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According to the Jewish Bible, one of the requirements for the
messiah is that he must be a descendant of King David. All of the major
Messianic prophecies indicate this (Ezekiel 34:23, 37:21-28; Isaiah
11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; and Hosea 3:4-5).
In
Jeremiah chapter 33, verse 17, G-d says that the royal House of David will
never lack a man
to sit on the throne of Israel. The Christian Bible, recognizing this
vital requirement, spends almost two chapters to establish the
genealogical record of Jesus as going back to King David.
Answer for yourself: Do the genealogies in the New Testament prove that Jesus can be connected to King David and thus give evidence toward his "Messiahship?"
However, when the genealogical records, as recorded by Matthew and Luke are examined, critical problems are revealed.
In the gospel of Matthew, the genealogy of Joseph, who
was the husband of Mary, is traced back to King David. However,
Matthew then shoots himself in the foot by claiming that Joseph was never
the father of Jesus. He does this in order to establish his claim that
Jesus did not have a normal birth. His claim is that Jesus was the product
of a miraculous virgin birth; that Mary never had sexual relations with
her husband Joseph, and that Jesus was conceived through the "Holy
Spirit." Therefore, since the genealogy as recorded in Matthew only
traces Joseph back to King David, but never connects Joseph as the father
of Jesus, it is clear that Jesus has no established genealogical record
going back to King David.
Christian apologists
answer that, even though Joseph wasn't the biological father of Jesus, he
was the legal father, and, therefore, passed on his genealogical line
through adoption.
There are several
problems with this answer.
First of all, there is no
indication from any of the records in the Christian Bible that Joseph
actually adopted Jesus. However,
even if a case for his adoption could be made, it is absolutely impossible
to pass on one's genealogy through adoption.
For
example, a priest (Kohain) is someone who is born to another priest. If
your father is a priest, then you are a priest. If a priest (Kohain)
adopts a boy who is the son of someone who was not a priest, that child
does not become a priest through adoption.
An additional problem
still remains, even if one would want to conclude that, through adoption
the genealogy is adopted as well. We
find that when Matthew traces the genealogical line of Joseph back to King
David, this line goes through a King named Jeconiah (also known as Coniah
or Yehoaikin). The problem arises in Jeremiah, chapter 22, verse 30, when
the ancestor of Joseph named King Jeconiah was cursed by G-d:
"Write
this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days. For no man
of his seed shall prosper sitting upon the throne of David and ruling
anymore in Judah."
We see from this passage in Jeremiah that any descendant of Jeconiah would be disqualified from ever being a Messianic candidate; and therefore, if Christians insist upon making Jesus the legal adopted child of Joseph, then it is obvious that Jesus would be disqualified from even potentially being the messiah.
Answer for yourself: Now,
having seen these problems can you say that the Gospel of Matthew's
genealogical record of Jesus proves anything? If anything, it casts doubt
on his "Messianic link."
In order to answer this difficult problem, Christian apologists
claim that Jesus also traces himself back to King David through his
mother, Mary. This claim is made relative to the genealogy recorded in the
third chapter of the book of Luke, which is also traced back to King
David.
There are also a number of
problems with this claim.
First and foremost, there is no evidence at all that
the genealogy listed in Luke is that of Mary. The
chapter clearly says that this is the genealogy of Joseph.
Mary isn't even mentioned.
In an article written by Arnold Fruchtenbaum, and circulated by "Jews
for Jesus," the author makes the following claim:
"In
the Greek text of Luke's genealogy, every single name mentioned has the
Greek definite article 'the' with one exception: the name of Joseph (Luke
3:23). Someone reading the original would understand by the missing
definite article from Joseph's name that this was not really Joseph's
genealogy, but his wife Miriam's (Mary)."
David L. Blank, Professor of Classic Languages at
The University of California-Los Angeles, made the following observations
about the above comments:
"According to the Greek original,
Eli is indeed the father of Joseph. There is a definite article before
each name, except that of Joseph, and that definite article is in each
case the masculine genitive singular article -- you. Not only does this
not clearly indicate that Joseph is skipped in the genealogy, it cannot by
any stretch of the imagination be taken as so indicated. The author's
comments on the Greek grammar of the passage are absurd and manifest an
appalling ignorance of the facts of Greek syntax."
Other
Greek scholars agree with Professor Blank.
And, even if Mary
could trace herself back to King David, it still wouldn't help Jesus.
According to the Torah, the mother (the matrilineal) determines if someone
is Jewish (Deuteronomy 7:3-4), but
tribal affiliation and family genealogy can only be traced through the
person's father (the patrilineal in accordance with Exodus 28:4, 29:9-30,
30:30, and 40:15 [Priesthood Lineage]; Numbers 36 [Tribal Lineage];
Genesis 49:10, I Kings 11:4, and I Chronicles 17:11-19 [Kingship
Lineage].).
For instance, in Numbers, chapter
1, verse 18, we're told that the Jewish people declare their pedigrees
according to their fathers' houses. When Queen Athaliah wanted to
eliminate the Royal Line of David, she only killed the males knowing full
well that a female descendant of David couldn't pass on the right to the
throne (II Kings 11; II Chronicles 22).
The fact that the
daughters of Zelophchad inherited their father's property (Numbers 27)
doesn't prove that genealogy can be passed through the daughters. This is
born out by Numbers 36, where they are told that they must marry someone
from their father's tribe, otherwise the inheritance would pass out of
their family.
Finally,
a Third problem presents itself.
Even if it could be maintained that a family line could
be passed on through the mother, Mary
herself was not from a legitimate messianic family. According to the
Bible, the messiah must be a descendant of King David through his son
Solomon (II Samuel 7:12-13; I Chronicles 17:11-14, 22:10, 28:4-7).
It's
glaring that in the book of Matthew, the genealogy of Joseph is traced
back to King David through his son Solomon, but ultimately down to the
cursed King Jeconiah. However,
in the book of Luke, the genealogy goes from David, not through his son
Solomon, but through his son Nathan. The problem is that even if one wants
to maintain that the book of Luke is tracing the genealogy of Mary and
that it's possible to pass on genealogical lineage through the mother,
Mary would still not be of help to Jesus, because her line does not go
back to David through the King's son, Solomon.
Answer for yourself: How
does the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to have "inspired" these
writers make so many mistakes; not just simple ones, but ones that betray
they have little or no knowledge of Judaism (and yet we are supposed to
believe these documents were written by Jews, Apostles no less?
We at Bet Emet have demonstrated beyond any doubt over the years that the Jewish prophecies contained in the Jewish Bible were not fulfilled in the first century; by Jesus or by anyone. This fact is unknown to most Christians because they have a terrible lack of understanding of the Old Testament thanks to the Church who considers such a document as "superceded" by the New Testament. As if that is not enough, when such Christians read their New Testament they find on page after page references to "thus being fulfilled" and they are mistakenly led to believe what they are reading is "Jewish prophecy fulfilled by the Messiah." Thus they make the connection with Jesus being the Messiah. The truth of the matter is that we just don't know for sure since the "REAL PROPHECIES" in the Jewish Bible were not fulfilled, and remain today unfulfilled. That being the case the writers of these two Gospels wrote for the Jews and non-Jews of their day who had doubts concerning the identity of the Messiah. To help deal with such doubts a "concocted genealogy" was created whereby they could pass off Jesus as the intended fulfillment of the Messianic promises. We must remember that they had "hoped" that it would be he, but in the wake of the terrible repercussions that followed his death by Rome, and in the absence of any of the Messianic promises being fulfilled, they were left only with hope and faith that the Messiah would yet come (or return). The Essene's teaching of the return of their Teacher of Righteousness played well in igniting the hopes that this "returning redeemer" might yet come. Many hoped and believed it might be Jesus no less.
What you, the Christian believer, should want to know
is the facts and the truth; no matter what it is. As it stood then, and as
it stands now, Jesus failed to fulfill any of the major messianic
prophecies; he was never anointed as King, he never ruled Israel, and the
world was certainly not perfected in his time. In addition, he was not
preceded by the return of the prophet Elijah (Malachi 4:5). Finally, he
was disqualified from ever being a messianic candidate due to his lack of
the necessary family background (if we are to believe these Gospel
accounts are "true").
The Jewish people never rejected
Jesus. He just never measured up to the description that G-d gave to the
Jewish people, of who the messiah would be. Yet take heart, as we at Bet
Emet have shown, that the failure of the prophecies to be fulfilled was
not the failure of Jesus or any other "messenger" from G-d. The
failure must be laid upon a people who refused to "turn their hearts
back to their fathers." Repentance was for someone else, and that
being the case, the necessary requirements for the manifestation of the
Kingdom and her King went lacking. Any Messiah "in the wings"
would not be brought forth from G-d. Thus we look back at history today
and know two things:
We are left with inaccurate texts passed off as the
truth and we call it "the New Testament" and such errors, when
believed without question, ensures the deception and error of tens of
millions. You are confronted with a choice: you can believe what G-d said
when he promised the Jewish people a messiah from the House of David
through Solomon his son, or you can decide that G-d was lying when He made
these vital promises and believe the writer of the Gospel of Luke. But you
cannot have both!
We aren't talking about a crisis in faith, but,
rather, a search for the truth.
Answer for
yourself: Do you have the courage to make that search, or even
continue it?
Bennoah1@verizon.net