Taken from my book A Daily Defense:
Day 85: Descended from David How?
Challenge: Jesus’ genealogies contradict each other. Matthew has Jesus descended from David’s son Solomon (Matt. 1:6), while Luke has him descended from David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). Similarly, Matthew has him descended from Zerubbabel’s son Abiud (Matt. 1:13), while Luke has him descended from Zerubbabel’s son Rhesa (Luke 3:27).
Defense: Jesus was descended from David and Zerubbabel by more than one line.
Normally, a person has two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and so on. But this doubling pattern does not go back indefinitely.
Marriages usually occur within the same community (a village, region, tribe, or nation). People in a community tend to be related. Consequently, the number of ancestors is less than what the doubling pattern would predict. In a small community, an individual may occupy more than one slot in a family tree.
Suppose William has a son named Henry, who has descendants, and several generations later, one named Elizabeth is born. Suppose William also has a daughter named Adela, who also has descendants. Because of intermarriage in the community, Elizabeth is also one of Adela’s descendants. Genealogists would say Elizabeth is descended from William by the Henry “line” and the Adela “line.”
This describes the British royal family. Queen Elizabeth II descends from William the Conqueror (c. 1028-1087) by the line of King Henry I and the line of St. Adela of Normandy, both of whom were William’s children. In fact, Elizabeth II is descended from William by multiple lines (at least eight through Adela alone). William the Conqueror thus appears in multiple slots in Elizabeth II’s family tree.
The same was true for David and Zerubbabel concerning Jesus, who descended from David by both the Solomon and Nathan lines and from Zerubbabel by both the Abiud and Rhesa lines. This is not unexpected. David lived a millennium before Jesus. Matthew records twenty-seven intervening generations, so according to the doubling pattern, Jesus would have at least 67,108,864 ancestors in David’s generation.
There were not that many Israelites alive in David’s generation, so, since David was one of Jesus’ ancestors, David filled multiple slots in Jesus’ family tree, and Jesus was descended from David by multiple lines. The same is true of Zerubbabel, though to a lesser degree, since Zerubbabel lived only half a millennium before Jesus (for more, see Day 95).
Day 95: The Judgment of Jeconiah
Challenge: Jesus is disqualified from being Messiah since he descends from the last king of Judah, Jeconiah (Matt. 1:12). God judged Jeconiah so that “none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David, and ruling again in Judah” (Jer. 22:30).
Defense: There are multiple flaws with this argument. Here are several.
First, Jesus was not descended from David only by the line of Jeconiah. He was also descended through the line of Nathan (Luke 3:31; see Day 85). It may have been questions among some Jews about whether a descendant of only Jeconiah could be Messiah that prompted Jesus’ family to preserve the memory of the Nathan line. The presence of both genealogies in Scripture shows that, regardless where a Jew fell on the Jeconiah question, Jesus had a qualified lineage either way.
Second, the prophecy need mean no more than Jeconiah’s immediate sons wouldn’t be kings because the Babylonian Exile would go on for too long (cf. Jer. 22:25-28).
Third, one of Jeconiah’s grandsons—Zerubbabel—received ruling authority in Judah, being made its governor (Hag. 1:1). (On Zerubbabel’s lineage, see 1 Chron. 3:17-19; there may be a levirate marriage involved since Zerubbabel’s father is usually said to be Shealtiel, though here he is said to be son of Pediah; both were sons of Jeconiah, and thus Zerubbabel was his grandson).
Fourth, the language used concerning Zerubbabel suggests a reversal of God’s judgment. God told Jeconiah, though you “were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off” (Jer. 22:24), but he told Zerubbabel he will “make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the Lord of hosts” (Hag. 2:23). The image of making one of Jeconiah’s descendants again like a signet ring suggests a restoration of the family to divine favor.
Fifth, multiple Jewish sources indicate Jeconiah (also called Jehoiachin) repented and the curse was lifted. The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906 ed.) notes: “Jehoiachin’s sad experiences changed his nature entirely, and as he repented of the sins which he had committed as king he was pardoned by God, who revoked the decree to the effect that none of his descendants should ever become king” (s.v. “Jehoiachin”).
Day 106: Matthew’s Missing Generations
Challenge: Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus omits some generations and thus is wrong.
Defense: In Israelite genealogies, it was permitted to skip generations.
Hebrew and Aramaic don’t have terms for “grandfather,” “great-grandfather,” “granson,” “great-grandson,” and so on. Any male ancestor was called a father (Hebrew, ’ab, Aramaic, ’ab, ’abba), and any male descendant was called a son (Hebrew, bēn, Aramaic, bar).
Thus, prophesying the birth of Jesus, Gabriel tells Mary, “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). David lived a millennium before Jesus, yet he is called Jesus’ father. Similarly, both Jesus and Joseph are called “son of David” (Matt. 1:20, 9:27). This made it possible to skip generations in genealogies, whether they ran forward (“Joram was the father of Uzziah”) or backward (“Uzziah was the son of Joram”).
Richard Bauckham notes:
That a family descended from one of the sons of David had at least an oral genealogy must be considered certain. This does not, of course, mean that it would be a complete genealogy. Oral genealogies, like many of those in the Old Testament, regularly omit generations, since their function is not to preserve the memory of every name in the list but to link the family with an important ancestor who gives it its place in the community (Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church, 341).
Matthew skips generations for literary purposes, grouping his genealogy in three sets of fourteen generations (Matt. 1:17). The reason may be to stress Jesus’ connection with David. In Hebrew and Aramaic, David (DVD) adds up to fourteen (D = 4, V = 6, D = 4).
Matthew would have expected his readers to recognize that the generations he skips are recorded in the Old Testament. In 1:8, he says Joram was the father of Uzziah (aka Azariah), but 1 Chronicles 3:11-12 shows three generations between the two. The missing names are Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah. These three figures were kings of Israel. Their stories are told between 2 Chronicles 22 and 25.
When Matthew skips three Jewish kings in the line of David—well known to the audience from the Old Testament Scriptures—he expects his readers to recognize the literary device he is using in the genealogy.
Day 162: His Father Was Who?
Challenge: Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus contradicts Luke’s. Matthew says Shealtiel’s father was Jeconiah, while Luke says it was Neri (Matt. 1:12; Luke 3:27). Similarly, Matthew says Joseph’s father was Jacob, while Luke says it was Heli (Matt. 1:16; Luke 3:23).
Defense: There are multiple possible explanations, given the way Israelite genealogies worked.
Hebrew and Aramaic didn’t distinguish between fathers, grandfathers, and so on. All male ancestors were called “fathers” (see Day 106). Consequently, since one person can be descended from another by more than one line (see Day 85), both Jeconiah and Neri could have been Shealtiel’s “father” (male ancestor) if one genealogy skipped a generation. The same is true of Jacob and Heli with respect to Joseph.
Alternately, adoption (legal rather than biological descent) may have been involved. Shealtiel may have had a legal and a biological father. The same is true of Joseph. This is particularly relevant because of the levirite marriage custom, which required that if a man died childless, his brother was to marry the widow and father a son who was legally attributed to the line of the dead man (Deut. 25:5-6). The levir (Latin, “brother-in-law”) thus supplied a son for his deceased brother. Given the ancient mortality rate, this situation was common. It is not surprising if it occurred more than once in the millennium between David and Jesus in their family tree.
It may have happened with respect to Shealtiel, and we have early testimony that it did happen with respect to Joseph. Early Christian writer Julius Africanus (c. A.D. 160-240) reported a tradition from Jesus’ surviving relatives in his day regarding the fatherhood of Joseph.
According to Jesus’ family, Joseph’s grandfather Matthan (mentioned in Matthew) married a woman named Estha, who bore him a son named Jacob. After Matthan died, Estha married his close relative Melchi (mentioned in Luke) and bore him a son named Heli. Jacob (mentioned in Matthew) and Heli (mentioned in Luke) were thus half brothers. When Heli died childless, Jacob married his widow and fathered Joseph, who was biologically the son of Jacob but legally the son of Heli (see Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1:6:7).
Regardless of which explanation is true, the fact that multiple explanations exist indicates that no contradiction has been shown.
