A useless genealogy

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Acts 2:30  a prophet, therefore, being, and knowing that with an
oath God did swear to him, out of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, to raise up the Christ, to sit upon his
throne, (YLT)

The above is supposedly taken from a promise to king David:

2Sam 7:12  `When thy days are full, and thou hast lain with thy
fathers, then I have raised up thy seed after thee which goeth
out from thy bowels, and have established his kingdom;  (YLT)

(Which, BTW, is actually a "promise" that speaks not of Jesus but
of Solomon)

Even Paul agrees that Jesus was a direct physical descendant of
David:

Rom 1:3  concerning His Son, (who is come of the seed of David
according to the flesh, 4  who is marked out Son of God in power,
according to the Spirit of sanctification, by the rising again
from the dead,) Jesus Christ our Lord;  (YLT)

"According to the flesh" and "out of thy bowels" are not
expression that indicates a legal adoption by Joseph. We know
that Joseph wasn't Jesus' biological father, because of the claim
that he was virgin born. It follows from this that Matthew's
genealogy is useless in establishing Jesus' credentials as
Messiah, because according to the verses above, Jesus had to be a
direct physical decendant of king David in order to qualify as
such. My question is: If Biblegod is omniscient, why would he
"inspire" Matthew to include a genealogy in his gospel which is
totally useless?

Of course, some will object that Jesus, being Joseph's legally
adopted son, or so they say, has every right to be counted in the
genealogy of Joseph as given by Matthew. The problem with that is
that the verses mentioned above say otherwise and the word
"generation" (KJV), or "birth" (YLT), used in Matt 1:1 also say
otherwise.

(Matt 1:1 ¶ A roll of the birth [genesis] of Jesus Christ, son of
David, son of Abraham. (YLT))

Strong's lexicon defines "genesis" this way:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1078 genesiv genesis ghen'-es-is

from the same as 1074; TDNT-1:682,117; n f

AV-generation 1, natural 1, nature 1; 3

1) source,  origin
1a) a book of one's lineage,  i.e. in which his ancestry or
progeny are enumerated
2) used of birth,  nativity
3) of that which follows origin,  viz. existence,  life
3a) the wheel of life (#Jas 3:6),  other explain it,  the wheel
of human origin which as soon as men are born begins to run,
i.e. its course of life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The word "genesis" is used, according to Strong's concordance,
three times in the NT. All it's uses indicate something to do
with physical nature:

Matthew 1:1 ¶ The book of the generation <1078> of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham. (KJV)
James 1:23  For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer,
he is like unto a man beholding his natural <1078> face in a
glass: (KJV)
James 3:6  And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is
the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body,
and setteth on fire the course of nature <1078>; and it is set on
fire of hell. (KJV)

Even this last one in James indicates that the PHYSICAL BODY is
figuratively "set on fire". So I re-iterate my original question:
If Biblegod is omniscient, why would he "inspire" Matthew to
include a genealogy in his gospel which is totally useless?


Reverend G. R. Gaudreau
<grgaud@bigfoot.com>
<http://members.xoom.com/grgaud/>

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