GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST
Matthew 1:1-16 indicates Christ’s direct descent from Abraham.
In Lk. 3: 23-38 his genealogy is found in reverse, going back to Adam, and to God.
Matthew wants to prove Christ’s legal right to the throne of David and to the covenant promises that God had made with Abraham (Mt. 1:1).
Luke, beginning his genealogy with the Second Adam, the eternal and only begotten Son of God, traces the genealogy back to the first Adam, son of God by creation (Luke 3:38).
It seems to be to facilitate memorization that Matthew, when citing the official record, mentions fourteen generations three times, so there are 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus: 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from David to the deportation to Babylon, and 14 from this deportation to Jesus Christ.
To obtain this symmetry, the mention of kings Ahaziah, Joash and Amaziah has been omitted between Joram and Uzziah in the second division. It could be that there was some analogous omission in the last list of 14 people. For his part, Luke lists 41 names from David to Jesus, while Matthew gives 28, or 31 if the three monarchs mentioned are added.
If Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, mentioned by Matthew, are the same as those who appear in Luke’s list, which is very likely, the following problem arises: Matthew gives Jeconiah as the father of Shealtiel, while Luke gives the name Neri. In reality, the two evangelists present, from David to Jesus, two different lines, which diverge from David onwards.
The first goes through Solomon, and the second through his brother Nathan. In the attached table you can see the differences between both genealogies.
Two plausible explanations can be given for these divergences:
(A) The early Church largely thought that these two lists give the genealogy of Joseph. Julian Africanus (220 AD) was the first of whom we know to have studied the question.
His theory is that Melqui (Juliano had a defective copy) and Matán, José’s grandparents mentioned in the two genealogies, had married, one after the other, the same woman.
Thus, Eli and Jacob would be half-brothers, having the same mother, although different fathers. Eli would have married and, dying without leaving descendants, Jacob, following the law of levirate (Deut. 25: 6), would have taken his brother’s widow, fathering for his sister a son, Joseph.
This would be the reason why Matthew says: “Mattan begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Joseph,” while Luke declares: “Joseph son of Eli, son of Mattath.” Admitting this theory, the problem can be solved with great simplicity, admitting that Matthew’s list mentions the legal heirs to the throne of David, while Luke indicates the paternal ancestry of Joseph.
Solomon’s line died out with Jeconiah, also known as Jehoiachin (Jer. 22:29-30). The right of succession passes to the collateral Davidic line of Nathan, son of David. Salatiel is the representative of this line. For a short period of time, royal descent matches Joseph’s natural ancestry, but after Zerubbabel the two lines diverge.
The family of the first-born, to whom the right of succession to the throne corresponded, ended up becoming extinct, and the descendants of the youngest acquired the right to succession. Matat (sometimes identified with Matán), who belonged to this line, became the heir apparent.
He is supposed to have had two sons, Jacob and Eli. Jacob, the firstborn, would have had no sons, but probably a daughter, the virgin Mary. Eli, the younger, had a son, Joseph; Since Jacob had no male descendants, Joseph became the heir to his uncle and the right to succession. The understood meaning of genealogical terminology allowed Luke to say: “Joseph son of Levi.” This is the first theory.
(B) With the Reformation, another conception of the two genealogies emerged, which seems the most adjusted to reality. According to this theory, Matthew’s record gives the genealogy of Joseph, presenting him as heir to the throne of David, while Luke sets out the genealogy of Mary, showing that Jesus is the true son of David.
For this, three arguments are presented: Luke categorically declares that Jesus did not have a human father; In Hebrew the term “son” is commonly used to designate an even remote descendant; Finally, the text only says that Jesus was believed to be the son of Joseph (Lk. 3:23). According to Luke, Jesus is the grandson of Eli, the father of Mary, and therefore a direct descendant of David.
Matthew’s statement that Shealtiel was the son of King Jeconiah, while Luke says that he was the son of Neri, raises a problem that relates not only to this second theory, but also to the first.
The solution could be very simple: In the year 562 BC, 25 years after the fall of Jerusalem, it was Jeconiah who, despite his prolonged captivity, was virtually recognized as king of Judah (2 Kings 25:27). When he was deported in 597 BC, he had no children.
He was then relatively young, but in 2 Kings 24:8, 12, 15 no children are mentioned among his family members. Jeremiah had prophesied that no sons of his would sit on the throne (Jer. 22:30; cp. what is said of his father in Jer. 36:30). In Mt. 1:12 it says: “After the exile to Babylon, Jeconiah begat Shealtiel.”
Throughout Scripture, parallel passages harmonize. The two genealogies are intelligible if this verse of Matthew is understood according to the broad sense of a genealogical formula indicative of legal royal succession. Upon the death of Jeconiah, the right to the throne passed to Shealtiel, a direct descendant of David.
It could well be that there were close ties of kinship between Jeconiah and Shealtiel. If Jeconiah had no sons, but only a daughter, the right of succession would have passed to her sons, according to the Law (Num. 27:8-11).
The phraseology of these genealogies would thus be explained by the supposition that Neri married the daughter of Jeconiah, and that Shealtiel was his son. The line of Shealtiel was counted according to custom, tracing back from his father to Nathan and David; Shealtiel’s right to the crown came from Jeconiah, his maternal grandfather. Jeconiah was descended from Solomon and David.
In 1 Chr. 3:17 it says, in the original: “And the sons of Jeconiah the captive: Shealtiel his son.” The apposition “his son” applies especially to Salatiel; He qualifies it in a particular way in the sense that it is deemed necessary to repeat the term son; while he already appears formally within the group of the sons of Jeconiah.
This prominent title of son stipulates that Shealtiel was to succeed Jeconiah. If Shealtiel was the son of Jeconiah’s daughter, he could rightly receive the name of the latter’s son, just as Abiezer, son of Gilead’s sister, son of Manasseh, is counted among the number of the sons of Manasseh and of the sons of Gilead (1 Chr. 7:14, 18; Num. 26:30).