Why is genealogy of Jesus listed differently in Luke than in Matthew?

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An atheist asked me this:

“MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.
Look at these two scriptures. Matthew says Jacob was Josephs father. But Luke says Heli was Josephs father. The bible is full of contradictions like this. How can the bible contradict itself? The bible itself says it is perfect. But it is not.”

I have no idea why they appear to contradict. Can someone help? :confused::confused::confused:

Edit: I looked it up online and it says that Luke was referring to the bloodline of Mary, but weren’t Saint Ann and Saint Jocham Mary’s parents? :confused::confused::confused:
 
=101405;10069106]An atheist asked me this:
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"MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
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LK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.
Click to expand...
Look at these two scriptures. Matthew says Jacob was Josephs father. But Luke says Heli was Josephs father. The bible is full of contradictions like this. How can the bible contradict itself? The bible itself says it is perfect. But it is not."
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I have no idea why they appear to contradict. Can someone help? :confused::confused::confused:
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The “error” of your thinking is it what the Bible IS; and what the Bible IS NOT:)

Old Testament authors almost exclusively relied on 'Word of Mouth" to teach and pass on God’s own Inspired Words.

That said one MUST expect the truth to be IN THE MESSAGE; not precisely the words used. The Bible is always TRUE; but not always factual:thumbsup:

While much history is recounted; Calendars didn’t make an appearance in current forms until way after Christ death. Other forms were “iffy.” Therefore the Bible is NOT to be viewd as a “history booK” of today is.

“Note: Writing materials in the ancient world were extremely costly and so they were used with great care and economy. There is no great string of adjectives in long descriptive phrases in ancient documents. Ancient writers wrote exactly what they meant to write using the least amount of space. Sacred writers use the same “economy of words”. It is important to remember that every word is important and every word is thoughtfully used. “ … www.agapebiblestudy.com

Because of the word of Mouth transmission; errors NOT relating to a necessary truth do exist. Did you know thsat Jesus Christ Gives Himself Personally as warranty of the Teaching Truths on ALL matter of Faith Belief, and Morals and Morallity?😃

John 15: 14-21 “I [Jesus] have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world; as I also am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil. Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world*.[this means with Gods Own authority and Powers]* And for them do I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. [20] And not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in me; That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

God’s objective is to relate without even a possibiliity of Error, all that man needs to merit salvation. The rest is “frosting on the cake of God’s truth”👍

Keep in mind that this was authored about TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO.:dts:

The Bible IS perfect in it’s TEACHINGS of all matters of Faith and Morals. That is what is meant by your term “perfect.”

God Bless,
pat /PJM
 
An ancient understanding is that Jacob was the first husband of Joseph’s mother. When Jacob died before having children, it fell to his brother Heli to take Jacob’s widow (Joseph’s mother), per Jewish law in those days. Again, per the old law, Jacob would be considered Jesus’ father even though Heli was the actual father.

Also, it is understood that Matthew was trying to emphasize the kingly line from David to Jesus for his Jewish readers, while Luke is possibly the more accurate genealogy.

See the Catholic Encyclopedia for more.
 
christofirst said:
An ancient understanding is that Jacob was the first husband of Joseph’s mother. When Jacob died before having children, it fell to his brother Heli to take Jacob’s widow (Joseph’s mother), per Jewish law in those days. Again, per the old law, Jacob would be considered Jesus’ father even though Heli was the actual father.

Also, it is understood that Matthew was trying to emphasize the kingly line from David to Jesus for his Jewish readers, while Luke is possibly the more accurate genealogy.

See the Catholic Encyclopedia for more.
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Which Jacob are we talking about? I assumed it was Jacob the son of Isaac. I know he had many children. Is it referring to a different Jacob?
 
Remember when the angel Gabriel visited Mary, his words included:

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

And Mary responds:

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

But she doesn’t say, “How will this be, since I’m not of the house of David?”

It’s important that Mary be of the house of David, but it’s also important that his adoptive father, Joseph, also be of the house of David as well: his ancestors have a more solid connection to the royal line. You’ll notice there are two different genealogies: one in Matthew 1, one in Luke 3.

Matthew was written with a Jewish audience in mind. It traces the genealogy from Abraham to David through Solomon, who was David’s legal successor, and ends with:

16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Luke, though, was writing with a Greek audience in mind, and traces Jesus’ physical lineage to David through Nathan, who obviously didn’t succeed his father as king. This starts with:

23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, who was of Heli…

where scholars tend to think that it means Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli, rather than physically related to him, due to the original Greek phrasing. So that brings up the question of was-Mary’s-father-Heli-or-Joachim?, but I don’t know enough about Anglicized–ancient-Hebrew-names to go off on that tangent.

Anyhow, if you go back to your Jeremiah, you’ve got a big long angry passage:

24 “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Jehoiachin[c] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. 25 I will deliver you into the hands of those who want to kill you, those you fear—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Babylonians.[d] 26 I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. 27 You will never come back to the land you long to return to.”

28 Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot,
an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out,
cast into a land they do not know?
29 O land, land, land,
hear the word of the LORD!
30 This is what the LORD says:
“Record this man as if childless,
a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”

So, God was able to keep his curse intact: Joseph was related to Jeconiah, but Jesus was never physically related to him. And yet, through Joseph, Jesus was able to connect himself to the major royal line of David. And at the same time, he was still technically of the House of David, since Mary fulfilled that qualification on her own by being David’s direct descendant, albeit through a less significant branch of the family.
 
midori said:
Remember when the angel Gabriel visited Mary, his words included:

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

And Mary responds:

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

But she doesn’t say, “How will this be, since I’m not of the house of David?”

It’s important that Mary be of the house of David, but it’s also important that his adoptive father, Joseph, also be of the house of David as well: his ancestors have a more solid connection to the royal line. You’ll notice there are two different genealogies: one in Matthew 1, one in Luke 3.

Matthew was written with a Jewish audience in mind. It traces the genealogy from Abraham to David through Solomon, who was David’s legal successor, and ends with:

16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Luke, though, was writing with a Greek audience in mind, and traces Jesus’ physical lineage to David through Nathan, who obviously didn’t succeed his father as king. This starts with:

23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, who was of Heli…

where scholars tend to think that it means Joseph was the son-in-law of Heli, rather than physically related to him, due to the original Greek phrasing. So that brings up the question of was-Mary’s-father-Heli-or-Joachim?, but I don’t know enough about Anglicized–ancient-Hebrew-names to go off on that tangent.

Anyhow, if you go back to your Jeremiah, you’ve got a big long angry passage:

24 “As surely as I live,” declares the LORD, “even if you, Jehoiachin[c] son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, were a signet ring on my right hand, I would still pull you off. 25 I will deliver you into the hands of those who want to kill you, those you fear—Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the Babylonians.[d] 26 I will hurl you and the mother who gave you birth into another country, where neither of you was born, and there you both will die. 27 You will never come back to the land you long to return to.”

28 Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot,
an object no one wants?
Why will he and his children be hurled out,
cast into a land they do not know?
29 O land, land, land,
hear the word of the LORD!
30 This is what the LORD says:
“Record this man as if childless,
a man who will not prosper in his lifetime,
for none of his offspring will prosper,
none will sit on the throne of David
or rule anymore in Judah.”

So, God was able to keep his curse intact: Joseph was related to Jeconiah, but Jesus was never physically related to him. And yet, through Joseph, Jesus was able to connect himself to the major royal line of David. And at the same time, he was still technically of the House of David, since Mary fulfilled that qualification on her own by being David’s direct descendant, albeit through a less significant branch of the family.
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Thanks! Now I understand.
 
Nathan was a seer or prophet to David. Prophets speak truth or God. Keep this in mind.
 
this short thread is chocked with information that I’ve not seen before.

I came across this subject in the volume of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. There were several excerpts from the early church fathers that addressed this question.

One was a simple one that observed that Matthew shows the kingly descent of Jesus, Luke’s shows his priestly lineage.

another made the point about the Joseph parentage that there is nothing amiss. Physical or biological parentage was one thing, and adoptive parentage was another. Familiarity with historic adoption practices explains some of the apparent problems.
 
101405 said:
An atheist asked me this:

“MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.
Look at these two scriptures. Matthew says Jacob was Josephs father. But Luke says Heli was Josephs father. The bible is full of contradictions like this. How can the bible contradict itself? The bible itself says it is perfect. But it is not.”

I have no idea why they appear to contradict. Can someone help? :confused::confused::confused:

Edit: I looked it up online and it says that Luke was referring to the bloodline of Mary, but weren’t Saint Ann and Saint Jocham Mary’s parents? :confused::confused::confused:
Click to expand...
Before telling you the answer I must explain the importance of numbers in the bible.

In ancient languages like Hebrew or Greek, letters had a numerical value. For example the number “1” would be “A”, “2” would be “B”, etc. The number obtained from the combination of letters is called “Gematria”. definitions.net/definition/gematria

For example, the bible says that when the Israelites went out of Egypt, that the total of Jews were 603,550 (numbers 1:46), without counting men and women. But if we substitute the letters of the phrase “All sons of Israel” in Hebrew (rs kl bny ysr´l), its numeral value we see is that of 603,550. With this in mind, we know that simply all of the sons of Israel got out of Egypt. In each number, there could be a correspondent word or phrase. A similar situation happens with the so famous “666” of the Apocalypse of John. 666, is just the sum of:N=50+R=200+W=6+N=50+Q=100+S=60+R=200= 666. In other Words, “NRWN QSR”, that is to say “Nero Caesar”. This video explains more on that:

youtube.com/watch?v=EmfNOaJ_WBU

Matthew 1:17 divides the ancestors of Jesus in 3 series of 14 generations each. But this is impossible. Matthew only puts 3 names to cover 430 years of Slavery in Egypt. What happened is that he took the Name of David (D=4+V=6+D=4=14) and, since it was clearly known that a descendant of David would be the Messiah, Matthew tries to tell us 3 straight times, that Jesus is the Messiah, the descendant of David.
 
The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

Genealogies of Christ

Can not remember the original source but will post it

Jesus is of the Tribe of Judah and House of David biologically via Mary and by adoption via Joseph. The genealogy found in Matthew is that of Jesus via Joseph; whereas, the one in Luke is that of Jesus via Mary. Joseph’s geneaology is listed because by Joseph’s marriage to Mary and by his acceptance of Jesus as his own child (Matthew 1:18-25), Joseph became Jesus’ legal father. Thus, Joseph’s ancestors became Jesus’ ancestors

For an example of the Old Testament precedent for this, see the story of Jacob’s adoption of Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 48:3-6). Jacob claims these sons of Joseph as his own and states that they are equal in standing as his sons to his blood sons Reuben and Simeon (his first - and secondborn sons).

Christian scholars have long thought, however, that because the prophesied relationship between David and Jesus appeared to be much more than a legal relationship (Romans 1:3), that the Virgin Mary must also have been of the house of David. This is certainly possible, although we do not know for certain

However, it is interesting that Mary is specifically named in the Matthean geneaology alongside Joseph (Matthew 1:16). Along with the other mentions of women in Jesus’ geneaology, this was very unusual as Jewish mothers were generally not counted among ancestors at that time

If this is true, then Jesus would have been the Son of David both by his legal relationship to Joseph and by the blood relationship he received through his Mother. However, by the laws of the time, the legal relationship would have sufficed to count Jesus as the Son of David
 
The genealogy in Luke is of Mary. Her father, Joachim, was also called Heli (according to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich). Since genealogies were, in that time and culture, given through the male line, Mary is not mentioned, but Joseph’s name stands in her place.
 
Ron_Conte said:
The genealogy in Luke is of Mary. Her father, Joachim, was also called Heli (according to Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich).
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Hmm… in discussing this with an atheist, as the OP says he’s been doing, it would seem quite a stretch (and probably counter-productive) to hang the explanation on an assertion that comes from private revelation… 😉
 
Gorgias said:
Hmm… in discussing this with an atheist, as the OP says he’s been doing, it would seem quite a stretch (and probably counter-productive) to hang the explanation on an assertion that comes from private revelation… 😉
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Why?
 
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