A useless genealogy

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 ALWARD

 
 The genealogy is only useless in showing his ancestry, but it is not 
useless--period, as you said.  The Matthew genealogy is Joseph's, and it's 
important, evidently, because God  wanted us to know that there were three 
two-week groups (analogous to the six days of creation) of important figures 
which spanned the time between Abraham and Jesus.
 
 
 RevGaud
 Helms' little foray into biblical numbers is predicated on the
 fact that Jesus would begin the seventh week BECAUSE HE WAS
 MESSIAH. However, since Jesus is not Joseph's son, he doesn't
 start any week, final or not, because he is NOT the son of David.
 Can you not see this, Joe? There is NO prophetic fulfilment if
 Jesus is not Joseph's son and thus not the son of David, on
 which, I say again, Helms bases his SILLY THEORY. How can you
 miss this, Joe?
 
 ALWARD
 In summary, the  listing of names in Matthew IS a genealogy, and
 it IS important, but not for the reason you thought Matthew thought it
 was. Right?
 
 RevGaud
 Wrong! And it doesn't matter what reason Matthew uses, it doesn't
 matter because the genealogy is said to be Jesus' (v1 "The book
 of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of
 Abraham.") but we know that it isn't so because Joseph, on whom
 this genealogy is based, is not Jesus' father. So all of Helms'
 assertions (read: dreams) are based on Jesus being Messiah and
 they fall because this genealogy cannot be used to establish that
 Jesus is Messiah which is the reason Matthew includes it, Helm's
 wild speculations notwithstanding. In point of fact, none of the
 two genealogies can be applied to Jesus because they're both
 based on Joseph and he wasn't Jesus' father. This is simple to
 understand and I really don't see how you can miss this. You've
 been suckered in by Helms' very vivid imagination. You've fallen
 for yet another lame how-it-could-have-been scenario. This is
 just another far-fetched defense set up to "save the day" so the
 NT can have some meaning and Jesus' butt, as Messiah, can be
 salvaged. And it's lame attempt at that.
 ===============
Joe Alward:

1.  Helms knows, as well as we both do, that Matthew's genealogy can't be 
that of Jesus.  So far we agree.

2.  Matthew said that he was giving Jesus' genealogy; Helms, you, and I agree 
about that, too.

3.  Helms said that "Matthew" recognized that his genealogy was not that of 
Jesus, since Matthew stated that Jesus was not Joseph's son.

4.  If Matthew knew that the genealogy was not that of Jesus, then why did he 
give it?  The answer to this was given before:  It was more important to him 
to be able to show that there were three groups of two weeks each of 
generations, each beginning with an important event:

 "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; 
and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen
 generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are 
fourteen generations." (Matthew 1:17 )

Now, you rightly object that Jesus was not "generated" from this group, and, 
of course, we all agree and we can all fault Matthew for that; the Bible is 
in error in this regard, no doubt about it.  But, you said that the Matthew 
genealogy is useless, and I say it is not:  the genealogy, even though it is 
not Jesus', still shows a prophetic pattern, a three x two week chain of 
generations from Abraham to Jesus' adoptive father. This pattern exists even 
though the last link in the chain wasn't Jesus' father.  Jesus nevertheless 
has an important connection to Joseph by virtue of the fact that Joseph was 
the husband of Jesus' mother, even if he wasn't Jesus' father.  It's that 
connection which completes the pattern; that connection is weak, I agree, but 
it's there nonetheless and that's why the geneaology is not useless.

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