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Many commentators attempt to reconcile these discordant genealogies by assuming that Matthew gives the genealogy of Joseph, while Luke gives the genealogy of Mary. What do the Evangelists themselves declare?
Matthew: “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ,” etc. ([i, 16]).
Luke: “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,” etc. ([iii, 23]).
Dr. Geikie, in his “Life of Christ” (vol. i, p. 531, note), says: “The genealogies given by both Matthew and Luke seem unquestionably to refer to Joseph.”
Regarding this the Rev. Dr. McNaught says: “Let the reader bear in mind how Matthew states that ‘Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary,’ and how Luke’s words are ‘Joseph which was the son of Heli,’ and then let him say whether it is truthful to allege that these different genealogies belong to different individuals. Is it not plain that each of them professes to trace the lineal descent of one and the same man, Joseph?”
William Rathbone Greg says: “The circumstance that any man could suppose that Matthew when he said, ‘Jacob begat Joseph,’ or Luke, when he said, ‘Joseph was the son of Heli,’ could refer to the wife of the one, or the daughter-in-law of the other, shows to what desperate stratagems polemical orthodoxy will resort in order to defend an untenable position.”
Smith’s “Bible Dictionary” offers the following explanation: “They are both the genealogies of Joseph, i. e., of Jesus Christ, as the reputed and legal son of Joseph and Mary. The genealogy of St. Matthew is Joseph’s genealogy as legal successor to the throne of David. St. Luke’s is Joseph’s private genealogy, exhibiting his real birth, as David’s son, and thus showing why he was heir to Solomon’s crown. The simple principle that one Evangelist exhibits that genealogy which contained the successive heirs to David’s and Solomon’s throne, while the other exhibits the paternal stem of him who was the heir, explains all the anomalies of the two pedigrees.”
This “simple principle” necessitates three disagreeable postulates. 1. That the lineage of Nathan, who is not the recorded possessor of even one wife, survived, while that of Solomon who had seven hundred wives became extinct. 2. That Joseph was legal successor to the throne of David, when Heli, his father, was not. 3. That the first chapter of Matthew contains more than a score of errors. That little word “begat” is fatal to the above theory. Matthew declares that Jacob begat Joseph. If Jacob begat Joseph, then Jacob, and not Heli, was the father of Joseph. According to Matthew, the royal line descends from David to Joseph unbroken; each heir begetting the succeeding one, thus precluding the possibility of a collateral branch inheriting the throne.
The hypothesis that Jesus was merely the adopted son and legal heir of Joseph and yet fulfilled the Messianic requirements is untenable. Strauss says: “Adoption might indeed suffice to secure to the adopted son the reversion of certain external family rights and inheritances; but such a relationship could in no wise lend a claim to the Messianic dignity, which was attached to the true blood and lineage of David” (Leben Jesu, p. 122).
The Messiah must be a natural and lineal descendant of David, which Peter expressly declares Jesus to be: “God had sworn with an oath to him [David], that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne” ([Acts ii, 30]).
It is assumed by some that a Levirate marriage had taken place between the parents of Joseph, and that the one genealogy belonged to the natural, the others to the legal father of Joseph. By a Levirate marriage if a man died without heirs his remaining brother married his widow and raised up heirs to him. But in this case the brothers would have the same father, and the genealogies would differ only in the father of Joseph. It is only by a succession of Levirate marriages and a juggling of words, which no intelligent critic can seriously entertain, that such a hypothesis can be considered possible, even waiving the Old Testament writers, and the Evangelists themselves, whose language forbids it.
Eusebius advances an explanation characteristic of this ecclesiastical historian and of the early church whose history he professes to record. The Jews, it is said, were divided in their opinions regarding the descent of the Messiah. While some contended that his descent must be through the royal line, others believed that because of the excessive wickedness of the kings the descent would be through another line. Eusebius says: “Matthew gives his opinion, Luke repeats the common opinion of many, not his own.... This last view Luke takes, though conscious that Matthew gives the real truth of the genealogy.”
Matthew’s genealogy is self-evidently false; while Luke’s according to the admission of the historian of the primitive church, is merely a fabrication of early Christians, designed to influence those who rejected Matthew’s genealogy of the Messiah.