Joseph the “husband” of Mary is certainly in both genealogies. But in one perhaps it is his father-in-law’s genealogy that is listed and in the other his natural father’s genealogy.
So how do you explain that these geneologies are really very different?
Matthew 1:6 “Jesse the father of David the king. David became the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.”
Luke 3:31 “the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,” 13
footnote 13 NAB “The son of Nathan, the son of David: in keeping with Jesus’ prophetic role in Luke and Acts (e.g., Luke 7:16, 39; 9:8; 13:33; 24:19; Acts 3:22-23; 7:37) Luke traces Jesus’ Davidic ancestry through the prophet Nathan (see 2 Sam 7:2) rather than through King Solomon, as Matthew 1:6-7.”
It is rather obvious to any Bible student that Solomon (whose mother had been the wife of Uriah) was indeed a different person than Nathan.
I agree that both genealogies are genealogies including Joseph (foster father in the Holy Family).
Perhaps in the language of the original text, the word father or son is the same word as father-in-law or son-in-law. Much the same as Jesus’s brethren were really His cousins.
The following link to the Catholic encyclopedia appears to conflict with your assertion that the Catholic Church does not teach what I have supposed.
newadvent.org/cathen/06410a.htm
Please read under the heading “First Difficulty”:
"The convergence of the two distinct genealogical lines in the person of St. Joseph, has been explained in two ways:
(a) St. Matthew’s genealogy is that of St. Joseph; St. Luke’s, that of the Blessed Virgin. …"
And I suppose that the original poster of this question should read the article in the Catholic encyclopedia which actually goes into length on this matter.
I also think that the explanation believed by St. Augustine is rather rational. And I think it is at least equally possible:
Same article in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“But [Saint] Augustine was the first to abandon this [his own] theory after learning the explanation offered by Julius Africanus. According to the latter, Estha married Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of Jacob; after Mathan’s death she took for her second husband Mathat, a descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli. Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers [half-brothers with same mother]. Heli married, but died without offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus combining in his person two lineages of David’s descendants.”
In the book of Leviticus, it was the Jewish custom that if a married man died without having children, his wife was to be married to his brother so that the dead man’s lineage could continue.
jmm08
