Jesus and the Number 14 cockup

[michaelsherlock]

Interesting stuff. I had never realised that even the genealogies were so mucked up.. or that they were forcing it to be something that it most likely wasn't.

Good read, thanks for that.

There not, the two genealogies are about two different people, one being Joseph, the other Mary.

I have heard this apology before, but I thought it was now extinct.

Ok, many apologists used to claim that the list of ancestors provided by "Luke" relate to Mary and those provided by "Matthew" pertain to Joseph. So what do the texts themselves say regarding this issue?

"Luke" Chapter 3 specifically traces Jesus' ancestors through Joseph:

Luke 3:23 Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,[a] the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janna, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathiah,...Yadda, yadda, yadda!

And "Matthew" also traces Jesus' ancestors from Abraham to Joseph (see "Matthew" 1:1-16).

Where are you getting your information from?

The Bible of coarse, using the same verses you quoted. First we must take a look at the times when these were written, they would not have used a wife's name to directly trace a genealogy, that would never do in those days. If you will notice as far as we're concerned tracing back to David is the important part of the genealogy. Notice that in each account Joseph has different fathers, this is a split in the genealogy on Jesus end, on the other end the split happens with David's sons, Nathan (in Luke) and Solomon (in Matthew). There is no way that such a mistake would have gotten by anyone, these writers may have lived long ago, but that doesn't make them stupid. Even if no one had compared the two letters until the time the Bible was put together, the mistake would have been caught there and rewritten. In my opinion the early Christians had access to both letters and understood through their traditions the two genealogies represented Joseph and Mary, simple really.

If what you are saying is true, then we should expect to find such a tradition recorded in the works of the ante-nicene fathers, and as I have read all of the earliest ones and find no trace of this tradition, it seems like one of many errors, contained within the Gospels.