Matthew 1:1-17
“Notice what you notice.”
Genealogies have always been a challenge to most Bible readers. That’s certainly the case for me, especially when I had prior knowledge that Matthew’s genealogy and Luke’s genealogy were quite different from each other. And after extolling Luke’s virtue a few days ago as a research historian, I found myself casting a wary eye on Matthew’s listing. But I read through his genealogy three times before moving over to Luke’s (Luke 3:23, ff.). And yes, they are very different.
But what I noticed in comparing the two was a major split after David. Matthew traces Jesus’ ancestry through David’s son, Solomon while Luke goes from David to Nathan. The listings are very different after that. The only common name that I saw was Zerubbabel (Mt. 1:12-13; Luke 3:27), the leader of the Jewish return from captivity. I have no idea what to make of it all. Maybe we’ll learn more when we come to Luke’s genealogy two weeks (14 days!) from now. (Sorry, that’s a play on Matthew’s fixation on FOURTEEN!)
One other item that I noticed in Matthew’s listing was my familiarity with all of the names up to Zerubbabel, but a complete blank on every name after that until we get to Joseph, Mary’s husband. That may be my oversight, but it may also be reality. Any Bible scholars out there?
Sorry, not much for today…
Blessings!!
Your familiarity with everything up to Zerubbabel and your unfamiliarity with everything after is easily explained. The Old Testament provides us with the history of Israel and the lineage of major characters, particularly the ancestry of David and then his descendants, who “just happen” to be kings of Judah and thus documented in 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. Then we have the Babylonian exile and the return, where we find Zerubbabel. Then we have silence — 400+ years of nothing in the Old Testament canon, so one would have to look elsewhere to find anything about all those folks in the intertestamental period.
I guess I could pop open the Apocryphal books from my old Oxford Annotated Study Bible – a required course book from my undergraduate days – and look for those unrecognizable names. But I think not…!