March 19

NT – Luke 3:23-38
I have to admit it. I was prepared for the cursory “I read it” of the genealogy. But then I decided I would see if the women were named in Luke’s lists just like Matthew’s. Can I just say I was blown away??
Not only are there no women – the names are not the same!! Solomon was not mentioned. So then I had to bop to 2nd Samuel 5:14-15. No, Nathan is one son and Solomon is listed after him.
To the internet with the question “why are the names different in Jesus’ lineage?”
(Where is Rashi when you need him?????)
There are 4 theories that hold the most prominent place among Bible scholars.
1. These are all made up names anyway so it really doesn’t matter whether the names are accurate or not. They were listed to prove a purpose. Since the purposes of Matthew and Luke are different, the genealogies are as well.
2. Luke is recording Mary’s genealogy and Matthew is recording Josephs’s.
3. Remember Levirate marriage? This goes back to Tamar who coincidentally (?) is mentioned in Matthew. All the brothers left her childless and so when Judah didn’t pony up the last son, she took matters into her own hands. But even if Tamar had conceived with brother #2, brother #1 would have been listed as his ‘father’ for purposes of inheritance. And as we read yesterday, the inheritance was Law. ‘
4. The genealogy in Matthew is actually through his maternal grandfather.
Here is my problem with each one.
1. If Matthew wrote in 70 CE and Luke 10-15 years later, there would be people who knew the answers to these questions and they would have yapped about this and LOUDLY. Genealogies are really, really important in the Middle East. You have to know whose tribe you come from so that you can tell if someone who approaches is friend or foe. And Luke was talking to family. We have too many details about him as a human. (Remember, Luke was trying to counteract Gnosticism which said Jesus wasn’t really a human.) Humans have fathers. I think this theory is definitely out for me.
2. This one is a maybe for me. But then you have the problem of 3:23 ‘JOSEPH, the son of Heli’.
3. If this were the case, every single one from David to Joseph would have had to have been a Levirate marriage. Highly unlikely in my opinion. And for it just to have been Joseph’s father’s Levirate, that would not have worked since the brothers would have had the same father. This one is also out for me.
4. Matthew already skipped a bunch of people to make the 14 generation thing work so why not money around with who is the line through? Except that 1:16 says that Joseph was the husband of Mary and Jacob was his father. Problems with this theory as well.
I guess I left out another theory. But this one is definitely out for me. I just put it down because if you look very far at all, it comes at you.
5. This is a flat out reason not to believe as people writing 30-100 years after someone’s death can’t even get their parents’ names right.
6. And then there is this one from my dear 85 year old friend Mary Earle. “I don’t care who his earthly daddy was. I just care who his heavenly daddy IS.”
You decide.
http://www.theology.edu/ap10.htm
http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-genealogy.html
http://home.inreach.com/bstanley/geneal.htm


Psalm 62
Do you love that last verse as much as I do?
Vs. 11-12
One thing God has spoken,
Two things have I heard,
That you, O God, are strong,
And that you, O Lord, are loving.
Surely you will reward each person
According to what he has done.

May you start the week in The Word, with the grace of God beaming from your countenance.