Who in the Bible has two genealogies?

Answer 1

A:There are two genealogies of Jesus, through his father Joseph and back through the male line - one in Matthew's Gospel and one in Luke's Gospel. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that there is little likelihood that the genealogy in either Matthew or Luke is strictly historical. Quite simply, neither author knew anything about the infancy and ancestry of Jesus, but felt that their readers needed to be told something. Both authors knew the the power of numerology to convince the superstitious people of their time, and the numbers 7 and 14 had particular importance.

Matthew wrote an infancy story that drew parallels between Jesus and Moses. He had Joseph go to Egypt, parallelling the Old Testament Joseph, and the king killed all the infants under two years out of fear of Jesus, just as the Egyptian king of the Old Testament killed all the infants under two out of fear of Moses. So the father of Joseph just had to be called Jacob. Matthew demonstrated that there were 14 generations: from Abraham to David; from David to Josiah; from Josiah to Jesus. To do this, he had to ignore 3 kings in the Old Testament and have David in the preceding (as 14) and following (as 1) groups, but not so Josiah.

Luke, writing about twenty years after Matthew, knew nothing of what Matthew had said. He lacked Matthew's subtle ability to use the Old Testament to foreshadow Jesus, but had considerable ability in the art of Greek rhetoric. Instead of relying on the Old Testamant to the extent that Matthew did, he relied on history sources, particularly the works of Josephus, to give his gospel the appearance of authenticity. He had no reason to consider the name Jacob for the father of Joseph, and chose Heli. Luke had great men occur in multiples of 7 generations starting from Adam, with: Enoch at 7; Abraham at 21; David at 35; Jesus at 77. He also had: Joseph at 42 and 70; Jesus (Jose) at 49. To do this, he had to insert his own fictitious people into the Old Testament list: Kainan at 13; Admin at 28.

Another Answer:

The Jews had a great concern over genealogical records as these proved if one was an Israelite. This confirmed their religious, hereditary, and biological rights in the Law of Moses. These records then were kept in the Temple and all were destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. But they were there for anyone - scribe, Pharisee, Sadducee or citizen to look to as a potential challenge/dispute.

Moreover, as the Jewish people were awaiting the Messiah, they would require Him to meet the requirements set in Genesis 12:1-7; Jeremiah 33:15. And as Jesus claimed to be our Eternal High Priest, He had to meet the requirements mentioned in Ezra 2:62. Remember, the Temple is fully functional in the first half of the 1st Century when Jesus lived.

Additionally, in Jesus' time if one claimed to be the Messiah he would have to prove through his genealogy that he had descended from Abraham and David. To prove this was the case for Jesus, the Gospel writers placed His genealogies at the beginning of Matthew (Joseph's genealogy) and in Luke 3 (Mary's genealogy) for all to see and verify.

It would have been easy for Jesus' adversaries to have refuted His claims to be the Messiah by simply comparing his genealogies with the official records of the time and have shown this was not the case. Scripture doesn't record any instance of the Jewish leaders challenging Jesus on this point. Nor do any extra-biblical writings of the time period.