The first post in this series can be found here.
Personally, I think this is one of the clearest contradictions in the Bible. Why does the Bible give us Jesus’ genealogy? I can think of no other reason than for it to serve as proof of his descent from David. But it fails this purpose since we’re given two differing genealogies that both claim to come through Joseph.
Some have tried to answer this by saying that Matthew 1:1-16 records Joseph’s true genealogy and Luke 3:23-38 records Mary’s. They surmise that Mary must have been the only daughter of Heli (Luke 3:23); therefore, Joseph counts as his only heir, or “son.” They make the case that since Mary was a woman, she would not have been included in this genealogy. But if that’s the case, why does Matthew’s genealogy mention Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba (listed as the “wife of Uriah”), and even Mary herself?
Others have said that the genealogy has nothing to do with Mary, but that Joseph has a real father and a “legal” father due to a levirate marriage. This view contends that Luke’s genealogy is the legal, but not biological genealogy of Joseph.
But if either of these scenarios is true, why doesn’t the Bible simply say so? I’ve had some people tell me that these differences weren’t important to ancient readers of the 1st and 2nd centuries, and if we could look at it from their perspective, we wouldn’t be bothered either. However, this is absolutely untrue. We have writings from several different early Christians (as early as the 2nd century) that try to hide or explain the divergence in various ways [src1, src2]. If ancient people were truly not concerned with this issue, then why waste time explaining it?
Regardless, even if this hadn’t been an issue for ancient readers, God would know that it would be an issue in more modern times. Why not offer a little more explanation in Matthew or Luke so that we could know how these genealogies fit together? As it stands, we have no evidence to help us make sense of them. The only way that this won’t bother someone is if they choose to ignore it. Or they could use the circular argument that God doesn’t make mistakes, and since he authored these passages, they don’t contain mistakes either. Of course, this is no better than clamping your hands over your ears and screaming “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” whenever someone says something you don’t want to hear. I think if the Koran offered such different genealogies for Muhammad, Christians would say it was proof that the Koran was not inspired. Why should we give the Bible a pass?
Even worse is the fact that neither of these genealogies matches the Old Testament (1 Chron 1-3). Matthew’s comes closest, but it’s still different in several areas. He actually omits several names from his list: Ahaziah, Jehoash, Amaziah, and Jehoiakim. This might not be such a problem, but it becomes more of one when we read verse 17:
So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.
The statement here is not true. First of all, according to Matthew’s list, there are only 13 generations between the deportation and Christ, unless you count Jechoniah again. But the bigger problem is that Matthew presents this statement as though this were a divinely guided pattern showing us that Christ truly came at the appointed time. But he only gets these numbers by omitting people from the genealogy. Therefore, his statement is not factually true. There was no pattern in the genealogy as it is recorded in the Old Testament.
Why would a divinely inspired writer lie about the number of generations? If God had really wanted the genealogy to come out to this neat 14, 14, 14 division, why didn’t he just make it happen that way? Instead, this does nothing but confuse those who think the Bible is supposed to be completely true and inerrant. Matthew is obviously manipulating the records to add validity to the claim that Jesus was the Messiah. In other words, he’s lying.
As we said at the beginning of this post, the primary purpose for including the genealogy is to show that Christ really came from the line of David. But when the two genealogies disagree with no explanation to reconcile them, and when Matthew slyly manipulates the list to make a theological point, how do these genealogies fulfill their goal? There would essentially be no point in including them. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion. Therefore, I don’t see how he could be the author of these genealogies. It seems to me that the two genealogies are different because they were written by two different people from two different traditions, and they didn’t expect their writings to be put into the same book. They probably weren’t even aware of one another.
If you believe that the Bible is God’s word, then you should also believe that he wants people to understand and believe it. How is that possible in the face of such contradictions? Would a loving God really operate this way?
We’ll examine another contradiction in the next post.
Finding Truth 
“Interesting! You like to hangout here and post with all the athiest, but you don’t want to talk to someone who doesn’t accept paul?”
Oh I don’t mind talking to someone who doesn’t accept paul. I don’t accept paul either. I just happen to feel it is pointless to debate with people who make claims like, ” I think most scholars are biased. I think the majority opinion is usually wrong.”
You might want to discuss majority opinions with unkleE. The best to you !
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Ha Ha! 🙂
You don’t believe in Paul, but you think most biblical scholars are what… right? You think most scholars didn’t attend some type of college that indoctrinated them into a specific set of beliefs?
I have discussed plenty with unkleE! Although we don’t agree on much, I quite enjoy his posts!
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Hey UnkleE! Are your ears burning?! Lol!
Well…. I haven’t been around in a year or so, and thought I would swing by to see what you guys were up to! I suppose I will be on my way! Looks like Kathy left huh?
Have good one guys!
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“You think most scholars didn’t attend some type of college that indoctrinated them into a specific set of beliefs?”
And you don’t think this has happened to you ? 🙂
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Nope! I studied automotive instead, and even though my teacher was a Ford guy, I am forever Mopar! Glad I escaped without being indoctrinated! Whew!! 😉
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No Laurie!!!! Don’t goooooooooooooooooo
Would love to hear why you disagree with Paul. Obviously I don’t either, but it’s cool to hear what you have to present (and then I’ll just take and throw it at my christian relatives/friends) whenever they disturb me.
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Oh and another thing Laurie,
How do you know that NT is inspired if it is not inerrant?
On what basis do you make the claim that it is inspired? Because Bible say so? What if the part where the Bible says it is inerrant is actually the errant part?
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Yeah, Powell, I think your question is really important. I was also thinking about that when Laurie quoted from Deut 13. Why should we assume that passage is correct, especially in light of all the known problems with the Bible, the OT in particular?
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hey Nate, I went to see my HIV doctor yesterday and I told her that Christians were driving me insane (for real, they really are) and she made me an appointment with a psychiatrist and then she prayed for me. lol..
that explains the ak/47 and the flamethrower. just so you know. I meant no harm.
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oh, and if god is real, that’s the WORST thing that ever happened in the history of everything.
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Here is what I consider to be even a bigger problem with the genealogies. Who carries 14 much less 42 generations of genealogy around with them? Are we really to expect that Adam’s grandkids dreamed up the concept of a genealogy? Adam didn’t need one, and his kids, the first generation wouldn’t have needed one, but someone of the next generation or soon thereafter must have foreseen a need to start keeping track of people from succeeding generations. So, if we assume Bishop Ussher’s chronology to be a bare minimum, and let’s assume he was actually right, that the Earth was created in October of 4004 BCE, then by Jesus birth day, there was approximately 4000 years of genealogy to have been kept through all the turbulent Genesis days such as the scattering of people from the Tower of Babel to the ends of the earth, culminating in the flood. Then Noah must’ve passed out copies of his forebears to his sons, who then continued the tradition of adding to the genealogies through hundreds of years of Egyptian captivity and enslavement, then through the Exodus, and then through 40 years of wandering, continually looking for a better campsite in the Sinai than the one they had the night before. One wonders, for being an illiterate group of nomads, how were they accurately keeping track of the thousands of births and deaths at this juncture? But somehow they continue keeping accurate records through Nebuchadnezzar’s captivity and all the various kingships and dynasties and the Maccabean revolts and the Roman occupation, and then, after Jesus birth, 75 or 80 more years until said genealogies conveniently fall into the hands of Matthew and Luke. How many of Joseph’s tribal kinsmen also kept their familial papers in order for 4000 years in hopes that the messiah would be born of their line? With all the modern advantages I have, I can’t trace my genealogy back much over 200 years. How credulous must one be to believe that ancient shepherds even gave a rat’s hind quarters about such things and could manage to keep these records, not to mention that Herod the Great burned the temple’s genealogies (according to Eusebius) some time after Jesus’ birth and before Herod’s death which couldn’t have been a span of more than a few years. No, sorry, didn’t happen. It’s all a concoction.
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You know, I haven’t really thought about in exactly that way before… great point!
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@Nudist.
Brilliant. Sometimes the most simple things are often the ones overlooked.
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Nudist,
I have learned that when things don’t make sense in the bible, that it’s because I’m not a first century jew. Had I been one, I’d be okay with it, and now, with that knowledge, I should also be okay with it now.
Hope that helped.
William
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Hi Nate, this is my first visit to your site (discovered through searching for resources on the genealogies). Just thought I’d compliment you on the positive and gracious tone of your conversations with other people. You won’t be surprised that as a Christian I don’t agree with everything you say, but it has definitely been food for thought. All the best. I will certainly check in again.
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Thanks, peter! I really appreciate the compliment. There are some times when I haven’t been as positive or gracious as I should be, but I do try to be cordial. 🙂
Please feel free to comment or email any time!
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There ARE 14 generations if you count Jesus.
And he did not omit names from the genealogy. If you use the Septuagint, the old testament rendered in the 3rd century BCE which is older and matches more consistently with the Dead Sea Scrolls than the source that I am assuming you used, the Masoretic, then the geneology in Matthew does not omit names, as they do not occur in the Septuagint.
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Hi Annese, thanks for the comment.
Actually, I think you’re mistaken. I’ve pulled out the names just so we can be sure:
1) Abraham
2) Isaac
3) Jacob
4) Judah
5) Perez
6) Hezron
7) Ram
8) Amminadab
9) Nahshon
10) Salmon
11) Boaz
12) Obed
13) Jesse
14) David
1) Solomon
2) Rehoboam
3) Abijah
4) Asaph
5) Jehoshaphat
6) Joram
7) Uzziah
8) Jotham
9) Ahaz
10) Hezekiah
11) Manasseh
12) Amos
13) Josiah
14) Jechoniah “…at the time of the deportation to Babylon.”
“And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of…”
1) Shealtiel
2) Zerubbabel
3) Abiud
4) Eliakim
5) Azor
6) Zadok
7) Achim
8) Eliud
9) Eleaza
10) Matthan
11) Jacob
12) Joseph
13) Jesus
If you just start counting at verse 12, it’s easy to think the final group has 14, because you’d start counting with Jechoniah. But again, Jechoniah is the 14th person in the second group. We have a total of 41 names, but we’d need 42 to get 3 even groups of 14.
I wasn’t aware of this, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. This is almost certainly why the writer of Matthew doesn’t include those names — the Septuagint is the version he would have been using anyway. At the same time, those other individuals are talked about in other passages in the Old Testament. 2 Kings 13 and 14, for instance, talk about the reigns of Joash and Amaziah. To me, that still shows that the list in Matthew is incomplete. There weren’t really these 3 14-generation groupings within the genealogy.
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And then silence from Annese Wehbe…
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Tom,
you made an interesting point in regard to Matthew’s genealogy (on the other thread).
I looked up the greek word used in Matt 1:16 for “husband” here: https://findingtruth.info/2011/03/11/contradictions-part-6-jesuss-genealogy/ and this source says that the greek word was “andra” not “aner” and means husband, not father or man….
what source do you have?
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Ah, you know, I got to looking a little more, and “andras,” does mean “man.”
But this doesn’t quite settle it. Every other instance in matthew they say “begat”, as in, so and so begat whomever, etc, and then it gets to Mary and says, “so and so begat Joseph, the ‘man’ of mary….”
does anyone know if man was ever used in this context to describe someone’s father?
I can see why the Greek Scholars would translate it to “husband” considering the context. However, i’ll keep looking.
I want to see how often the greeks used, “andras” as either husband or if they ever used it for father… I do know the greek’s language is different than english – they had many words for love, with each meaning something a little different – so I want to see if the same is true with “man” – perhaps they had multiple words for “man” that each held different types of men – like father or husband or brother, etc…
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so far I’m not seeing where “andras” was ever translated as father in the NT: http://biblehub.com/greek/andra_435.htm
it seems to always be husband or an otherwise unrelated male.
Anyone else know help out here?
because Tom did have an interesting point, if “husband” should have really been “father” then that would fix the numerical issue with matthew…
although, I’d still be curious to see how two separate genealogies can connect, then separate, then connect again… like Matt and Luke seem to…
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hm, is “andras” the plural of “aner”?
if it is, then maybe it’s not “joseph the man of Mary,” but “‘everyone just listed’, the men of Mary…”
if that’s the case, then men or even fathers seems to make more sense than husband, right? and would fix the numerical issue with Matthew, yeah?
Thoughts, comments?
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