Genuine question, I’ve always found it puzzling. Matthew (and the other evangelists?) is at great pains to declare Jesus is the son of God. Literally, with the Holy Ghost (I think) entering at her ear to impregnate her. Joseph has nothing to do with the matter, it being necessary that Jesus is born without Sin. Mary is without Sin but Joseph is a normal guy, like us all he has the taint of Original Sin, which Mary, thanks to her mother’s Immaculate Conception, doesn’t have.
Apologies for the Roman Catholic dogma, I’m an atheist so I may have some things wrong.
OK, my point is why does Matthew make such a big deal about Joseph’s descent from David? It isn’t relevant, Jesus isn’t related to Joseph (OK, as Mary, I seem to recall, traces her line to David too maybe Jesus and Joseph are cousins umpteen times removed).
I guess what I’m saying is are we dealing with two different writers in Matthew’s gospel, an earlier one who knows nothing of divine births (who might perhaps as a Jewish Christian still very much faithful to the Mosaic Law have been appalled at the concept) and labors to connect his guy to David because that’s what prophecy demands, and a later Gentile and Paulline Christian for whom the divine birth is the whole point and, hey, leave the genealogical stuff in, it all helps.
The irony is that in all probability 90% of Jews would have been descendants of David, just as 90% of English people (including myself) are descendants of Edward I.
So, to reframe my question, wouldn’t early Christians have seen a contradiction here?
The genealogy is there to indicate that Jesus was the legal (though not biological) descendant of David. While 90% of Jews might have been descended from David, they wouldn’t all be descendants in the pure male line, which for purposes of monarchical inheritance in that society is what mattered.
Matthew (or, the actual author of the Gospel of Matthew), is very pedantic and very concerned to show Jesus fulfilling all OT messianic prophecies. E.g., Matthew 21:
This is a reference to Zechariah 9:9:
Mark, Luke and John have Jesus making use of one ass only. Zechariah intended only one. But the author of Matthew apparently, while well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures, was oblivious to the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, the practice of saying the same thing twice in slightly different ways – “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue,” “I am neither a prophet nor a prophet’s son,” etc.
Matthew says that Mary and Joseph lived in a house in Bethlehem, fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, stayed there till Herod died, and while returning to Bethlehem were told to stay out of Judea because Herod’s son Archelaus now reigned, and was just as bad. Only then did they decide to go to Nazareth, apparently for the first time, and if they heeded God’s warning, they stayed out of Judea (which contains both Bethlehem and Jerusalem) until Archelaus was deposed, ten years after Herod died. There’s no indication that they had ever been in Nazareth before their return from Egypt, and no mention of a census.
Luke says that Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth before Jesus was born, went to Bethlehem only for the insane census that required everyone to journey to wherever his ancestors had lived 1000 years before, and heard nothing about any threat from Herod (or a magic star or magi bearing gifts). On the contrary, they took Jesus to Jerusalem six weeks after he was born, presented him publicly in the Temple, half a mile from Herod’s palace, had various holy denizens of the Temple proclaim him the Messiah, again in public, and then went home to Nazareth, completely unmolested. And returned to Jerusalem every year for Passover – the same years that they were, according to Matthew, cowering in either Egypt or Galilee, afraid to enter Judea while either Herod or Archelaus ruled.
So no, I don’t think early Christians would worry about your contradiction. And just BTW, if they did worry about a contradiction having to do with his genealogy, it would be because Luke gives a completely different genealogy than Matthew’s.
Nice post.
People aren’t nearly as sensitive to contradictions as they should be, especially if they read things one at a time. I read my daughter about 35 Nancy Drew books for the 50s-60s editions. Nancy is 17 - 18 throughout. If you’d create a timeline, Nancy would have to be in about six places at once during these years - but it is easy to not make that connection.
Now if there was a religion of Drewism (funny, you don’t look Drewish) they’d probably come up with lots of evidence in the Holy Works that Nancy was really a Time Lord.
The notions of Original Sin, and especially the Immaculate Conception of Mary, were concerns of a much later age. They were alien to the gospel writers.
Paul talked about the general idea of Original Sin quite a bit. See the Letter to the Romans. The actual terminology of original sin and the idea that it’s transmitted in the male line is, yes, a later idea. (Fifth century I think).
IIRC, Matthew was originally written mainly for the Jewish followers, hence the emphasis on Judean politics and that nasty Herod; the geneaologies the Old Testament were also dwelt on, and the other Old Testament prophecies, stuff his Jewish audience might have a more than passing familiarity with. (“See? Jesus was divine enough that he even was persecuted by our tyrannical overlord Herod but by the miracle of his divinity he escaped…”)
Luke, OTOH IIRC was more a friend of Paul, writing for Paul’s religion, for gentiles outside the land of Israel - hence the mention of things like the census of Augustus rather than the misdeeds of Herod, less emphasis on Jewish scriptures or Jewish lineage which would be meaningless and of no significance to that audience. Instead, they wanted to hear of his divine character, that he was recognized as special and holy as infant, as twelve year old, etc. without having to know intricacies of the Jewish faith.
Since we have zero evidence as to the names of most writers, zero confirmation as to the lineage, likewise zero confirmation of most of the events and people written about, if one author spotted a conflict in stories or felt something was missing, he rewrote the story with his corrections and additions as he saw it or felt “inspired by revelation.” That explains why later books tend to have more detail – the pious redactors added what they thought was necessary to make it “true.” All for the Glory of God, of course.
I think you are mistaken, at least in part. Nobody who read Matthew’s gospel would have any personal memory of Herod the Great. Jews might even consider his reign the good old days – he built the Temple that the Romans destroyed. Their hatred for the Romans would far eclipse any dim tales of Herod, and for whatever reason (you may guess what my explanation is), Matthew seems to be the only historian, sacred or secular, who had heard of Herod’s massacre in Bethlehem.
And Luke seems to care just as much about Jesus’ lineage as Matthew. Not only does he give a genealogy (the first part of which is almost certainly fabricated) that traces his ancestry all the way back to Adam, but he invents the ridiculous “journey to your ancestral home” requirement of the census for the sole purpose of having Jesus born in Bethlehem, rather than Nazareth, a detail that would be important only to Jews — not even the Matthew’s so-called wise men, who had journeyed for weeks to see the newborn “King of the Jews,” knew the significance of Bethlehem.
And unlike Matthew, Luke also takes care to note that the Levitical requirements of circumcision, purification, and consecration are all carried out for the infant Jesus — another detail important only to Jews.
Since you gave the apologia for the different genealogies, I’ll cover the rest of the contradictions.
The usual interpretation is that the Magi came later, after they had set up a house in Bethlehem (rather than trek all the way back with a baby), coming very soon after the public declarations in the temple (before the information had gotten back to Herod). And that, while they were afraid to live in Judea, they dutifully went to Passover, hoping not to be noticed in the crowds.
This type of combining multiple legends is common in Jewish religious writing.
In passing I’ll mention that Herod the Great was a Bedouin who had converted to Judaism, or at least his grandfather(?) did.
Antipathy to Herod was widespread at the time because he wasn’t a ‘proper Jew’. This is reflected in the Gospels especially about how he was a such a nasty sort - simply reflecting the Jewish attitudes of the time.
When you go back a bit there was a strong flow between Bedouins and Hebrews. In fact Hebrews were probably originally Bedouin from the Hibari Bedouin tribe.
Correct, if by “at the time” you mean during his reign. But Matthew is dated no earlier than about 75 years after Herod’s death, more usually about 85 years after his death, and as late as 115 years after his death. So Matthew would have no incentive to tap into Jewish antipathy for Herod (as one poster suggested), since it had long since been replaced by bitter hatred for the Romans. After all, what had the Romans ever done for them?
ETA: Note that the Herod of the John the Baptist beheading story was not Herod the Great (who featured prominently in Matthew’s infancy narrative), who had died nearly 40 years earlier.
I don’t think that story about Jesus being found in the Temple studying Torah when he was 12 means what most people think it means. Jesus was about to become bar mitzvah, and should have been studying Torah. It would not have been unusual to see boys from the age of nine studying Torah with adult men. He was doing exactly what he should have been doing-- taking advantage of the gathering in Jerusalem to study with as many minds (some of them great) in collective as he could. His parents, on the other hand, were trying to do the bare minimum they needed to to fulfill the mitzvah, and get out of there ASAP.
It’s a dig at Mary and Joseph, and how neither of them is really Jesus’ parent in a spiritual or intellectual sense. They’re muggles. There may have been more material like that, but it’s incompatible with the eventual veneration of Mary, and may have been redacted.
I don’t know whether Luke misses the point, or if he’s vague on it because he expects people to get it, but most gentiles I know see it through a lens where children would never be included oin an adult bible study. It’s still perfectly normal in Judaism to include any children who want to be included, and expect children by the age of twelve who are preparing for b’nei mitzvah to be able to sit through it. Several weeks ago, we actually had a Torah study led by a 15-year-old, who did a really good job, and I used to go to them all the time when I was a tween and a teen, although I didn’t lead one until I was 18.