Judaism, Messiah, Patrilineal Lineage

  • Thread starter Thread starter Isearch
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I

Isearch

Guest
According to the Jewish sources, the ethnicity (Jewishness) of a person is passed down matrilineally while his tribal affiliation or davidic inheritance is inherited from his father. Because of this, I want to know if there is a Jewish source that states that one can inherit his davidic kingship through maternal lines or adoption. If there isn’t, then it seems that the Jews have a leverage against us; who claim Jesus is the Messiah.
 
Last edited:
40.png
Why is Jesus as descendent of David? Non-Catholic Religions
No, but once your stepfather adopts you, regardless of your different ethnicities, you don’t become Mexican: you become his son and are entitled to whatever inheritance under the law just as if you were his biological son. Apples and oranges. Ethnicity and sonship are two different things. The answer is no to both of these because of biological make up. Joseph was the step father of Jesus. Jesus has no bioloical blood from Joseph, therefore it stands to logic and to science that the blood …
40.png
Why is Jesus as descendent of David? Non-Catholic Religions
Which means that she is just your stepdaughter, but not your daughter. Once you adopt her, she will be. Jesus, however, was recognized as Joseph’s son not only by his mother, but by the people of Nazareth. In fact, they rejected him partially because of his lineage (he was a carpenter like his dad). I am familiar with the Levirate law which really makes not sense. One no matter what anyone says the dead brother can not be the biological child of the living brother. Its impossible. And ye…
 
The issue that the OP is likely having is that there are a lot of Jewish sources saying the Jewish law didn’t formally recognize adoption, despite the fact that Jewish men no doubt did engage in de facto adoptions of children for a variety of reasons. The Catholic position is that by Joseph adopting Jesus, essentially accepting and presenting Jesus as his own son (Jesus being the son of God wasn’t revealed until 30+ years later) made Jesus part of the Davidic line without Jesus also inheriting, via blood relationship, the sins of that line. Some Jewish pages disagree. I would like to see a Jewish source supporting the Catholic position. Meltzerboy said this wasn’t really his area of expertise.

Anybody got a source?
 
Last edited:
There are two separate questions here, and I think it would be helpful to keep them apart. One is the question of the Incarnation , which would mean that Jesus is not descended, on his father’s side, from any of the twelve tribes of Israel. The other is the question of what was written on his birth certificate, assuming he had one. Some of the history books say that complete genealogical records of all the Jewish families in Judea were kept in the underground chambers in the Temple, until they were destroyed when the Temple burned down in AD 70. This second question is the one we are dealing with here. In his earthly lifetime, did Jesus officially have, on paper, the right family qualifications to be considered the Messiah? The answer, I think, is Yes, he did.

The rule about matrilineal descent is a comparatively recent innovation. In the Herodian period, and even later, patrilineal descent alone was what counted.
 
There are, I believe, some early Church fathers who claimed to have seen Jesus’ birth certificate before it was destroyed. And I would presume it said Joseph was his father. Joseph would not have written down God’s name in the father space. For all intents and purposes, under Jewish law Jesus was Joseph’s son, legally.
 
Last edited:
There is also Biblical support for this: when Jesus started preaching, people said: isn’t this the carpenter’s son? which means he was legally recognized as St Joseph’s son.
 
How is this not lying in the birth certificate? Is this possible to do, to write the name of the stepfather in the Jewish birth certificate instead of the biological (or in this case, the nonbiological real father) father of the child? Isn’t lying an intrinsically evil act?
 
Obviously it’s not only possible but prudent, and I’m sure it wasn’t the first time a Jewish man, in this way, accepted a child as his own that was not his biological child. No man who loved his wife and accepted her child, regardless of biological origin, was going to put another man’s name on the birth certificate. The wife would run the risk of punishment, perhaps even being killed by the tribe. And putting down God on the birth certificate would have probably gotten them both accused of blasphemy and probably both killed, and who knows what would have happened to Jesus.

I also don’t think Jewish society was interested in doing a Maury Povich DNA test on the men who put their names on the certificates. If the Jewish man accepted the child, that was enough for them.
 
I am just no sure of this, since lying is an intrinsically evil. And both Mary and Joseph seemingly participated in it. Could there be a case when a man writes his name in the father’s portion of the child’s birth certificate despite the fact that he isn’t the father, and at the same time not lie? But then again, according to the ancient Christian belief: The levitical priests knew that Joseph wasn’t the father of the Child. But since the Blessed Virgin passed the “adultery test”, they let them go. Possibly, they could have commanded Joseph to simply write his name in the father’s portion since they never encountered this phenomenon before.
 
Last edited:
Could there be a case when a man writes his name in the father’s portion of the child’s birth certificate despite the fact that he isn’t the father, and at the same time not lie?
If the certificate was considered a declaration of legal fatherhood rather than biological fatherhood, then it would not have been a lie or wrong for Joseph to list himself as father. It just meant he had to take responsibility for the child.

And whether or not there was a written certificate, Scripture makes clear that Jesus was regarded as “Joseph the carpenter’s son.” Joseph held himself out publicly as the father of Jesus, whether it was written down or not. He and Mary didn’t go around telling the neighbors, “You know, Jesus isn’t really Joseph’s kid.”
 
Unfortunately I cannot find the reference now. I remember reading it a couple months ago when we were having a debate about whether Christmas was really on December 25. Perhaps someone else can find it.
 
What name do you suggest he ought to have written instead? Bearing in mind that naming the father as “God” would be to incur the death penalty under the blasphemy laws (Luke 22:70-71).
 
Maybe I am getting hung up to the idea that intrinsically sinful actions are still sinful no matter what justification there is to them. But the poster above you did mention that it could be simply a declaration of legal fatherhood. Then this raises another question: Did the Jewish law permit the stepfather to put his name to the birth certificate as the legal father of the child?
 
Let me ask you again. What name do you suggest he ought to have written instead?
 
Did the Jewish law allow the stepfather to write his name on the father’s section of the child’s birth certificate?
 
That…I honestly don’t know. But lying is still an intrinsically evil act though. If I were in the situation where lying means survival, I probably would have lied too, but I wouldn’t pretend I haven’t committed sin if I did that.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top