Re: [asa] Creation and Incarnation

At 08:34 PM 8/10/2006, mrb22667@kansas.net wrote:

>Not to side track any serious scientific discussion on this, but as
>a "by the way" I have always wondered on the theological side of
>things why the lineage
>of Joseph was deemed relevant and important enough to be recorded
>given the assumed lack of his participation in the conception process. --merv

@ Matthew and Luke present different genealogies of Jesus--one
through David's son Solomon (the royal line) and the other through
David's son Nathan (the non-royal line). The royal line is traced in
Matthew; the "natural" line in Luke. Matthew's genealogy goes only
back to Abraham (to show the Jewish character of the King); Luke's
goes back to Adam (to show the universal aspect of the Savior).
Matthew's emphasizes Jesus' royalty; Luke, his humanity.

    * It is generally accepted (but not unanimously) that the
genealogy in Matthew belongs to Joseph's family, and the one in Luke
applies to Mary's line. (The historical evidence is fairly strong
that both Mary and Joseph were of the house of David.)
    * Both genealogies are 'aware' of the virgin birth: Luke adds the
phrase "He was the son, SO IT WAS THOUGHT, of Joseph" (3:23) and
Matthew switches verbs from "X begat Y" to "Joseph, the husband of
Mary, of whom (feminine pronoun) was born Jesus".
    * Joseph is already a legal heir of David, but he seems also to
'pick up' Mary's legal heritage, too. How?
    * Probably through the law of levirate marriage.
    The Jewish folk had numerous provisions for cases of
inheritance-transfer in extreme cases. One of the more frequent
situations that had to be covered (in a land-based, clan-ownership
system) was that of childless marriages, or in some cases, of
son-less marriages.

    One of the more concise statements of how this would apply here,
is by J. Stafford Wright in Dict. of New Test. Theol., III. 662:
    "Mary's father (Heli?) had two daughters, Mary and the unnamed
wife of Zebedee (John 19:25; Matt 27:56). If there were no sons,
Joseph would become son of Heli on his marriage, to preserve the
family name and inheritance (cf. Num 27:1-11; 36:1-12, esp. v. 8,
which accounts for Mary marrying a man of the family of David.)"

    [The main passages in the OT that refer to these various laws are
Num 7:1-11; Num 36:1-12; Lev 25:25; Dt 25:5-10. These practices were
widespread in the Ancient Near East, and a good discussion of the
details in Israel and differences from the ANE can be found in Roland
de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Vol 1--Social Institutions. Two famous
cases, for good or ill, of these practices are in the story of Ruth
(Book of Ruth) and in the story of Tamar (Gen 38:6ff).]
    What this 'nets out to' is that Joseph 'married into' Mary's
gene-pool...and hence, the virgin birth doesn't stop the lineage "transfer".
    In other words, that the physical-gene did NOT come FROM JOSEPH
was IRRELEVANT in this case. Legal and kinship standing was related
to EITHER 'genes' OR to 'marriage'. (Although it should be pointed
out that levirate arrangements like this required close kinship
already, and hence, quite a number of overlapping genes.).

    So, strictly speaking, Jesus got his genes from Mary and his
legal standing (in the royal heir line) from Joseph (thru the marriage of M+J).

    * Now, as a practical matter, I consider the gene-issue to be
only somewhat important, simply because there were other indications
that the Messiah WOULD BE from the 'stock of Jesse' etc--images and
phrases that DO put more emphasis on the blood-line than does simply
'legal lineage'--but I am persuaded that these requirements were
adequately satisfied from Mary's side. The bloodline of David was
literally satisfied by the lineage of Mary (from Nathan), and the
dynastic line of David-through-Solomon was legally satisfied through
Joseph's line. [Their are passages that suggest that the
Messiah-as-Davidic-king would be descended from Solomon (1 Chron 17;
2 Sam 7), but it should be noted that (a) God provided an 'escape
clause' in 1 Chron 28.5-7 and 2 Chron 7.17ff) and more importantly,
(b) the dynasty is always referred to as "of David" and never "of
Solomon" in the prophetic books. David (in some form) returns to rule
Israel someday--NOT Shlomo.]
Thus, the geneaology in Matthew traces Jesus back to Solomon and then
to David. Full legal, dynastic lineage of Jesus is affirmed thereby.

[snip] http://www.christian-thinktank.com/fabprof4.html

~ Janice

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Received on Thu Aug 10 21:56:55 2006