Matthew 1 and Luke 3 gave two different genealogies of Jesus

tonychanyt said:

Matthew gave us Joseph’s genealogy. He emphasized Jesus' royal and legal line through David and Solomon.

Matthew 1:


Jesus was the grandson of Jacob on Joseph's line.

On the other hand, Luke gave us Mary’s genealogy through David and Nathan, emphasizing the biological or genetic line.

Luke focused on Mary's side of the pregnancy story. Gabriel visited Mary in Luke 1. Mary visited Elizabeth. Mary's song was recorded in Luke 1. The name 'Joseph' appeared 4 times in Luke 2, 'Mary' 6 times.

NKJV Luke 3:


My interpretation:


Heli was the father of Mary. Jesus was the grandson of Heli on Mary's line.

Matthew gave us Joseph’s genealogy. He emphasized Jesus' royal and legal line through David and Solomon. Luke gave us Mary’s genealogy through David and Nathan, emphasizing the biological or genetic line.

See also

• How was it that Jesus was a son of David when Joseph was not his biological father?

Click to expand...

God said it. I believe it. That settles it.

This came up in a thread a couple of months ago. Recently I have looked into it a small amount and have seen that folks have attempted to harmonize these two genealogies a number of different ways over the centuries.

Arguing that one of them is for Mary and the other for Joseph is one of the common approaches. I don't find it particularly compelling since they both claim to be genealogies of Joseph in every translation I have looked at (and I have looked at a dozen or so), and I also have heard/read a couple of NT scholars (James McGrath from Butler and Bart Ehrman from UNC) state that they are both claiming to be for Joseph. But of course I could be wrong.

Other ways to try and harmonize include the possibility of a Levirate marriage (Jacob marries Heli's widow), or to claim either Jacob or Heli adopted Joseph, or to claim Matthew traces the royal line to Joseph (not sure how that works to be honest) and Luke traces the genetic line of Joseph.

Another approach is to not try to harmonize them. It does imply that at least one isn't historical, so might not be an option for some folks.

In any case we know Matthew has manipulated his genealogy by leaving out a handful of kings (Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim) so that it looks like 14 generations from David to Jechoniah. It seems that the symbolism of 14 was more important to the author than any modern notion of historicity. And he seemed to be writing to a Jewish audience who would probably notice those missing names, so I don't think he is trying to deceive anyone here. Instead, the blatant manipulation draws attention to what Matthew is trying to do. But why 14? I wish he told us, but two possible reasons are: 7 is a 'perfect' number so perhaps 2x7 is 'doubly perfect'; or perhaps it is an example of gematria in which case David = 14, and Matthew is trying to further emphasize how Jesus is in the line of David.

Fun stuff!