Matthew and Luke, genealogy of Christ
Farrell Till jftill@midwest.net
Wed, 01 Apr 1998 23:08:26 -0800 (00891522506, 2.2.32.19980402070826.00728108@midwest.net)
At 10:55 PM 4/1/98 +0000, Joseph Crea wrote:
>
>TERRY
>> However, a suggestion as to the omission here of three kings of
>>David's line between Jehoram and Uzziah (Azariah) is that Jehoram married
>>wicked Athaliah of the house of Ahab, the daughter of Jezebel, thereby
>>bringing this God-condemned strain into the line of the kings of Judah.
>>(1Ki
>>21:20-26; 2Ki 8:25-27) Naming Jehoram as first in the wicked alliance,
>>Matthew omits the names of the next three kings to the fourth generation,
>>Ahaziah, Jehoash, and Amaziah, the fruits of the alliance
>>Matthew indicates that Zerubbabel is the son of Shealtiel (Mt 1:12), and
>>this coincides with other references. (Ezr 3:2; Ne 12:1; Hag 1:14; Lu
>>3:27)
>>However, at 1 Chronicles 3:19 Zerubbabel is referred to as the son of
>>Pedaiah. Evidently Zerubbabel was the natural son of Pedaiah and the legal
>>son of Shealtiel by reason of brother-in-law marriage; or possibly, after
>>Zerubbabel's father Pedaiah died, Zerubbabel was brought up by Shealtiel
>>as
>>his son and therefore became legally recognized as the son of Shealtiel.
>
TILL
"Evidently," Zerubbabel was the natural son of Pedaiah and the legal son of
Shealtiel by reason of brother-in-law (levirate) marriage? Just why is this
so "evident"? It's evident, because Terry needs it to be "evident" to get
around a serious problem in biblical genealogies. No, wait a minute, let me
reword that. Terry doesn't need this to be evident, because he is merely
parroting inerrantist speculation that he is lifting right out of the works
of "apologists" like Archer and Geisler, so what we are seeing from Terry is
not any "solution" that he worked out but only the same old regurgitated
tripe that has been answered and answered. The truth is that Terry cannot
find any textual evidence at all to support his claims stated above. First
Chronicles 3:19 states that Zerubbabel was the son of Pedaiah, and Ezra 3:2
and 3:8 say that Zerubbabel was the son of Shealtiel. Gleason Archer went
the adoption route to explain this discrepancy (which was Terry's second
option stated above). He concluded that since one writer said that Pedaiah
was Zerubbabel's father and another said that Shealtiel was his father,
"Shealtiel apparently had adopted Zerubbabel after the premature death of
his natural father, Pedaiah" (*Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties,* 1982, p.
217). Well, why not say that Shealtiel was Zerubbabel's father and that
Pedaiah had apparently adopted him after the premature death of his father,
Shealtiel? Why would the one option be any more "apparent" than the other?
What is Archer's evidence that this was what happened? Even he admitted
that there is none: "There is no reference to Pedaiah's early demise
elsewhere, but this is the only reasonable explanation for Zerubbabel's
being taken over by Shealtiel" (p. 217). Well, may I suggest another
explanation? Why wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that one writer
thought that Pedaiah was Zerubbabel's father, and another thought that
Shealtiel was? In other words, why isn't it possible that one or even both
writers were just flat out wrong about Zerubbabel's parentage? To argue as
Archer and Terry are doing is a resort to the fallacy of trying to prove
inerrancy by assuming inerrancy.
That isn't the only problem in Terry's "explanation" of the genealogical
problems in Luke, as we will see below.
>TERRY
>> But why does not Luke name Mary, and why pass immediately from Jesus to
>His grandfather? Ancient sentiment did not comport with the mention of the
>mother as the genealogical link. Among the Greeks a man was the son of his
>father, not of his mother.
TILL
Well, gee, if this is so, perhaps Terry can explain to us why Matthew's
genealogy didn't "comport" with this "ancient sentiment," because he
specified that Perez's mother was Tamar (1:3), that Boaz's mother was Rahab
(1:5), that Obed's mother was Ruth (1:5), and that Solomon's mother was the
wife of Uriah (1:6). He also mentioned that Joseph was the husband of Mary
"of whom was born Jesus" (1:16). If Terry would care for me to do so, I will
be glad to mention other genealogies that named mothers. This was done
frequently enough in the Bible to discredit Terry's quibble that Luke didn't
name Mary because "ancient sentiment did not comport with the mention of the
mother."
TERRY
> Actually each genealogy (Matthew's table and Luke's) shows descent from
>David, through Solomon and through Nathan. (Mt 1:6; Lu 3:31)
TILL
But if Luke's genealogy traced the descent through Mary, then Jesus was not
a descendant of Solomon. That would mean, as I have explained, that the OT
promise to establish the kingdom of Solomon forever has failed, because if
Jesus now sits on David's throne, as fundamentalists claim, this could be
pressed to mean that David's throne was established forever, but it would
not mean that Solomon's kingdom has been established forever, because Jesus
would not be a descendant of Solomon. I would be interested in seeing Terry
resolve this problem if he thinks he can.
TERRY
>In examining the lists of Matthew and Luke, we find that after diverging at
>Solomon and Nathan, they come together again in two persons, Shealtiel and
>Zerubbabel. This can be explained in the following way: Shealtiel was the
son of >Jeconiah; perhaps by marriage to the daughter of Neri he became
Neri's >son-in-law, thus being called the "son of Neri." It is possible as
well that Neri had >no sons, so that Shealtiel was counted as his "son" for
that reason also. >Zerubbabel, who was likely the actual son of Pedaiah,
was legally reckoned as >the son of Shealtiel, as stated earlier.
>
TILL
Apparently all that Terry can do is talk in terms of "possiblies," but it is
noteworthy that he offers no evidence at all in support of his solutions,
only speculative possibilities. For the sake of argument, let's assume the
truth of his "possible" explanations of how the two genealogies could have
come together once they had diverged in the generation following David. How
would he propose to explain that Luke 3:27 listed a "Rhesa" as the son of
Zerubbabel through whom the descent to Jesus continued? Zerubbabel's
offspring are listed in an OT genealogy, but no mention is made of a "Rhesa."
>1 Chronicles 3:>16 The descendants of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son,
Zedekiah his son;
>17 and the sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son,
>18 Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah;
>19 The sons of Pedaiah: Zerubbabel and Shimei; and the sons of Zerubbabel:
Meshullam and Hananiah, and Shelomith was their sister;
>20 and Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-hesed, five.
Here the sons of Zerubbabel and even one of his daughters are listed, but no
"Rhesa" was indicated. So even if Zerubbabel were Pedaiah's actual son who
was adopted by Shealtiel, the genealogy in Luke should still have listed one
of his sons as an ancestor of Jesus, but it didn't. It listed a "Rhesa,"
who was mentioned nowhere in Zerubbabel's genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3. Any
way this problem is looked at, it spells trouble for biblical inerrantists,
whose only resort is to speculate that it could have been this way or it
could have been that way or it could have been another way, etc.
Farrell Till
Skepticism, Inc.
jftill@midwest.net