Why Are There Two Different Genealogies of Jesus?

With the Christmas season, there arrives the usual rotation of objections to the Bible that focus on the early portions of the synoptic Gospels. Since skeptics are usually as bored as they are unaware that all of these have been answered for centuries, we can pretty well predict that the first objection (just as the last turkey and pie have been digested) is going to be the one they run into in Matthew 1.  

There have always been different proposals for why Matthew and Luke each do what they do with their genealogies. The ones most convincing are those that are theological, or redemptive-historical, in their appeal, rather than ones that attempt to answer skeptical questions of which the biblical authors themselves had no interest.

As far as we know, the earliest resolution in recorded church history came from Eusebius. He leaned on a non-extant letter of Julius Africanus to one Aristides, where Matthew and Luke are reconciled by appealing to the Jewish law of Levirate marriage. This provided for a man to marry the widow of his deceased brother, if they had not produced an heir.1 While an interesting start, that leaves virtually the whole puzzle left to still put together. Augustine builds upon the different placements of the lists—for Matthew at the very beginning, whereas following the baptism by Luke—so that Matthew relates the ordinary generation, whereas Luke highlights the priestly. Aquinas seems to have taken both of those older explanations into account.2

So there are different ways that this challenge has been answered, and these answers are well aware that the two lists begin tracing different lines at different sons of David—Solomon and the kings for Matthew (1:6ff), and Nathan and what appear to be the more obscure relatives for Luke (3:31ff). 

However, the reply with the most scholarly consensus, and which seems to cover all bases is unsurprisingly the theological one. It goes back to the biblical author’s own purposes for writing. 

The Best Resolution in the Overall Unique Gospel Perspectives

Luke wrote to Gentiles, and was showing the creation / new creation lineage (notice he goes back to Adam, Christ being the Second Adam), whereas Matthew wrote to Jews, and was showing the more obvious royal lineage. But it may be that it is precisely the divine subversion of the obvious that was the whole point. Throughout the Scriptures, God begins upsetting the natural birth order, removing the inheritance from natural firstborn sons, and transfering that kingdom to a people who did not seek him (cf. Rom. 9:30; 10:20). When we start with that big picture, we can get down into the details. 

Joseph’s father is said to be Heli by Luke, but notice that Luke does not use the term “begat” or “fathered” (ἐγέννησεν), or even “son” (υἱός), but merely “of” (τοῦ Ἡλεὶ). It was common to say that one was “of” the family one married into. Remember also that the rest in Matthew’s line after Solomon were kings. We may not know exactly what Luke was highlighting, but whatever it was, it was Mary’s line. The names Matthew was bringing up were quite famous. They may not be to us; but these were more famous to them than the list of past presidents are to Americans. And the problem of the line of David was already a problem for the Jews. So for Matthew, it was a “problem with a purpose.” We come to it by noting the name ‘Jechoniah’ (v. 11). 

Sproul comments on him,

“Noticeable by its absence in Luke’s genealogy is any reference to King Jeconiah, who is mentioned twice in Matthew’s list. Jeconiah came under the curse of God such that his seed would never be on the throne of David. This means that if Luke had traced Jesus’ genealogy through Joseph, Jesus couldn’t have been king, but since Jeconiah does not appear in Luke’s list, it is likely that Luke’s list traces the line through Mary.”3

Jechoniah is not a household name to us. But he is significant because he was the last of David’s line to be on the throne. A familiarity with Matthew’s Gospel as a whole will show the idea of God “transfering” the kingdom, especially in the kingdom parables later on.

So to get right to the point, Matthew was well aware that to leave Mary out leaves out the physical bloodline connection. That was what the Jews would be looking for, and he was explicitly writing to the Jews and so very purposefully leaving it out. In his whole Gospel, he is pulling the rug out from under the Jewish traditional notion of King and kingdom, and he wastes no time in doing it. The physical line passes through the obscure: second and third born sons, and those are the people that Luke grafts in.

Now I will grant that there have been other explanations, some of which fit this larger framework, others being alternatives. 

For instance, “Heli” is said to be Mary’s father because no real term for father-in-law. It is possible, though there would have been other ways to express that in Greek if Luke had so desired. There is also the potential stress of “outsiders” by Luke (Mary being a woman), as is the pattern of his Gospel. But then why is it that in Matthew’s version there is the more obvious inclusion of the women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah [Bathsheba], and still the mention of Mary? Here also there are various theories. It may be that since Matthew's aim is so driven to challenge the prevailing Jewish expectation of the Messiah and his kingdom, that the idea of women, even “outsider” women (two literal outsiders as foreigners, the other two involved in infamous sexual immorality), fits that theme even better than it does for Luke.

There are other strengths to the view that places Mary’s line with Luke. But any way one slices it, no, there is no contradiction here. These are two very intentionally different lines that stretch from either Joseph or Mary back up toward David, from whom both descended.

___________________

1. Hugh Chisholm, ed. (1911). "Africanus, Sextus Julius". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. citing Hist. Ecc. i. 7; vi. 31

2. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew (Camillus, NY: Dolorossa Press, 2012), 12-13.

3. R. C. Sproul, Matthew (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), 19.