Able Charts Jesus Genealogy

Bible Genealogy Bible GenealogyMatthew vs. Eusebius Genealogy of JesusBack to the home page.We struggle with the genealogy of Jesus Christ because Matthew and Luke give us such different genealogies. Additionally, there is a partial genealogy in 1 Chronicles. For a side by side comparison of the genealogies in 1 Chronicles, Matthew and Luke clickThe rest of this page will present discussions from various sources that attempt to explain why Matthew and Luke are so different. Through the material here I hope to shed some light on the following questions:. Are Matthew and Luke at variance with each other concerning the genealogy of Christ?.

Can the two accounts be harmonized?A. First, bear in mind the following points about Matthew's genealogy:. He began with Abraham. He divided Jesus' genealogy into three blocks of 14 names each for a total of 42 names.

There are 14 generations from Abraham to David. There are 14 generations from David until the exile to Babylon. There are 14 generations from the exile to Babylon until the birth of Christ.

He presents Jesus' genealogy in accordance with the sacred number (seven). The list is a selective 'pedigree' of Jesus. He leaves out whole generations. The number '14' equals the numerical value of David's name in Hebrew (4+6+4, dwd). This is similar to the number 666 for Nero, which appears in Revelation.B. Now, keep these points in mind about Luke's genealogy of Jesus:.

Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam. Thus, Luke holds that Jesus serves all people, Jew and Gentile alike. Luke also presents the genealogy in multiples of seven, but not so obviously as Matthew. Luke's genealogy totals 77 names. There are 21 generations from Adam to Abraham. There are 14 generations from Abraham to David. There are 21 names from David until the exile.

There are 21 names from the exile to Joseph.C. A comparison of the two genealogies reveals these points:. From Abraham to David the two lists are essentially in agreement. Many of the names listed after the exile in both lists are unknown anywhere else in the Bible.C. What About Mary?:From the very beginning Christians have been troubled about exactly how Mary fits into the overall genealogy of Jesus. Old Testament prophesy declared that the Messiah would be born as a descendant of King David. Matthew and Luke go to great lengths to plot Joseph's genealogy to prove that Jesus was, indeed, a descendant of David.

But, the New Testament states emphatically that Mary was a virgin. How, people ask, could Jesus be a descendant of David through Joseph? That probably bothered the early Christians as much as it does Christians today.There is not a genealogy of Mary in the Bible.

In fact nothing at all is known about Mary until the angel appeared to her to announce the birth of Jesus through her. There is a gospel called the Infancy Gospel of James also known as the Protevangelium of James. This non-canonical gospel begins with an account of the birth of Mary to Joachim and Anna. However, this gospel does not give any additional information about Mary's lineage and Joachim is not mentioned in the New Testament. So, the theory that Jesus' lineage to David could have gone through Mary cannot be proved from any information available to us.Having completed the introduction above let's now turn to the early church historian Eusebius for further enlightenment.Eusebius of Caesarea's Church HistoryThe Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius, written In A.D.

Able Charts Jesus Genealogy Pdf

325, is a classic, which ranks in significance with the works of Flavius Josephus. What Josephus did for the Old Testament and Intertestamentary period, Eusebius did for the New Testament era and for the early years of the post-Biblical church history. This particular work embraces the events of the first three centuries of the Christian church, to the time Constantine became master of the Roman world. There are two things you need to keep in mind as you read Eusebius' works:. Eusebius uses the phrase 'uterine brothers.' It is important to understand what this means if we are to understand his argument.

In ancient Jewish law, when a man died and left a widow, it was the duty of his brother to marry the widow. This served two purposes. One, it provided for the welfare of the widow and her children. Second, it provided for the continuance of the deceased man's line as full 'brothers' of his other children. All children born of the marriage of his widow to his brother were considered to still be his (the deceased's) children.

These children were treated as his descendants in every legal and religious sense of the word. Thus a man could have a 'biological' father and a 'legal' father. The excerp below is not easy to read or digest.

You will probably need to print it out and study it closely to lock in every piece of the argument. Eusebius mentions 'resurrection' in the second paragraph below. Keep in mind that many Jews at that time did not believe in a resurrection of the body after death. That was a Christian concept. That means that when a brother married the wife of his dead brother the children represented a kind of resurrection for the dead brother.There is a chart below the following excerpt from Eusebius that I hope will help you to understand his theory.

You might want to have the chart close at hand as you read the text.Eusebius of Caesarea, Church History: Book IChapter 7: The Alleged Discrepancy in the Gospels in regard to the Genealogy of ChristMatthew and Luke in their gospels have given us the genealogy of Christ differently, and many suppose that they are at variance with one another. Since as a consequence every believer, in ignorance of the truth, has been zealous to invent some explanation which shall harmonize the two passages, permit us to subjoin the account of the matter which has come down to us, and which is given by Africanus, in his epistle to Aristides, where he discusses the harmony of the gospel genealogies.