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You know, I rarely read Waterrock's extremely long-winded rationalizations, since they never help solve any problems, but I just got done with this one, and I have to say that my mind absolutely reels. I am so boggled after reading this I don't even know where to start. How anyone can present such ideas with a serious tone, I will never understand.

I guess I'll just go point by point in order presented.

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Lukes list is longer. Luke works backwards, presenting named from Jesus all the way back to Adam (rather than from Abraham to Jesus, as Matthew does). This is because Luke wished to emphasize Jesus human-ness -- Jesus is one of us could be considered a recurring point that Luke makes in his account.

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How do you know that he author's intent was to emphasize Jesus' "human-ness?" As far as I can tell, he gives no indication of the intent of this genealogy. Even if the general theme of the entire work seems to be Jesus' "human-ness", what leads you to believe that was his intent in the genealogy? Do you have any further support for this premise than a personal interpretation of the theme of the work?

Perhaps he was simply working from some at-this-time indeterminable erroneous assumptions when he wrote the list.

The problem I have with your explanation is that I fail to see how the genealogy he provided helps to support the human-ness of Jesus. Isn't it enough to just say that he had a human mom? Your explanation seems to be an unecessary stretch (as usual).

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Meanwhile, Matthew had a different ambition -- to present Jesus as the Messiah.

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I would really like to know how you can make these determinations. Did the authors communicate to you directly what their ambitions and intentions were? I mean, I can read a Stephen King book and try to guess his intentions in writing certain passages, but how can we be sure unless he honestly explains himself?

How do I know that your assessment of their intentions is correct and that you're not just building a case from nothing to support your presupposition that the bible is inerrant?

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Matthew skips some names. Matthew wanted his list to be easy to memorize, so he did not make an exhaustive list.

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Again, I REALLY have to call you on this. How do you know that this was his intention? Why does he not specifiy in the text that this was his intention? Surely he realized, if he TRULY left names out on purpose, that people might have problems with it in the future since he was offering a genealogy, and genealoges with missing names will be questionable to many. Why not clarify his choices in the text? This is supposed to be the Word of God (TM) after all. God is not supposed to be the author of confusion.

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Instead he arranged the names in three groups of 14: Group A from Abraham to David, Group B from David to the Exile, and Group C from the Exile to Jesus. In doing so, Matthew skipped some names (in 1:9, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah are not mentioned, and in v. 10-11 Jehoiachim seems to not be mentioned). This is not an accident; its an intentional abridgement so that the three groups each contain 14 names. Fourteen happens to be the numerical value of the consonants in the Hebrew name David (D-V-D), btw.

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Matthew is purposely trying to create numerological significance within his genealogy by leaving names out? What would be the purpose of such behavior? This is the kind of thing that makes me distrust these people. Leaving names out in order to create numerological significance smacks of cheating and manipulation to me. It makes me doubt his motives and trustworthiness. It sounds like myth-making to me.

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From David to Jesus, the lists are different. Some apologists have proposed that Matthew gives Josephs genealogy and Luke gives Marys. This is the approach summed up at ...

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From that site:

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Some point to these differences as evidence of errors in the Bible. However, the Jews were meticulous record keepers, especially in regards to genealogies. It is inconceivable that Matthew and Luke could built two entirely contradictory genealogies of the same lineage.

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What is truly inconceivable is why this person would consider that a contradictory genealogy is inconceivable! We know very little about the history of these writings. Sure, we have made some assumptions, but we really know very little. A faulty genealogy can result from one or two simple mistaken assumptions. As far as I am concerned, anything is possible with respect to the accuracy of these documents, including wildly invalid genealogical listings.

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Another explanation is that Matthew is tracing the primary lineage while Luke is taking into account the occurrences of "levirite marriage." If a man died without having any sons, it was tradition for the man's brother to marry his wife and have a son who would carry on the man's name. While possible, this view is unlikely as every generation from David to Jesus would have had a "levirite marriage" in order to account for the differences in every generation. This is highly unlikely.

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Well, there is something I can agree with. Not to mention the questions: Why in the hell would Matthew need to create a "levirite" geneaology? and Why not friggin document IN THE TEXT that this was what he was doing? Are a few extra words for clarity too much to ask?

This whole "levirite" thing TRULY seems like a really, really nasty stretch to try to get these listings to both be valid.

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With these concepts in view, most conservative Bible scholars assume Luke is recording Marys genealogy and Matthew is recording Josephs. Matthew is following the line of Joseph (Jesus legal father), through Davids son Solomon, while Luke is following the line of Mary (Jesus blood relative), though Davids son Nathan.

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I did a search for the word "Heli" in the KJV New Testament. The only occurrance returned was within the Luke genealogy that we are discussing here. There is no mention in the text that Heli was Mary's father. Where does this idea come from? Is it just another speculation to try to reconcile this genealogical problem? Is there some basis for this theory other than we need her to be his daughter so Joseph can be considered his sort-of son so that this genealogy can be accurate?

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There was no Greek word for "son-in-law,"

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Wow. Perhaps they should have used a more advanced language. How is it that there was no word for "son-in-law" after years and years of son-in-laws? How did the greeks refer to this relationship? How do we know that there was no word for son-in-law? Is this another speculation? These apologetics sites never seem to find it important enough to list their sources or research.

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Joseph would have been considered a son of Heli through marrying Heli's daughter Mary.

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That's fine. As long my daughter's husband treats me in a kind manner, I will consider him my son. But I fail to see why a genealogy of Joseph needs to be provided at all. Who cares who Joseph was related to? He was NOT Jesus' father!!!! Again, mind-boggling...

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Through either line, Jesus is a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah.

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...assuming that the Luke genealogy is accurate. The Matthew genealogy is useless as far as I am concerned.

This raises a problem for Waterrock's assessment of Matthew's genealogy. If Matthew's intention was to show Jesus' "human-ness", how is this accomplished by providing the genealogy of a man who is not Jesus' blood father?

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Tracing a genealogy through the mothers side is unusual, but so was the virgin birth.

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What seems strange to me was the necessity for god's son to be a decendant of David. Let's think about this for a second. What difference does that make? Why did Jesus have come from a certain bloodline? I can understand that since it was predicted long ago that the messiah had to come from David's line (since David was so revered, I suppose), the people who believed that Jesus was the messiah needed to prove that he was a decendent of David. But why was making the messiah a decendant of David so important in the first place? I mean how many descendants of David exist? Any of them could claim to be the messiah! This didn't exactly narrow things down much, did it?

Sort of a tangent, but I though it should be mentioned.

My conclusion after reading that apology is that I need to see some support for the Heli as Mary's father theory.

Now, back to Waterrock's post:

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It cannot be ruled out that Luke provides Marys genealogy, and that when Luke says, in 3:23, that Joseph was the son of Heli, it means son-in-law, on the premise that Heli was childless except for Mary and thus Joseph would be considered his heir. Thus the question may be wrapped up almost.

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<sigh> Hardly. We still have to determine that Heli was Mary's father, and I have not yet seen this accomplished.

And why not say that Heli begat MARY if this was Mary's lineage? Why ignore her when she is specifically the blood trace to Jesus?

This obsession that these guys had with the males of the species is truly obnoxious.

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in Luke 1:36, Elizabeth is described as Marys relative (cousin in the KJV, though the Greek word is broader than that). And Elizabeth is explicitly stated in Luke 1:5 to be of the daughters of Aaron -- that is, Elizabeth was from the tribe of Levi, not the tribe of Judah. So if Elizabeth is from the tribe of Levi, and Mary is Elizabeths close relative, then the default deduction to make is that Mary was also from the tribe of Levi. This is not a fatal problem for the two-lineage solution, since Mary could easily have been a member of the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Levi, if her mother and father descended from those two tribes.

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GAH! Maybe i am just stupid, but I can hardly follow any of that. It must be atheist density...

I'm going to ignore it because it brings even more potential problems into the picture and we have enough already.

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Matthew provides Josephs legal line of descent -- the royal lineage via which one qualified as a Son of David -- and Luke provides Josephs physical descent.

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Call me crazy, but I would like to see some support that the original prophecy that specified that the messiah would be a descendant of David was to be through a "legal line of descent" versus a blood line.

Again, I fail to see why a legal line of descent though a non-father would be significant since Jesus was supposedly a legal or blood line descendant through his mother! Are we stretching here again, WR?

These people were obsessed with blood lines! I really don't see the importance of being a "legal" non-blood descendant of David in the context of these times.

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Matthan and Matthat, btw, are two forms of the same individuals name

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I suppose you can support this premise as well. Let's see it.

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This is not hard to harmonize when one considers the phenomenon known as levirate marriage, in which in the case of the death of a married man, one of his surviving male relatives (the closer, the better) is obligated to marry the widow.

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I'm sorry. I have to comment on this. Well, wasn't that just a nifty obligation! Hopefully the guy had a single brother, eh? If there were no single brothers, would she have to marry one of the married ones? If not, I guess this poor woman would have been shit out of luck.

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So, the picture develops: Matthan was the father of Jacob and Heli. One of those two brothers (i.e., Jacob or Heli) was the physical father of Joseph, but died while Joseph was a child, and the other brother married his brothers widow, thus becoming the legal father of Joseph. This doesnt entirely clear up the question, Who was Josephs father? -- we still dont know if Josephs physical father was Jacob or Heli -- but at least it removes the basis for positing a necessary contradiction.

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I will say this Waterrock: you (or whoever you got this theory from) are clever. Even if Matthan and Matthat were different people and Joseph was kidnapped by Jacob, who was too ugly to marry, after murdering Heli in his sleep, I still fail to see why one person would provide a blood lineage for Joseph!!! What is the point of this if the legal descent was what mattered and is the only thing that can matter if we are to look at Joseph at all, since Jesus is not blood-related to Joseph!?

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but at least it removes the basis for positing a necessary contradiction.

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It seems that there is no such thing as a "necessary contradiction". Any real contradiction can be explained away. However, it is the burden of those who hold this this is NOT a contradiction to demonstrate conclusively that they are correct.

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Matthews list names royalty until the exile; the last king named is Jeconiah. Then come Salathiel and Zerubbabel. Due to Jeconiahs faithlessness, he was disqualified, back in Jeremiah 22:24-30 (Coniah in the KJV is the same individual.), from having any future kings physically descended from him.

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GAH again! So why did Matthew mention this bozo? Why not go list the ACTUAL line? Goodness gracious. Matthew's "genealogy" is becoming more and more suspect and useless. They should have had someone capable managing this effort.

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When we look at the genealogy-list in First Chronicles 3, we see that Salathiel has no children listed. It was his brother Pedaiah (son of Jeconiah) who married Salathiels widow and they had Zerubbabel, who was was heir to both his deceased father Salathiel and his step-father/uncle Pedaiah (following the levirate-marriage laws as described in Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

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Man oh man, do you have some patience with these genealogies. You must really have a need to make this problem go away.

How do you know that Salathiel died and that Pedaiah married his widow? Is this just speculation to attempt to rectify the difference between the New Testament and Old Testament genealogies? Why isn't Salathiel listed as the father in the Old Testament if the first born belongs to him through the "levirate" thingy? It seems to me that the OT is incorrect in listing Zerubbabel as Pedaiah's son when he legally belonged to Salathiel. (This is one of those beautiful situations where the contents of the NT actually invalidate the OT!)

I find the levirate thing in Deuteronomy to be quite odd. Here it is:

Deuteronomy 25:5-10

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If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother. Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her; Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house. And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.

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(emphasis mine, homie)



GAH, GAH, and triple GAH. I had forgotten about this verse. Man! How can people today respect a law book that had people spitting on each other? This is completely baffling to me. This makes me want to spit on Waterrock's face. Im not sure if he has done something to deserve it, but I would like him to just experience the punishments handed down by god to his chosen people.

Since WR still respects this holy book after reading that it commanded people to spit on each other, I must conclude that WR is partially insane.

How stupidly primitive was it that women were forced to marry within the family if their husband died so that the name of the husband would live on in a child!? What exactly does this kind of behavior gain anyone? Why don't we continue this practice today if it was so bloody important that a man have a kid so that his name lives on? And, what if there was no brother? What if a man had no kids? Did his name not live on? GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stress how insane a person has to be to love this book.

"Bob, I know that you were have been courting and were planning to marry Jane, but now that your brother Horatio has died, you have to marry his fat, ugly wife, raise his wife's 5 screaming brats and you have to have another child with her that you will have to raise, but he won't be your child legally. Cool? You don't want to be known as the guy whose shoe was loosed and face was spat on, do you?"

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I Chron. 3:19-20 states that Zerubbabel proceeded to have two sons and a daughter -- none of whom are named Rhesa (Zerubbabels offspring in Lk. 3:27) or Abihud (Zerubbabels offspring in Matthew 1:13.

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Well, this could be a major problem. Wait, no...

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Any of the next generation, though, would qualify for inclusion in a genealogy as the sons of Zerubbabel.

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Isn't this the most convenient thing? Or is the levirate thing the most convenient thing? You be the judge!

So both Matthew and Luke skipped a generation. WHY WHY WHY!? Why not list every generation if it was so easy to determine? Who is who's father if any generation can be any other generation's father? Why should I buy any of this ridiculously tangled nonsense!?

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And thus the differences between Matthews list of ancestors from Zerubbabel to Matthan, and Lukes list of ancestors from Zerubbabel to Matthan, are explained. Its not quite as complicated as it sounds.

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That's just pure bullshit. I'm sorry. Bullshit is spewing from WR's fingertips.

The point of offering a genealogy is to clarify a person's lineage. To act like these genealogies have clarified anything is to deny reality. To act like the convoluted explanations of driving a lineage through the mother when this was simply never done in that culture, levirate possibilities, generational incompleteness, and speculated intentions is NOT complicated is to say that poopoo isn't really stinky. WR, your nonsense just seems to get more and more bold.

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For an answer similar to this one, in which an apologists proposes that the differences are due to the divergence of paternal-vs.maternal lines, and offers a helpful diagram, see...

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On to, yes, ANOTHER possible explanation:

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One of the charges of contradiction brought by skeptics against the Bible is the surface appearance of contradiction between Matthews genealogical list (1:1-17) and the one provided by Luke (3:23-3 . As is always the case, the charge of contradiction is premature and reflects an immature appraisal of the extant evidence.

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(emphasis mine)

Such arrogant and secure words given that all of these explanations are pure conjecture.

If only we skeptics would just spend more time examining the "extant evidence," we too would believe that it is a good idea to trust that the face-spitting book is inerrant.

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In every case of alleged contradiction, further investigation has yielded additional evidence that exonerates the Bible and further verifies its inerrancy. The alleged discrepancies pertaining to Matthew and Lukes genealogies were explained and answered long ago

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Well, aren't we fools for just reading the book and judging it as face value!? We're so silly!

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Fourth, beginning with David, Matthew traced the paternal line of descent through Solomon; Luke traced the maternal line through Solomons brother, Nathan.

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And no explanation as to WHY. Why trace a maternal line? What the fuck is going on here?

I swear you apologists look like your just shooting at the stars.

I wonder if these guys believe that Matthew intended to show Jesus' "human-ness". They don't mention it.

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A fifth factor that must be recognized is that the two lines (paternal and maternal) link together in the intermarriage of Shealtiel and Zerubbabel. But the linkage separates again in the two sons of ZerubbabelRhesa and Abiud.

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Why, why why? what is the point of all these intentionally differing genealogies? Perhaps the differences weren't intentional. No that couldn't be possible...

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as a son-in-law (the Jews had no word to express this concept and so just used sone.g., 1 Samuel 24:16; 26:17);

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Let's see: One apologist claims that there was no Greek word for son-in-law. This one claims there was no Jewish word for son-in-law. Hmmmmm... Both right? Both wrong? One right, one wrong? Neither presents sources for these premises. I can't stand apologists.

But Yark, what about 1 Samuel 24:16; 26:17!?

These passages simply show Saul calling David his "son" even though I think he wasn't his son. I took a little time, but was unable to determine their relationship. This doesn't prove that there was no word for son-in-law. A man calling a younger man son does not mean there was no word for son-in-law.

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a deceased man would have a son through a surrogate father who legally married the deceased mans widow (e.g., Ruth 2:20; 3:9,12; 4:3-5);

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That is just the oddest way to be considered a son.

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(5) in the sense of a step-son who took on the legal status of his step-fatherthe relationship sustained by Jesus to Joseph (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 3:23; 4:22; John 6:42).

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Of course, Jesus has the oddest real father of them all, himself. It's a wonder why we need Joseph to be considered his father at all, given that his real father, himself, was alive and well.

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Notice carefully that Joseph was a direct-line, blood descendant of David and, therefore, of Davids throne. Here is the precise purpose of Matthews genealogy: it demonstrated Jesus legal right to inherit the throne of Davida necessary prerequisite to authenticating His Messianic claim.

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Again, where does it specify that a legal line was allowable or required? Blood seemed very important to these people (hence the levirate thingy). We have not established that a legal line has any significance.

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However, an equally critical credential was His blood/physical descent from Davida point that could not be established through Joseph since after His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18, emp. added). This feature of Christs Messiahship was established through His mother Mary, who was also a blood descendant of David (Luke 1:30-32).

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Again, we have not established that Mary was a blood descendant of David.

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Once again, the Bibles intricate complexities shine forth to dispel the critics accusations, while simultaneously demonstrating its own infallible representations.

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intricate complexities = mess

Once again, apologists show their penchant for creating stretched and complicated explanations in order to maintain belief in the infallibility of a face-spitting book that does nothing more than satisfy their primitive needs for a GAWD explanation for their universe.

Their imaginations are shadowed only by their unshakable arrogance.

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The more one delves into its intricacies and plummets its intriguing depths, the more one is driven to the inescapable conclusion that the Bible is, indeed, the Book of booksthe inspired Word of God.

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Wrong. Wrong, wrong wrong. Only certain people with a strong need for the bible to be the "book of books" will come to this conclusion. They are deluding themselves.

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(Readers of I Chr. 3:19-20 may wonder about a sub-question: Zerubbabel seems to have eight sons listed (plus one daughter), but the list is summed up as only five. Why? Probably because only the first three individuals, listed in v. 19, are the offspring of Zerubbabel; the next five individuals, in v. 20, are the offspring of Meshullam; the introductory phrase And the sons of Meshullam has been omitted by copyists.)

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Damn those copyists! Too bad god wouldn't take over their brains the way he did the original authors to make sure they didn't produce errors! The copyists are capable of error, but not the original authors. Don't argue with me!

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Once again, Waterrock's explanations, though imaginative and mostly thought through, leave much to be desired. These explanations seem like a stretch and create more questions, at least in my mind, than they answer. Without knowing the minds of the authors, we cannot know for sure what actually happened. The Christian MUST cling to these explanations in order to maintain faith. Why they want to maintain faith in a book that commanded people to spit on each other is completely beyond my sense of sanity.

Now I remember why I don't read all of WR's posts.