JESUS' BLOODLINE FAILS TO ESTABLISH HIS RIGHT TO BE KING OF ISRAEL OR MESSIAH
Two of the four gospels in the New Testament give ancestor lists for Jesus Christ. The gospels were Matthew and Luke. By these lists, they hoped to prove that Jesus was a descendant of King David and therefore the rightful King of the Jews. Jesus supposedly claimed to be the Messiah or Christ, that means anointed one or king. Jesus' claim to be Christ was more important than the resurrection. If the claim is unverifiable or spurious then Jesus was not the Christ.
The two lists do not agree. Some argue that Matthew is giving Jesus' legal line through his foster father Joseph. They think Luke is presenting his biological line through Mary though she is not even mentioned. Matthew has Jacob as the grandfather and Luke has Heli. The answer is implying that Jesus' biological line was traced legally of Jacob and biologically of Heli. Even so Luke's list was going to impress no Jewish lawyer. A bloodline is not enough on its own to show that Jesus was the successor of King David, the Messiah. And Matthew's was too messy because of Joseph's situation. Joseph would need to have had adopted Jesus which he did not. And was his marriage to Mary real and valid? If not then he was a stand in father not a foster father. Succession usually works by putting biology and legality together. Every throne would have loads of contenders if you make it too fluid and treat a foster father as a father.
Joseph supposedly died before Jesus did so where are the shrines or records that his tomb was a royal tomb? Why were Zealots who wanted to put a king in place not recruiting him?
Matthew and Luke both have Shealtiel and Zerubbabel in the list. Some think this is not an intersection but a reference to different Shealtiels and Zerubabbels. In Matthew Shealtiel is fathered by Jeconiah. But this king and his line was disqualified in Jeremiah 22:30 saying that none of his seed shall prosper or sit on the throne of David or rule in Judah, Now in Luke the father is Neri. If Luke is giving Mary's list, is he deliberately skipping Jeconiah for that would imply Jesus' physical lineage came from a king whose line is banned by God from kingship?
Matthew skips loads of ancestors to shorten his genealogy. It is fatal how Matthew traced Jesus' lineage back to Jechoniah whose line was rejected by God (Jeremiah 22). When he omitted ancestors why did he include him? There are laughable Christian solutions to this problem that fail dismally. They usually say that Jechoniah must have been forgiven by God - that is just an excuse and a rationalisation. There is no evidence to support it. And when God rejected the line he didn't say he would change his mind. Even if there was forgiveness the line was still rejected for God had another line he wanted to promote.
So the Christians say that Jechoniah was forgiven by God but they can't come up with a clear Bible statement to that effect. It can be dismissed as futile speculation. They use guesses to reconcile Bible contradictions. Then they have the nerve to say the Bible doesn't contradict itself when the fact of the matter is that it might. They are pretending to know it doesn't. You can reconcile any contradiction if you use their methods which means you will never be able to recognise a contradiction when you see one!
Maybe we need to dig more deeply. Note that the name Jeconiah is given as Koniah is just a variation of his name. The Bible uses Jehoiachin as well.
King Jehoiachim son of Josiah died. His son Jehoiachin succeeded him. Of that one we read that his line is cursed. "Is this man Jehoiachin a despised, broken pot, an object no one wants? Why will he and his children be hurled out, cast into a land they do not know? O land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Lord says. Record this man as if childless, a man who will not prosper in his lifetime, for none of his offspring will prosper, none will sit on the throne of David or rule anymore in Judah." Jeremiah 22:28-30. Jesus' can have all the prophecies he wants but it won't help make him Messiah for this man was his ancestor (Matthew 1:12) and disqualified from the throne along with his line. This man was king when Nebuchadnezzar II kicked him off the throne and took him away from his land as a captive. Believers validate that bit and try to make out that God relented on the curse on the bloodline though there is no hint that would be done. You cannot cherry-pick like that. If one prediction is true and solid and correct the other means to be taken the same way.
In Jeremiah 22:24 God refers to the king as his signet ring that he will pull off. That is a very strong image. Its symbolism alone indicates something final and indicates extreme hostility. It means, "You are on my right hand and now you are cast off". Jesus is claimed to be on the right hand of God. The prophecy makes a good candidate for invalidating Jesus.
Solution one by Christians say that he was Joseph's ancestor and Joseph was not Jesus' biological father. But Matthew treats Joseph as if he was to establish a legal claim to the throne for Jesus. And if Mary conceived, a sperm had to be involved, so is the meaning that Joseph though he had no sex with her had lost a sperm in a miracle that impregnated her? Conceived is conceived and conceived by the Holy Spirit is a euphemism. In the language of those days, Joseph was not Jesus' real father but genetically he was.
Solution two is that the ban only applied to the kings' direct offspring. That does not fit the severity with which he is cut off. We are told that he will not prosper in his lifetime and is counted childless though he had children. This indicates the invalidation of his line.
Solution three is that Haggai told the kings grandson that he would make him a signet ring on God's hand (Haggai 2:23). The grandson's name is Zerubbabel. This seems to indicate that the bloodline was reinstated and the ban lifted. Tellingly Zerubbabel did not ascend to the throne and could not. There is no evidence that this man was qualified to take the throne. He was not for there were other contenders therefore we consider Matthew's work to be contrived and useless. Zerubbabel was governor not king (Haggai 2:21). Being signet ring as governor does not entitle us to think that if he had been king he would have been signet ring then.
Joseph was part of the condemned bloodline of Jechoniah and in Jesus' case you could say his failure to sit on the throne of Israel or to at least get anointed as king was fulfillment of God's warning that nobody from this line would be enthroned as king. But those who say Luke is giving Mary's family tree then if you count the bloodline from Mary Jesus then has a way to become king. Or has he? Adopted or not Joseph was his putative father. And both Luke and Matthew only focused on his line in their ancestor lists for Jesus and thus as good as stated that Mary does not count. Mary could have had Jechoniah in her bloodline too for all we know.
Matthew left loads of characters out and yet he boasted that Jesus said nothing would pass away from the Old Testament. Matthew treats it as empty of authority by chopping and manipulating it! A title deed to a throne needs to show that the author really has looked at all the data. Matthew failed there. The Christians say that the wider sense of father which is father or ancestor or son which is son or descendant in the wider sense is certainly in the Matthew list. But it is certainly absent from the Lucan. Now they say that about Matthew for he skipped many people but that may only prove Matthew’s over-confidence in his source which was sloppy.
Matthew’s list gives no assurance that these ancestors wives in his list did
not have sex romps with other men with the result that their husbands’ heirs
were not their sons just like Jesus was allegedly not the son of Joseph. It has people who were not mentioned in the Old Testament scriptures.
Because the early Church assumed Jesus was the messiah they assumed
the Old Testament would provide his bloodline. Jesus after all said
it was about him. They had to use whatever they found even if
it meant using non-Jews such as Ruth. It would look odd if they had
to use other documentation when the Old Testament was supposedly the
word of God looking forward to the Messiah. This desperation
shows and the end result is a bloodline that fails to show Jesus was
the real king or how he even might be. God
allegedly kept the Old Testament genealogies to verify who Jesus was and then he
fails! There are other verses in Matthew that could be taken as throwing the
gospel into entirely a different light. Matthew’s use of Mark would not refute
this if Matthew believed, as many did, it was a pack of fables even if the Mark
author was trying to get his own book accepted as history.
Nathan was not of the royal bloodline but he
is presented by Luke as a direct ancestor for Jesus. This rules out
Jesus being real king.
Jesus' mother would have been of the Levi tribe like her kinswoman Elizabeth. Thus Luke by stating that is ruling out the notion that the genealogy he gives could be hers.
Paul writes that genealogies are foolish in 1 Timothy 1:3,4 and Titus 3:9. Is this about Jews trying to get property and money by showing they are of a particular family or tribe? Is it about people trying to look for Jewish roots in order to claim rights in Palestine? It seems so for Paul mentioned Jesus’ roots in Romans 1:1-3. Or does it? He only said Jesus descended from David but that is a far cry from commissioning a family tree.
In Chapter 23 of the History of the Church by Eusebius claims that after the Jews failed to destroy Paul they started to think about entrapping James the Brother of the Lord in Jerusalem. He suggests that James refused to renounce Jesus and the Jews threw him off the temple and despatched him with a club. Eusebius thinks the account of Hegesippus was the most accurate. If James was a real relative or even a real brother that nobody considered him to be the Christ or potential Christ is odd. Jesus was dead and was not the real Messiah in their view. Yet we are told in the gospels Jesus had a royal bloodline. It is very confusing.
Christ's miracles can't save his claim to be Messiah for he said that his miracles were pointers to the truth. If a miracle points to a lie, it is a lie or a hoax or the work of Satan.
Sometimes the meaning and purpose of a whole book depends on one line in it. A film is not a true story if it ends with a line saying it was all a dream. One could argue that Matthew’s genealogy is his way of saying he was writing a story for the stupid that was not true and that Jesus was not the Messiah and therefore nothing else he said he was. Why? Because it has gaps in it and is therefore useless.
The absence of evidence that Jesus had a right to claim to be Messiah is fatal to his claims. A royal bloodline would not be enough. You need to show he is the legitimate heir. The Messiah claim is more basic than his claim to come back from the dead. What use is evidence for the resurrection without it? It is like having evidence that John killed Josh which is no good when you cannot show that John was even at the scene of the crime! Worse it is only hearsay that Jesus said he rose! “Jesus was able to tell us he rose from the dead for he rose from the dead therefore his resurrection is true.” That is not an argument.
FINALLY
Christians say that though Joseph was not Jesus' father, Jesus became lawful king because Joseph was the unrecognised lawful king and Joseph’s heir and son by adoption. Christians still say Jesus was Joseph’s adopted son. But what rational God would promise King David a Messiah from his loins who was merely adopted into the line? And with Jesus, Joseph vanishes off the scene after the Nativity stories in the gospel. Joseph was never reported to have accepted Jesus as his legal son. Where are the legal papers? He was only called Jesus’ father according to the story but that doesn't mean he was a real foster father. It is no good. Jesus wasn’t even his legally adopted son! Some Messiah!
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