Luke's Account: Nathan to Mary

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Wednesday, 5th March 2008

Today we'll talk about Luke's account of Jesus' genealogy.

As mentioned previously, Luke portrays Jesus as the Son of Man, and hence traces Jesus' ancestry upwards all the way to Adam.

Though both he and Matthew cite David as an ancestor, Luke traces the route via Mary upwards to another son of David via Bethsheba known as Nathan (2 Sam 5:14, 1 Chron 3:5, 1 Chron 14:4).

A point to be made here is that women were generally not included in genealogies (Matthew made an exception by including the names of 5 women, but that was to serve another purpose, ie. even women who were disqualified by the Law, God could qualify). Hence, even though Heli was Mary's dad, Luke puts her husband's name Joseph in the listing. We see from Matthew's account that Joseph's own father was Jacob.

A second point to be made is that even though Joseph was Jesus' adopted and legal father, he was not Jesus' biological father. After all, Mary conceived supernaturally via the Holy Spirit. By tracing the line via Mary, Luke actually attests to the virgin birth since it was a woman's seed (rather than a man's seed) that would crush the serpent's head.

I got most of the above information from a very well-researched article. It addresses the various issues such as genealogical abridgements, property rights, the curse of Jehoiakim, etc, and I commit it to your reading.

Matthew's Account: Solomon to Joseph

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Tuesday, 4th March 2008

Continuing from yesterday, let's talk about Matthew's account of Jesus' genealogy.

Matthew in portraying Jesus as King of the Jews, traced the line via the kings of Judah.

Note that he divides the genealogy into 3 parts of fourteen generations, and mentions this in Matt 1:17.

If we compare this to the genealogy as recorded by Ezra in 1 Chron 3, we realise that Matthew omitted 3 kings of Judah, namely Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah that sat on the throne between Joram and Uzziah.

Scholars refer to this as an "abridged genealogy" which was an acceptable practice because heirship would still be proven and established, even when generations in between are bypassed. Furthermore, the word "son" can also mean "descendent", just like how the blind beggar referred to Jesus as "son" of David in Luke 18.

Besides omitting those names, Matthew also repeats the name of King David twice. This was probably to aid memorisation, since the names fall neatly into 3 parts of fourteen generations each.

Speaking of Joash, we read in 2 Kings 11 that he was the sole survivor of the royal line and was made king at the tender age of 7. The story as to how he was kept alive as an infant is as miraculous as the story of Moses. I will blog about that in a future post.

From David to Jesus

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Monday, 3rd March 2008

The genealogy of Jesus is recorded in both Matthew's as well as Luke's gospel.

Matthew's gospel was to portray Jesus as the King of the Jews, hence the need to show his audience that Jesus was indeed a descendent of both Abraham and King David.

Mark's gospel was to portray Jesus as the Suffering Servant. A servant's lineage is of no importance, hence no genealogy was recorded.

Luke's gospel was to portray Jesus as the Son of Man, hence Luke traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to the first man, Adam.

John's gospel was to portray Jesus as the Son of God. Since God exists in the beginning even before Abraham was, the concept of genealogy would not make sense.

Hence, Jesus' genealogy is only recorded in Matthew and Luke.

While Matthew traces the line downwards from Abraham, Luke does the reverse and traces the line upwards all the way to Adam.

But the most fascinating part of Jesus' genealogy is that from David to Jesus.

While Matthew traces it via the kingly line from Solomon downwards to Joseph, Luke traces it via Nathan to Mary.

Shown on the right is a chart I came across that shows these 2 lineages in pictoral form.

The two lines actually converge at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (the governor of Judah who led the rebuilding of the Temple) and then again at Mary and Joseph.

I will talk more about Matthew's account tomorrow, and about Luke's account thereafter.

From Abraham to David

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Sunday, 2nd March 2008

Continuing from where we left off last time regarding the fulfillment of the prophesy recorded in Gen 3:15 about Eve's seed, let's trace the genealogy from Abraham to David, as record in both Matthew 1 and Luke 3:

21 Isaac
22 Jacob
23 Judah
24 Perez (by Tamar)
25 Hezron
26 Ram
27 Amminadab
28 Nahshon
29 Salmon
30 Boaz (by Rahab)
31 Obed (by Ruth)
32 Jesse
33 David

Women in the Genealogy

It is interesting to note that while genealogies as they appear in other parts of Scripture do not contain the names of women, the Holy Spirit saw fit to include the names of women in Matthew's account, namely Tamah, Rahab, Ruth (and also Bathsheba and Mary). I have blogged about that separately here.

Admin and Arni

In Luke's account, some early manuscripts have in place of Ram, the names of Admin and Arni. Arni is a variant of the Greek equivalent of the name Ram. Ram is rendered Aram in Septuaginta. The name Admin is likely to be a corruption of the name Amminadab, and the insertion of the name Admin is likened to be an error.

The above explanation would make it consistent with other parts of the Scripture, viz:

Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab (Ruth 4:19)

Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, the leader of the people of Judah (1 Chron 2:10)

Up to this point (ie. from Adam to David), there is no major disputes. It is from David downwards that the genealogical accounts of Matthew and Luke vary. While Matthew traces it down to Joseph (legal line) via King Solomon (Matt 1:6) , Luke traces it down to Mary (biological line) via the another son of David named Nathan (Luke 3:31).

I have been reading various fascinating articles as to why this is so and will try to provide a condensed summary in a future post.

From Shem to Abram

This post was first published on ROOTSS on Tuesday, 26th February 2008

In Gen 3:15, God told Satan that one of Eve's seed would crush his head.

In Gen 5, we see the genealogy from Adam to Noah being recorded as follows:

1 Adam
2 Seth
3 Enosh
4 Kenan
5 Mahalalel
6 Jared
7 Enoch
8 Methuselah
9 Lamech
10 Noah

There were 10 generations between Adam and Noah.

In Gen 11, we see Noah's line being traced down to Abraham (or Abram, as he was then known as).

11 Shem
12 Arphaxad
13 Shelah
14 Eber
15 Peleg
16 Reu
17 Serug
18 Nahor
19 Terah
20 Abram

There were also 10 generations from Shem to Abram.

Cainan/Kenan

Some early manuscripts of Luke's account includes someone by the name of Cainan in Luke 3:36 in between the names of Arphaxad (12) and Shelah (13). One possible explanation was that this was a copyist's error in copying this name twice, Cainan being a variant of the name Kenan (4).

Furthermore, Ezra the Chronicler recorded in 1 Chron 1:18 "Arphaxad was the father of Shelah, and Shelah the father of Eber." There was no mention of Cainan there.

We will read later on in Genesis 15 how God told Abraham that the promised seed will come via him.

I've been reading up on the genealogy of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 1 and Luke 3, and will be penning down my thoughts in a future post.