Luke's statement is that Jesus was supposed or thought to be Joseph's son, and then he goes on to say whose son Joseph was. To be fair, some other people have translated differently, for instance, Hendriksen, who renders it thus: "Now Jesus himself, supposedly Joseph’s son, was about thirty years old when he began (his ministry), being a son of Heli...." But he admits that the other rendering follows the order of words in the original more closely.
> 1. How could Joseph have two fathers? There are three possible ways for Joseph to have two fathers. 1. To have been adopted, 2. To have been the product of a levirate marriage, 3. To have married into a family with no sons. Julius Africanus believes that Joseph was the product of a levirate marriage (that is, either Jacob or Heli died without having children, and so a male relation took his wife and fathered Joseph in the name of the deceased). Fairbairn holds to the view that Joseph and Mary were cousins, that Jacob, Mary's father, had no sons, and that when Joseph married her, he became Jacob's son. The Talmud lists Mary as being a daughter of Heli –in which case it could have been Heli who had no sons. Fairbairn mentions two people who were received into a family through adoption or marriage: Jair and Caleb. Jair is said to belong to the tribe of Manasseh (Numbers 32:41); yet in 1 Chronicles he is listed with the sons of Judah. The explanation is that Jair's grandfather, who was named Hezron (a descendant of Judah), when he was 60, married a granddaughter of Manasseh, had a son named Segub, and Segub had Jair –who though descended by birth from Judah on his father's side, was considered to be of the tribe of Manasseh. Fairbairn remarks that Caleb seems to have been a Gentile –he is called a Kenezite, and it is particularly pointed out that he is given a part among the inheritance of Judah (Joshua 15:13) –and that would not be necessary unless it were something out of the ordinary. So by adoption Caleb belonged to Judah, and in 1 Chronicles is listed as being the son of Hezron –but in the Pentateuch he is called the son of Jephunneh. It would seem, then, that Caleb was by birth the son of Jephunneh, maybe an Arab or an Egyptian, but by adoption he joined the tribe of Judah and the family of Hezron. So it is perfectly possible then, for Joseph to have two fathers: one legal, and one physical.
> 2. This does not mean that Mary was not a descendant of David. As Fairbairn points out, the angel tells her that Jesus will sit on the throne of His father David before Mary is married to Joseph, before Jesus is Joseph's legal son at all (Luke 1:32). In addition, a Syriac manuscript states clearly that both Joseph and Mary were of the house and lineage of David (Hendriksen).


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## Contra_Mundum (Jul 18, 2014)

nwink said:


> (1) At first glance, I would wonder since these passages are both appearing to trace Joseph's lineage...I would wonder if "Heli" and "Jacob" are maybe synonymous names for the same person? Or maybe as Michael mentioned, maybe they could be a physical and a legal father (who knows?). But then again, why would a genealogy choose to list Joseph as the "son" of his legal father, instead of mentioning his physical father primarily who he truly is the son of?



No matter if you were persuaded that Heli and Jacob were one and the same, you have all manner of name-deviations upstream from those two; and so you've only pushed back the immediate question a single step. If you grant that solution once, why not a dozen times? There should be some plausible _reason_ why two names for a single ancestor continue to be remembered for multiple generations. But, within living memory it would be more plausible if two persons or groups called one man by distinctive names.

For what it's worth, clearly Matthew is the lineage primarily concerned with legal claim to the throne of Israel. He alone traces the kingly line (forward) to Joseph, then Jesus. There's a crossing of the genealogies around the name of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel (who heads the heads of the houses of Judah in Ezr.4:3; cf. Hag.1:1) in the return from exile. Is Shealtiel the literal seed/son of king Jeconiah/Jehoiachin, Mt.1:12, or is one Neri his father, as per Lk.3:27 (cf.1Chr.3:17)? Clearly, a facile or simplistic or ad hoc (convenient) conclusion is less than satisfactory. But surely there are reasons consistent with revelation that help supply answers that do not suppose contradiction.



nwink said:


> (2) If Heli and Jacob are two different individuals, then that would initially seem to lend support to Matthew being about Joseph and Luke maybe being about Mary. However, Luke still talks of the "son" of Heli (not daughter-of).



If Jesus is the "son of David," and if per Mt.1:8 "Joram begot Uzziah," leaving out Ahaziah and Joash before getting to Uzziah, then why can't Jesus be the blood- "son of" Heli, his grandfather, whose daughter is Mary? It is not inconsistent with the Bible's presentation to reckon a grand-son (even many times over) as a "son." If Joseph is included here, rather than mention of Mary, it only serves to accentuate the fact there is an undisputed legally acknowledged and enforceable connection between Jesus and Heli, regardless of how that connection is construed.



nwink said:


> (3) Further, related to #2, Matthew traces Jesus through David's son Solomon, and Luke traces Jesus through David's son Nathan. That would seem to initially indicate maybe one account is for Joseph (via Solomon) and one is for Mary (via Nathan)...but Luke still talks of the "son" of Heli. (If I can see how Luke is talking about Mary's lineage, I think that would resolve this confusion in my mind.)



See the above comment. Possible answers include Joseph's adoption to Heli, or the Levirate institution applied to this family situation in some manner not fully explained to us.



nwink said:


> (4) Matthew traces the lineage via David's son Solomon, whose throne God would establish forever (not Nathan). So wouldn't the Christ need to be a descendant of David's son Solomon, via Joseph's line? (Is legal adoption enough for one to be a descendant of the kingly line?) If Luke 3 was Mary's lineage, then I think that passage would show how Jesus could be a flesh-descendant of David via David's son Nathan...but then Jesus is not a flesh-descendant of David's son Solomon, whose throne would be established by God forever. (???)



You're imposing a convention that you seem to think is necessary for a satisfactory resolution, even as you acknowledge that there is a legal claim to be made irrespective (at some level above zero) of biology. God supplies a sufficient resolution, and we simply get on board with him. In point of fact, the promise is not absolutely that *Solomon's* heirs (by blood) will always sit on the throne of David; but an heir of David will come, and so *David's* son will have an everlasting throne. Consider how over the course of a thousand years how many descendents that could conceivably make.

This is not to minimize the importance of the family line with the strongest claim to the throne over the course of 400yrs, down to the exile. The concern the believing kings had for maintaining their part in the Hope of Israel and the world, and the tenacity with which they maintained it, is a faithful witness. But we cannot ignore the severe judgment of God against that line of kings in the end of their rebellion. He cut them off--and yet, he still maintained a way (even if it is partially obscured to us exactly how he did) to keep hope in that Davidic covenant alive over the next 600yrs.

Legal is more important than blood, even as blood is an important factor (sometimes indispensable, sometimes not) in finding legitimacy. Believers in Christ are adopted sons of Abraham, regardless of their parentage. They are not second-class citizens of the Israel of God, either. No more than Caleb was, or any of the other host of Gentiles adopted into the nation in OT times. Adoption ought to be legally strong, not weak.


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