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The genealogy of Jesus, and the problems it cause.
The new testament writers were so kind as to leave 2 genealogies of Jesus for us to peruse, both of his father. Not that Joseph was really his father, right? When people saw that they were vastly different, the experts came up with 2 explanations. One is that the one line is from Mary, not Joseph. The other is that the one line is a legal line, not a biological line
Matthew 1 gives the line of Jesus back to Abraham, and co-incidentally mentions that there are 14 generations from Abraham to David, and 14 from David to the exile, and 14 from the exile to Jesus. MUST be true then.
Luke 3 gives the same family line, but he knew more. He includes the lineage all the way to Adam.The eagerness of the scribes of Luke and Matthew to try and legitimize the claims of Jesus to be the Messiah, and by definition therefore descendent from the house of David, leaves believers in a bit of a pickle. Let me explain.
1. If you believe the Bible to be true, and the revealed word of God, then you have to believe the stated line back to Adam. Both published genealogies go back to Abraham, and the Bible also clearly lays out the line from Abraham to Adam. Ignore the mistake with Cainan in Luke’s version, father of Shelah. That is wrong (surely not).
2. Obviously old Bishop Usher also used these genealogies to try and get to the “beginning of mankind”, and he had a few issues with discrepancies, the exile, etc, but he persevered, which is why we have the approx 4000BC date. If you believe the Bible to be true, you have to believe this as well. No room for interpretation. If the Bible says Eber is the son of Salah, and he lived to be 464 years old, then he did. Not so?
This explains the dogmatic insistence to cling to Adam and Eve as a real event. If you want to get all liberal, or modern, and say that the creation story is just a metaphor, then you are admitting that the genealogies are lies. If you admit than, then where do you stop? No wonder the Jews did not believe he is the Messiah.
As an aside, if you believe all those hundreds of years that they were supposed to live, then Noah’s father, Lamech, actually knew Adam. Nine generations before him. Really? And both Methusaleh and Lamech probably drowned in the flood. Wonder what great sins a 969 year old man can get up to which make him a deserved drowning victim.
