Genealogies of Jesus

[monti]

I think it's interesting to note that the incidence of virgin birth declines markedly when pregnancy for an unwed girl in not punishable by being stoned to death.

A girl living with a man for a time who gets pregnant would be well advised to attribute said pregnancy to god if it would spare her being stoned to death.

Indeed, even if she was raped she maybe would have still been stoned to death. And it seems nothing has changed.

Pregnant teenager alleging gang-rape charged with adultery in Sudan
Ethopian teenager says she was raped by seven men last August, and now faces possible sentence of death by stoning

Pregnant teenager alleging gang-rape charged with adultery in Sudan | World news | The Guardian

 

[Bunyip]

Indeed, even if she was raped she maybe would have still been stoned to death. And it seems nothing has changed.



Pregnant teenager alleging gang-rape charged with adultery in Sudan | World news | The Guardian

Hard to believe that such a barbaric law still persists, a tragic reminder of why the enlightenment was so important.

Cheers

 

[monti]

You must be worried about this. Does it keep you up at night?/

I am not worried and it doesn't keep me up at night. so that is 0/0. Poor start from you then.

Let me help.
I'll offer some possible reasons. You pick one. If your sleepless nights retreat as a result, do consider giving an old Deist a frubal, or something. Fair?

1. Somebody could have made an editing, copying or translation mistake, down through the millenia. Have you ever miscopied anything?
2. An author could have 'done' a scribo. Do you know what a 'scribo' is? A scribo is a CE 1st century version of a 'typo'. Have you ever done a 'typo'?
3. As if Christians needed any more proof or evidence for their faith, some over zealous evangelist felt an irresistible desire to prove Jesus's lineage so as to 'click' with OT prophesy, when Christians know that it does anyway.
4. A 1st century Christian comedian felt a huge desire to take the 'wee' out of folks like yourself, and plunged Joseph's lineage into good old G-Matthew as a red herring, knowing that Christians everywhere would know that Jesus's father is in fact God........ he just wanted to get folks like you to show that you had not figured that out. Great guy..... I hope he had many successful tours.
5. Loads of folks around here are absolutely bonkers about their ancestry, and spend hours b-ggering about, trying to prove that they were descended from Oliver Cromwell, or Margaret Thatcher, or somebody. Maybe it was all the rage amongst Galilean peasants and Fisherfolks back then? (you know, sort of : Hey, Matthias! My old lady just figured out that EzekiabarYosef was my great great great great grand-dad..... so could I have a bit more bloody respect out of you in future, you dog...?!)

do consider giving an old Deist a frubal, or something. Fair?

Those replies were interesting OB, but unfortunately, your poor start let you down. No frubal. Fair?

 

[monti]

Hard to believe that such a barbaric law still persists, a tragic reminder of why the enlightenment was so important.

Cheers

Indeed, but these are not just any law common law known to all mankind and adhered to by all mankind, are they, they are faith based religious law only.

 

[oldbadger]

No frubal. Fair?

.....ooohhhhhh damn and blast! And there was me, thought I'd cracked it for a freebee!

But you gotta admit, any Christian could tell you that Jesus's father is God..... come on...! Some NT Christian with a wild sense of humour wrote that lineage in G-Matthew, just to confuse atheists and the like. His spirit has been laughing itself silly ever since. :biglaugh:

 

[monti]

.....ooohhhhhh damn and blast! And there was me, thought I'd cracked it for a freebee!

But you gotta admit, any Christian could tell you that Jesus's father is God..... :

Indeed "any christian" no doubt would tell us who the Father of Jesus is. But the gospels themselves state different and so does St Paul.

Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being the son of Joseph Luke 3:23.KJV

“concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the “seed” of David according to the flesh”. Romans 1:39

Indeed I cannot remember anywhere in the scripture where jesus himself states he is the son of god. Or even of gods "seed". In fact jesus often refers to himself as the son of man, if my memory serves me correctly.

All very baffling for anyone who,even in adulthood, has turned to religion for some kind of comfort, security and answers to some of life's more difficult problems and questions or when- 'jesus loves you'- just isn't a good enough answer anymore.

 

[Sleeppy]

I am simply telling you that both these genealogical list cannot both be right as they have come down to the modern reader.

The point of my op was to hear the responses of others. I made my opinion clear almost immediately when I said ‘as they have come down to us they are pointless’.
Any other opinion outside these, sometimes ridiculous, “gospel truths” shouldn’t count for anything. After all, they are words inspired by God himself, are they not? so there shouldn't be any mistakes or errors, should there? Or do the modern christian accept that their God does often make terribly unclear, oblique nonsensical statements.

That said, this is the best I can come up with from my own understanding so far.

It is most likely that in these modern times and the education of the masses, the church have had to reason that Joseph couldn't possibly have two genealogical lineages (because of the contradictions above) and of course because only then would Mary’s son qualify for the role as Messiah (of which there were many).

When we read what the gospellers themselves have to say, Mary's cousin, Elisabeth and her husband Zachariah were Levites, which makes Mary a Levite. How do we know this? Well, the gospels tell us that it is so;


Aaron was a full blood Levite and first high priest of the Israelites. So they were both of the tribe of Levi and not of Judah making Mary at the very least a half-bred Levite, this is assuming that her mother was the sister of either Zachariah's mother or father or Elisabeth's mother or father. If the relative of Zachariah and Elisabeth was Joachim then that would make Mary a full-blood Levite since priests only married women within the tribe of Levi,(correct me if I am wrong). The example here was Zachariah, who married Elisabeth a Levite woman. Eli, the supposed father of Mary in the gospel of Luke died childless. So Eli could not possibly be Mary's father. This eliminates Mary from being of the lineage of Eli, thus she wasn't of royal lineage.
What is more, we have the two evangelists, Mathew and Luke, both showing us that Joseph is the direct descendant of King David. And this is not to mention that they don’t even agree as to whom Joseph’s father of was:



Mathew traces the Jesus as far back as Abraham but in the case of Luke, we are taken back to Adam who was made from dirt by God making him first human on this earth, where there is no virgin for an angel of God to “come unto”. How do they now explain the bloodline of Jesus and how do they explain two bloodlines that are now rendered useless, pointless and invalid? It is interesting to read what St Paul has to say ;

The real answer to these blinding genealogical contradictions in my opinion of course is simply that these New Testament gospellers, Mathew and Luke in particular, were attempting to fulfil the Old Testament prophecies of yet another Messiah to come, a Messiah who would deliver them (the Jews) from the Roman yoke as “it is written” by the Old Testament prophets. There are many such prophecies, including gambling for Jesus’ robes, thirty pieces of silver, betrayal, voices crying in the wilderness, bones were not to be broken, etc. Mathew quotes the Old Testament;


See also;
He was the "seed of a woman" Genesis 3:15
He was a descendent of Abraham -- prophecy: Genesis 12:3
He was from the tribe of Judah – prophecy: Genesis 49:10
He was the heir to the throne of David – prophecy: Isaiah 9:7
His birth place in Bethlehem – prophecy: Micah 5:2

That is my opinion on what I have read in this thread and my understanding of the Gospels of Mathew and Luke, thus far.

Correction: Levites may marry from any of the twelve tribes.

Heli, in this argument would be Joseph's father- or father in law (assuming this Heli died childless). Heli's brother would've been legally required to take Heli's wife, and raise up offspring on his behalf. Some sources (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Heli (Eli)) argue that Jacob is Heli's brother- which would make Mary and Joseph (first-)cousins.

 

[monti]

I found this a god thread. This post I found interesting

Precisely. ^^^

Not only to establish Jesus as rival to Caesar, but to make him the prophet like Moses and the new Adam.

Matthew rehashes the exodus ordeal completely in his birth narrative.

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/148732-how-can-jesus-have-genealogies.html

 

[DeepShadow]

After all, they are words inspired by God himself, are they not? so there shouldn't be any mistakes or errors, should there? Or do the modern christian accept that their God does often make terribly unclear, oblique nonsensical statements.

It's a simple, one-word error, probably by a careless transcriber. Not all Christians believe the Bible to be immune to such errors. If anyone out there DOES believe that, I'll let them give their own explanation.

As for this dicussion, it's pretty unfair to hold us all to a ludicrous standard of infallability, and then criticize us when we fall short of it. It's like you're scorning us for being reasonable.

 

[nazz]

The New Testament has two different genealogies for Jesus, Why is this?

I'll take a wild guess. Two different writers writing independently of one another?