Bible Contradiction: Who was Jesus' paternal grandfather?

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Was it Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Or was it Heli (Luke 3:23)?

They are not the same list. They are not meant to be the same.

http://www.ministrytoday.org/Seminars/s ... ealogy.htm

91, you are presenting an apologetic speculation as fact.

That being said, the genealogies are both genealogies of Joseph.

That's what I used to argue back when I was a Christian apologist. But I knew, deep down, that it was dishonest of me to try to persuade skeptics with such a baseless speculation.

If Luke's genealogy was through Mary, her name would have easily been mentioned.

If my theory about the Gospel books is correct, the problem would be that when both Matthew and Luke were copying from Mark, they forgot to check each other's works before having them both released for the public.

Joseph the cuckold? The fact that he did not have Miriam stoned for adultery was proof that he was a Saint.

ruveyn

Good point. I never looked at it quite that way before.

Who was Jesus' paternal grandfather? Some subjects must never be questioned such as: Who is Harry Potter? Who is Batman? Who is Superman? Who is Buddha? Who is Jesus Christ? Who is L. Ron Hubbard? Who is Joseph Smith? Who is the Bab? Who is Dr. Who? Who is Snow White? Who is Shrek? Who is Peter Pan? etc. Words: Attempted humor, humor, irony, satire, etc. - Politics, Philosophy, Religion

Last edited by pgd on 12 Feb 2011, 1:43 pm, edited 6 times in total.

You know, Christians back in the first and second century AD would have probably had access to the records of both Matthew and Luke. If it were true about any of the other accusations of documents supposedly being edited by Christians, then why wouldn't such an apparent discrepancy have been corrected?

What's interesting is that the list comes back and intersects at various points. They have Joe right and then much later around the time of zerrobabel, iirc, connect again.

There are multiple apologetics for the issue. One is that these are seperate lists (one is for Mary). The other is that they are the same list, but that one is pared down.

Christians will often scurry off and find one argument, asserting it as a fact. Rarely will they present both arguments and suggest it's an open question. That defeats the purpose of trying to sell the bible as a source of absolute truth and clarity.

Ah, so since there's a variety of apologetic material upon this to explain it, therefore none of the explanations are correct? Or am I misinterpreting your words here?

Yeah, you totally missed it.

My point is that where there are multiple apologetics for a biblical contradiction, an honest christian might present both as options and suggest it's an open question. But that hasnt been my experience with christians. Because they are primarly motivated by an instinct to zealously defend rather than illuminate an issue or reason they will often only present one apologia and then act as if it's just completely obvious that this was what the bible meant.

Last edited by simon_says on 12 Feb 2011, 2:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Well, what if they only know or consider one explanation to be correct? Things may not be obvious, but once a person convinces themselves of something, how easy is it to get them to change their mind? I've never heard of the speculation that they are both the same list. I've considered that Luke's list is composed of a few different genealogical lists, some of them - such as starting contemporary to Christ - from the ancestry of Mary listing the names of the husbands since the record keeping was patriarchal rather than matriarchal as at present, and eventually linking up to the list from Chronicles after David is reached. I've heard that the list in Matthew was condensed so as to have just 14 names from each period in Israel's history and also stopping at David rather than continuing to Adam as Luke's list does. People tend to see their interpretations as facts most of the time, and not just Christians. People in the evolutionary communities can be extremely dogmatic about whether birds are descendants of dinosaurs or not, and whether they list the other arguments out there is dependent upon more than just their willingness to be thorough/deceptive.

I can see either way. After Joe's father there is either Matthat or Matthans, depending on the version. They diverge again untill sheoltiel and his son zerubabbel, and then meet up again with David.

Or it may be just made up lists that naturally incorporate certain figures to reach David.

That may be so. But Ive never had a discussion with a christian who invoked apologetics who did otherwise. Apologetics used as a cudgel to silence rather than a subject for open discussion. Of course, having called them out here, some might do otherwise. But it hasnt been my experience in general.

Even then, it's not enough to provide more than one explanation. And in fact, the page that 91 links to provides more than one explanation for this particular discrepancy.

But still, a Christian has to back up whatever explanation he comes up with with enough evidence to make the explanation plausible ... something I have yet to see concerning this particular subject.

bible contradictions? you dont say. a christian would say it was a mistranslation. then why believe something thats mis translated? what truth is there in that. ok

the reason why there are contradictions is because god didnt write it, or inspire it.

Are there any Christians who are claiming the genealogical lists in Matthew and Luke to be mistranslations?