So the genealogy of Jesus is "problematic." That's probably not news to many of you. But I'll demonstrate how intellectually lazy I can be: 3 or 4 years ago I got to thinking about the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and how Christ's lineage back to King David goes through Joseph, Mary's husband.
Did I not notice that before? With 26 years of Christendom under my belt, had I somehow overlooked that? The problem is, as Christians we aren't raised to thnk critically about the Scriptures. As children, we're told simplified Bible stories. Maybe it's not out of fear of tough questions, perhaps it's just laziness. In any case, I asked a pastor-friend about it back then: "how do we posit Jesus from the line of David if he was the product of immaculate conception?"
"Well that's the genealogy from Matthew. The genealogy in Luke is through Mary's line," he answered.
Again, I didn't take the time to actually follow up and look. I get lazy. So several years would go by before I'd take this seminary New Testament class and re-approach the question (shows you how often I read through the Gospels...).
Here's the thing:
- Matthew 1:15-17
"...Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 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 Christ." Except that would mean nothing less than Jesus was adopted into that bloodline.
- Luke 3:23-24
"Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph..." Hmmm... I don't see Mary anywhere here. There are different names linked in this family line, but that's not all that problematic. I history of ancient Jewish genealogies shows that names were regularly dropped for a number of reasons.
Now I have no hard feelings or even disrespect toward the pastor who told me Luke offered Mary's heritage. For some reason, that's been an old theological argument, although there is little that can be used to defend it, other than the alternate names listed in the line - which is far more easily explained through the nature of Jewish genealogical recording.
What's troubling is that nothing in either lineage links Mary to the family line of David. Jesus would have to be either (a) adopted into David's line, which causes problems for Old Testament prophesy, or (b) actually be the son of Joseph. Which is a little scary to consider. What, now I'm starting to sound like Borg?
Mark gives no account of Jesus' birth.
John records this statement from Philip: "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." (John 1:45)
So now I'm going to do my research paper for this New Testament class on the genealogies of Jesus and the various scholarly and theological positions taken.
In the beginning of his book Velvet Elvis, Rob Bell writes...
“What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgin births? But what if, as you study the origin of the word ‘virgin’ you discover that the word ‘virgin’ in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at that time, the word ‘virgin’ could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being ‘born of a virgin’ also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse? What if that spring were seriously questioned? Could a person keep on jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best possible way to live? Or does the whole thing fall apart?…If the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?”
I'm not saying I don't believe in the Virgin Birth. But yes, if I found out that "the truth" was something slightly other than what I'd been raised to believe or understand, I would still love God. I would still believe in Christ Jesus as Lord. My personal connection to God, through the Holy Spirit, has managed to survive an awful lot of doubt. The Spirit of the Living God is alive and real and present. But these are dangerous questions...
Posts
