Q: The genealogies of Jesus given in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are not the same in many respects. Doesnt this indicate that at least one list is erroneous?
A: No; they are different, and the differences are somewhat complicated compared to a simple family-tree list that one might make for oneself today, but the lists are not contradictory. Lets take a look at the differences to see if they imply error on the part of Matthew or Luke.
1. 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. Meanwhile, Matthew had a different ambition -- to present Jesus as the Messiah. And not just anyone could be the Messiah: one had to be a Jewish male descendant of David. So Matthew starts his genealogy not with Adam, but with Abraham.
2. Matthew skips some names. Matthew wanted his list to be easy to memorize, so he did not make an exhaustive list. 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.
3. 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 www.gotquestions.org/Jesu...alogy.html .
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. Almost, I say, because 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. Nevertheless I think it will be worthwhile to consider another possible solution besides the Matthew-Gives-Josephs-Descent-And-Luke-Gives-Marys-Descent answer. And here it is:
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. These two lineages happened to intersect twice: once with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, and again with Matthan, Josephs grandfather. (Matthan and Matthat, btw, are two forms of the same individuals name). Lets consider the case involving Matthan first.
Matthew says that Matthan begat Jacob and Jacob begat Joseph. Luke says that Matthat was the father of Heli who was the father of Joseph. 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. Any children resulting from the union of the widow and her new husband were regarded legally as the children of the deceased man.
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.
This still leaves, though, the difference between Matthew 1:7-13 and the list in Luke 3:24-31. If one were to place the two lists side-by-side (inverting one or the other), it becomes clear that they agree about Salathiel and Zerubbabel and not much else. 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. But another line of Davidic descent (from Davids son Nathan) intersects with Jeconiahs line right after him -- with Shealtiel (a.k.a. Salathiel). (By an intersection I mean that one line of descent merged with another one, either by a levirate marriage, or adoption, or some other means.)
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). 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. Any of the next generation, though, would qualify for inclusion in a genealogy as the sons of Zerubbabel. Somewhere in the two generations which came after Zerubbabel, -- starting among the sons of Shelomith, I suspect -- two lines diverged which proceeded to converge with Matthan (i.e., either Matthans mother and father were related, both being descendants of Zerubbabel, or there was a levirate marriage and Matthans father and the male relative who married his widow were descended from Zerubbabel through different lines). 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.
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
www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1834 .
(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.)
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: No; they are different, and the differences are somewhat complicated compared to a simple family-tree list that one might make for oneself today, but the lists are not contradictory. Lets take a look at the differences to see if they imply error on the part of Matthew or Luke.
1. 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. Meanwhile, Matthew had a different ambition -- to present Jesus as the Messiah. And not just anyone could be the Messiah: one had to be a Jewish male descendant of David. So Matthew starts his genealogy not with Adam, but with Abraham.
2. Matthew skips some names. Matthew wanted his list to be easy to memorize, so he did not make an exhaustive list. 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.
3. 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 www.gotquestions.org/Jesu...alogy.html .
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. Almost, I say, because 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. Nevertheless I think it will be worthwhile to consider another possible solution besides the Matthew-Gives-Josephs-Descent-And-Luke-Gives-Marys-Descent answer. And here it is:
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. These two lineages happened to intersect twice: once with Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, and again with Matthan, Josephs grandfather. (Matthan and Matthat, btw, are two forms of the same individuals name). Lets consider the case involving Matthan first.
Matthew says that Matthan begat Jacob and Jacob begat Joseph. Luke says that Matthat was the father of Heli who was the father of Joseph. 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. Any children resulting from the union of the widow and her new husband were regarded legally as the children of the deceased man.
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.
This still leaves, though, the difference between Matthew 1:7-13 and the list in Luke 3:24-31. If one were to place the two lists side-by-side (inverting one or the other), it becomes clear that they agree about Salathiel and Zerubbabel and not much else. 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. But another line of Davidic descent (from Davids son Nathan) intersects with Jeconiahs line right after him -- with Shealtiel (a.k.a. Salathiel). (By an intersection I mean that one line of descent merged with another one, either by a levirate marriage, or adoption, or some other means.)
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). 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. Any of the next generation, though, would qualify for inclusion in a genealogy as the sons of Zerubbabel. Somewhere in the two generations which came after Zerubbabel, -- starting among the sons of Shelomith, I suspect -- two lines diverged which proceeded to converge with Matthan (i.e., either Matthans mother and father were related, both being descendants of Zerubbabel, or there was a levirate marriage and Matthans father and the male relative who married his widow were descended from Zerubbabel through different lines). 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.
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
www.apologeticspress.org/articles/1834 .
(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.)
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
