Who’s your daddy?

The book of Matthew opens up with the genealogy of Jesus. I know most people skip these, but I want to point out a couple of things about it. Most Christians are taught that Matthew is the genealogy of Jospeh, and that Luke 3 is the genealogy of Mary. I want to challenge this view. Let’s look at the scripture.

1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: ² Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, ³ Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, ⁴ Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, ⁵ Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, ⁷ Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, ⁸ Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram the father of Uzziah, ⁹ Uzziah the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, ¹⁰ Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, Amon the father of Josiah, ¹¹ and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

¹² After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, ¹³ Zerubbabel the father of Abihud, Abihud the father of Eliakim, Eliakim the father of Azor, ¹⁴ Azor the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, Akim the father of Elihud, ¹⁵ Elihud the father of Eleazar, Eleazar the father of Matthan, Matthan the father of Jacob, ¹⁶ and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. ¹⁷ Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.

In the English (and Greek) it seems pretty clear that Jospeh, son of Jacob, is the husband of Mary. This makes three problems though. The first problem is that the last generation only contains 13 names and not 14 as the author said it did. The second problem is that Luke’s genealogy doesn’t contain a reference to Mary, but this one does. The third problem is that Jesus is supposed to come from the bloodline of David through Solomon, but Luke’s genealogy comes through Nathan. What is the solution to these problems? Easy. Joseph in verse 16 is the father of Mary and not the husband.

What’s in a word?

The word translated as husband in verse 16 is andras (??????) which usually means man, but it could also be used as husband depending on the context (it is used for both in the New Testament). So, the actual Greek is “Jospeh, the man of Mary”. This is still pretty clearly husband in the Greek context but what about the Hebrew / Aramaic? We have copies of Matthew in both languages and the word here is very different. In the Aramaic it is gowrah (????). Which is the female possessive of man. In this context it could be easily translated as father. The Hebrew manuscripts is even more clear. Here is a snippet from a manuscript.

It can be read here online. The word is abi (???) in Hebrew which means father explicitly. We have church fathers (e.g. Papias of Hierapolis) who wrote that the book of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew then copied into Greek (which we use today to translate the English versions). If the Hebrew copy is correct, Mary’s father was named Joseph, son of Jacob.

Can they count?

Without Joseph being Mary’s father, the count of the 3rd set of generations is only 13. If you include Mary in the counting, then it becomes 14 and all is right. This then begs the question. Were there two Josephs? Well, no. There are actually three Josephs (plus a variety more in the NT). Mary had a father named Joseph, a husband named Joseph, and a son named Joseph. Joseph was the most common Jewish name of the day, so it makes sense that there are so many in the New Testament. Just as there are at least 4 Mary’s in the New Testament, as it was the most common female name. The best way to rectify the seemingly stupid error is that Mary was meant to be included in the genealogy and not merely added.

We also see that Matthew decided to include four other women in his genealogy which Luke does not. These women were all of questionable histories and we know Mary was suspected of having an affair. Matthew may have included these women to show that God can use women with questionable pasts in his plan for the Messiah.

Mary is also not mentioned in Luke’s genealogy, but she is here. Indicating that she was a part of this one. If Luke was truly the genealogy of Mary, why wouldn’t he include her name? Matthew already had and it was likely written before Luke was. Luke had access to the other Gospels and the eyewitnesses. Why wouldn’t he mention Mary? Some say it is because it was not the custom to include women in genealogies. The problem is that Matthew did include 5 women in his genealogy and that the scriptures are ‘God-breathed’. The Spirit chose not to include Mary in Luke’s gospel even though we have more testimony from her in that gospel. The reason is likely due to Matthew being the true genealogy of Mary and Luke of Joseph.

A king’s kid

Jesus was prophesied to come through the line of David through Solomon. We get in Romans that Paul says that Jesus was from the line of David “according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3). Jesus’s only fleshly parent was Mary. So, for him to be from Solomon’s line (the king’s bloodline) Mary had to be born from that bloodline. This is only possible if Matthew is about Mary and Luke is about Joseph. We also get 2 other interesting points to look at. In the rest of Matthew 1 we see that Gabriel seems to think Mary was from the line of Solomon.

¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Gabriel said to Matthew that Jesus will pay for sins, and He will be called “God, who saves” (meaning of Jesus’s name). In Luke we get a different message to Mary:

²⁶ In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, ²⁷ to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

²⁹ Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² 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.”

To Mary Gabriel said that Jesus would be given the throne of his father David. The throne can only pass through the linage of Solomon. Why would Gabriel mention the throne to Mary and not to Joseph if Joseph was the one from Solomon and Mary the one from Nathan? The simple solution is that Mary is from the kingly line of Solomon.

Joseph in verse 16 being the father of Mary solves so many problems and only opens one. Is the Greek incorrect? I would say in this instance that the Greek here should be translated as “father of” instead of “man of” based on the context and the other manuscripts. Mary being the daughter of Joseph, son of Jacob would make the last set 14 generations long, it would make Jesus from the kingly line of David, and it would make Mary’s mention in this genealogy make sense.

Virgin Forever?

The Roman Catholic (among others) belief systems require their followers to believe that Mary was an eternal virgin. That she never had sex with any man. I don’t think this is biblical for a variety of issues. I will go in more depth when I cover the Marian dogmas in another post.

The first major clue to refute common teachings about this couple is that they were already married. They were betrothed before she got pregnant. This is a big deal. In Jewish custom of the day the difference between a betrothal and a marriage is sex and a house. Other than that, there is no other difference. It is very different from the common idea of “engaged” in the west today. They were legally married, and the only way to break out of a betrothal was through divorce. This is the reason in verse 19 that Matthew was planning to divorce her and why he was called her husband.

They were already married before Yahweh revealed to her through Gabriel that she would bare Jesus. They had finished their marriage contract before his birth. Which is them moving in together. After a betrothal, the man was to build/purchase a home for the new family and then they were to have a final celebration and sex. They finished these without having sex to fulfill the prophecy about the virgin conceiving the Messiah. Which we get from the text. The fact that they had to include the part about completing the marriage without having sex shows that they had sex afterward. The Jewish law only had marriage be valid if sex occurred. We know they had a legal and valid marriage, so they had sex.

The view that Joseph was an old man and just the guardian of Mary, uninterested in sex, is also refuted by this verse. They were betrothed before Gabriel came. He didn’t marry her out of obligation or because she needed a guardian. They were already married. He needed to build a home for her so it was likely not his second wife, or the betrothal period would not have been so long. It would have likely been 30 days if he already had a home and was married before. 30 days is not enough time for them to even find out she was pregnant let alone have the wedding ceremony, live together for some time, and then travel to Bethlehem to have the baby.

Also, Mary was called a young woman which means she was at least 15-20 years old and was not 12 like some suggest. The idea that Mary and Joseph agreed to not have sex even though they married for love to begin with, is crazy to me. Sex is a gift from God; as are children. They did plenty of each and ended up with at least 7 kids. I don’t understand the concept that forgoing sex is a good thing in marriage. We are commanded to limit the time that we will not have sex in marriage so that we are not tempted. God’s first command to humans was to have sex inside the confines of marriage and procreate.