Problems with Jesus' Lineage

Was Jesus A Legitimate Heir to The Royal Line of David?

According to Judaism, a primary consideration for a candidate to be our Messiah is he must be a father-son descendant of King David - a line that was traceable even into the early Middle Ages. Jesus lived within that time, and the writers of the New Testament considered it essential that he be shown as David’s descendant. In fact, the New Testament opens up with the words:

The book of the generations of Jesus Christ, the son of David…

Matthew 1:1.

To determine whether Jesus was a legitimate heir to David’s line, we will now examine the New Testament. Several problems are found there that help explain why the Jewish people could not accept Jesus as our Messiah.

Who was Jesus’ father? A Contradiction. Most Christians considers Jesus as both the Messiah and the Son of G-d, which poses a contradiction. Who was his father? If it is G-d, then Jesus is not someone of David’s lineage. If it is David, then he cannot be the Son of G-d. The fact that he could have only one father makes being the Son of G-d and the Messiah as mutually exclusive. Which is it?

Christians contend that G-d is his father, and that Jesus got his connection to David through two lineages shown in the New Testament: one in the book of Matthew, the other in the book of

Luke. Our discussion will now deal with those lineages, together with one from the book of

1st Chronicles in the Tanach for comparison. By examining these lineages, we will see that they present quite a problem for the Christian position.

Point #1: Both lineages end with Joseph (Jesus’ stepfather), yet are extremely different.

How can Joseph have two different lineages? It certainly challenges the credibility of one, if not both of them. The Christian response to this is that the Matthew lineage is that of Joseph, whereas the Luke lineage belongs to Mary. We will now deal with each one to examine their problems.

Concerning Joseph’s Lineage in Matthew.

Point #2: A stepfather is not your father. We are looking, in a sense, to find the path whereby David’s Y-chromosomes (passed father-to-son) reached Jesus. It doesn’t jump from one’s stepfather. Christians will argue that Joseph adopted Jesus, and by doing so gave over the inheritance of the royal line. Yet, just as with the Kohanim (Priests), an adopted son cannot become a Kohane. So, too, a son adopted by a member of the royal line cannot become heir to the throne.

Point #3: Missing Names & Generations. When you compare the Davidic line shown in Matthew against how it is shown in 1st Chronicles, we see that 4 names are eliminated as indicated on the chart. The language in Matthew, for instance, states that Uzziah (same as Azariah) was the son of Jehoram, instead of the son of Amaziah. Christian apologists try to explain this by stating that when it says “this one begat that one”, it implies his ancestor, and not necessarily his father. The problem they create for themselves, is that Matthew states:

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

We can accept that names could be skipped when showing an ancestral line. However, it is not fair to take a lineage that stretched from David to the exile, which included 18 generations, and claim it only contained 14.

Point #4: Joseph himself was not a legitimate heir to the throne. Even if you could get your lineage through adoption, one could only pass on what you rightly own, and Joseph was of an invalid line. In Matthew 1:11 it shows that Joseph was descended from a former king named Jechoniah, or Coniah for short. He was a very wicked king, and was cursed by Hashem. In Jeremiah 22, we see that Jechoniah’s descendants are absolutely cut-off as heirs to the throne. Therefore anyone descended from Joseph was also cut-off as a candidate to be king.

Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? An object that no one cares for? Why are they cast out, he and his seed, and banished to a land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord, Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

Jeremiah 22:28-30

Christians will answer that even the Talmud tells us that Jechoniah repented, and that his grandson Zerubbabel became a leader among the Jews. This they claim is proof that the curse was temporary, and was later rescinded. The fact is that Zerubbabel only became a governor. Neither he nor anyone else from this line ever sat on the throne again. The curse remained.

As a descendant of Jechoniah, Joseph’s lineage was not valid. The reality is that very few Christians attach Jesus to David through Joseph anyway, relying more on the line of Mary. Which leads us to wonder, why was the lineage of Joseph even mentioned to begin with?

Concerning Mary’s Lineage in Luke.

Point #5: Mary’s name is not mentioned anywhere in connection to Luke’s lineage. How would we know this is Mary’s line? Some will contend that Heli is really Mary’s father, and when it says that Heli is the father of Joseph, it really means father-in-law. Yet, the New Testament says nothing about who Heli was anywhere, and he is only mentioned here. Others contend that Joseph was also the name of Mary’s father, and that the Joseph mentioned here was really Mary’s father, not husband. The bottom line is that one cannot substantiate this as Mary’s lineage by anything written in the New Testament, but must rely on a Christian oral tradition. This is ironic, since Christians are so adamant in condemning the legitimacy of Jewish oral traditions, insisting on a strict reliance on scripture alone.

Point #6: The royal line is only passed through the father, never the mother. Even if the lineage mentioned in Luke is Mary’s lineage - that presents a problem in of itself. True, one’s Jewishness is passed through the mother, yet one’s tribal inheritance passes through the father. Christians argue that the Book of Numbers shows a case where a father had no sons, and his estate of land went to his daughters, who it is presumed could pass it on to their children. The Jewish position, however, is that this may apply to property, but not to one’s rights to the throne. Yet, even if we were to assume that the lineage could pass through the mother, and we assume that Luke’s lineage did in fact belong to Mary, was Mary’s lineage a legitimate one?

Point #7: David-to-Solomon. According to Judaism, the Davidic line had to pass through David’s son Solomon, and no other son.

As I swore to you by the Lord G-d of Israel , saying, assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me (David), and he shall sit upon my throne in my place…

I Kings 1:30

Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies around; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.

1 Chronicles 22:9-10

Luke’s lineage shows that Mary is not from Solomon’s line, but rather from another of David’s sons, Nathan (Luke 3:31 ), who was not the royal heir. Since Mary is not from Solomon’s line, she and her descendants do not have a legitimate connection to the royal line of David either.

Point #8: Unlikely Marriage. If in fact the lineage shown in Matthew was Joseph’s (27 generations from David to Joseph), and the lineage in Luke was in fact Mary’s (43 generations from David to Mary), then Mary married someone 16 generations older than herself. Quite unlikely.

Having seen that neither Matthew’s lineage of Joseph, nor Luke’s (supposed) lineage of Mary is legitimate, how can one consider Jesus as a legitimate descendant of David? One cannot. Without this, an honest person cannot accept Jesus as the Messiah, since this is the most important criterion, and Jesus does not have it.