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Psalm 89:3-4
"For I said, "Forever will [Your] kindness be built; the heavens, You establish Your faithfulness in them." 4 "I made a covenant with My chosen one, I have sworn to David, My servant: For all eternity I will establish your seed; and I will build your throne for generation after generation," Selah.
35-36 "I shall not profane My covenant, and I shall not alter the utterance of my lips. 36 One thing have I sworn by My holiness-that I would not be decitful to David."
I will now direct your attention to the following texts from the New Testament [Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3 :23-38, Acts 2:30]. I will not reproduce them to their length but leave you to inspect them as we go through this article.
Judaism and Christianity agree that the Messiah will be a descendant of King David. Jesus' genealogy is traced back to King David in the New Testament.
Answer for yourself: Does the genealogies within the New Testament testify to the Messiahship of Jesus?
Two different and conflicting genealogies are offered by Matthew and Luke. If a genealogy is given to prove descent from David, then it should be faultless and true. Instead, we find multiple difficulties exist which make both enumerations highly suspect due to inconsistencies and questionable presentations. Such errors testify that the Holy Spirit had nothing to do with such gobbledygook. I have taken the time to outline points of irregularity, each a formidable challenge to Christianity's claim of Jesus being descended from David. Read and see.
Some of these errors appear to have been caused by the use of the Greek translation, rather than the original Hebrew, and the New Testament writers copying the listing of the generations from there. But, in any case, the contradictions and faults are beyond any attempt at reconciliation or explanation. In I Timothy 1:4 warning is given against trying to use confusing genealogy tables in, "Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions. . ." This probably alludes to this present problem, as Titus 3:9 seems to do also. Nevertheless, the proof of ancestry is given twice in the New Testament and creates a quagmire for Christianity.
In desperation, Christianity attempts to resolve these problems with weak and inadequate explanations, such as the following. First, Matthew is alleged to list Joseph's ancestors, while Luke lists Mary's. She presumably is descended from King David also. The trouble with this is that it is not Biblically stated, and the evidence is against it. See in Matthew 1:16 it reads, "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus,. . ." And in Luke 3:23, "And Jesus the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli," is read. Thus, that explanation is disproved. In addition, in Scripture maternal ancestors are never used for succession to thrones. Only paternal ancestors, using male figures of heritage, are used.
Another explanation Christianity tries to have accepted concerns Joseph as a son-in-law. But, this has no validity as to succession. It has been conceived that Heli was Mary's father, not Joseph's. But, by no stretch of the imagination can a father-in-law be given credibility as a named father in Biblical writing. Yet, even with this twisted reasoning, we still would find the female genealogy lacking in importance. For, Mary as a female is not an heir.
One other idea which has been devised is that Mary had two different husbands called Joseph, both married to her at the time of Jesus' birth.
Answer for yourself: What do you think of that one?
Answer for yourself: How many people can trace their ancestry even one or two hundred years, no less the approximate one thousand years between King David and Jesus? Men in those days had many children from several mates, and no official birth records were kept. How could any genealogy for this number of years in this primitive society be valid?
And remember the New Testament shocker that Jesus himself even denied that the Messiah would be descended from King David. In Matthew 22:44-45 (Mark 12:3 7) (Luke 20:42-44) he said, "If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?"
To properly understand and sort out the confusion connected with the above verses of Matt. 22:45 and Luke 20:44 we must properly understand Psalm 110 verse one. This is the famous "The Lord said to my Lord" passage which most Christians believe is spoken of Jesus.
Answer for yourself: What is the truth of the matter?
Psalm 110:1, "The Lord said to my Lord, sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool."
This passage is used by Christianity to show that the Lord G-d and the Lord Jesus are in some close supernatural relationship.
We must never forget that these words are from G-d to the human "lord" of this Psalm, who is none other than David himself. It is necessary to read at the beginning of this Psalm that it says in the Hebrew that it is "concerning or about" David. The translation of the second "lord" is the equivalent of "master." No capitalization should exist, as it is not a reference to G-d. The reading more properly is, "A psalm concerning David, G-d said to my master (David) . . ." Jesus as Lord is not alluded to here at all.
Through inspirational prophesy, the psalm writer gives King David (himself) the assurance of victory over the enemies of the Jewish people. He is to be protected by G-d's power, as shown in the special phrase "at my right hand." This special phrase is repeated elsewhere, for instance in Psalm 118:16, "The right hand of the Lord is exalted: the right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly." The figurative expression denotes a place of importance and special care. The expression "footstool" denotes defeat and completes the picture.
Now, note the past tense of the verb, which reads "said." It means that G-d already had presented His remarks to this "lord." Yet, Jesus was to be born much later in history.
Answer for yourself: G-d certainly would not be talking Lord-to-Lord to Himself in the same G-dhead. He could not in any rational manner, could He? It is inconceivable and absurd. Any thoughts of Christologic findings in this Psalm must be dismissed.
However, an important comment on the New Testament's verses concerning this Psalm is in order. It says in Matthew 22:45 (Mark 12:3 7) (Luke 20:44), that Jesus asked how the Messiah (Christ) can be David's son when David himself called the Messiah "Lord." So, here we have the origination of the error. Jesus asked a very perplexing question. It is a question, which if taken at face value, would devastate the New Testament's texts on the subject of the Messiah. Pay attention to this. If Jesus did not believe the Messiah is to be a descendant of David, then he denied the necessity for all the validation of the Messiah from Davidic ancestry. This contradicts Christianity's own claim that Jesus, through his ancestry, has Messianic pretensions and is fulfilling Scripture prophesy. It cannot be both ways. We leave the pondering of this dilemma to those it concerns, Christians.
Having studied the New Testament and it's many changes over the years I accept the above problem as scribal error or at least mixed-up oral tradition or mixed-up Gentile theology. If Jesus was a good Jew, and I believe him to be, then he would never have believed such a mess as recorded as coming from his lips. Such a error by one in the first century betrays the writers' complete lack of Messianic understanding and betrays the identity of the writer as a non-Jew who is unfamiliar with Judaism and the intricacies of the Messianic prophecies.
Now, we are interested in the denial that the Messiah will be descended from David. In spite of this, Christianity tries to prove descent from King David for Jesus. Two genealogies are offered in the New Testament, because they know the Bible has requirements of lineage for the Messiah to come.
In conclusion, with all that we have presented, we believe we have disposed of the so-called proof of Jesus being the Messiah through Davidic descent. However, now we must ask the fundamental question of why should we bother to do so when Christianity says Joseph was not the natural father of Jesus? Read Matthew 1:20, ". . . the angel of the Lord appeared. . . saying. . . fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost." Whether this actually happened or not is not pertinent to our subject. What is of interest is that in Christianity Jesus is not the natural son of Joseph. Therefore, Joseph's heritage is not Jesus'. Adopted Sons or step-sons do not receive paternal lineage. They are not as Acts 2:30 states the Messiah should be, ". . . the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh ."
Answer for yourself: So, if Jesus was not the physical son of Joseph, why the two genealogies' But, if he was the physical son, he cannot be described as conceived by the Holy Ghost as presented in the New Testament. It cannot work both ways. It is quite a dilemma for Christianity. But, it is Christianity's sticky problem that few believers ever consider. What a Christian has to deal with is that keeping the supernatural conception, as Christianity must, we arrive at the conclusion that Jesus has no claim to Davidic heritage on any grounds whatsoever. Again we cannot have it both ways.
Bennoah1@verizon.net