The genealogies of Matthew & Luke

[rgprice]

There are some very meaningful differences between the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. The most important of which is that Matthew leads with his genealogy right up front. It is the very first part of his Gospel. Thus, it is also a part of his birth narrative and stands apart from the Synoptic material.

On the other hand, we don't get a genealogy from Luke until Luke 3. The genealogy stands apart from the birth narrative and is embedded with the Synoptic material.

Matthew 1:
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
...
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Luke 3:
23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,
...
38 the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.

There are other substantial differences as well. Luke's genealogy of course goes in reverse order, tracing back to Adam, who is called the son of God. Matthew's starts with Abraham.

Matthew's associates Jesus with Mary. Luke's makes no mention of Mary. Luke's genealogy is mysterious, Jesus was "thought to be" the son of Joseph. Luke's is very bizarre, in that it implies that Jesus isn't actually the son of Joseph, but then lists out Joseph's genealogy anyway. While Luke's genealogy makes Joseph a descendant of David, it isn't called out. I'd say that Luke's appears more primitive. The genealogy of Matthew is far more well thought-out and integrated with the overall narrative.

My hypothesis is that Luke's genealogy came first, but Matthew's birth narrative came first. This implies that Luke 3 came before Matthew, which I think so. I think this makes a lot of sense developmentally. In Luke 3-23 we have a very rudimentary origin story for Jesus, that ties him to David, but its not entirely well developed. Then later Matthew comes along, takes the idea from proto-Luke, and develops a fully baked birth story. Then canonical Luke comes along and uses Matthew to develop a similar birth narrative that is prepended to the front of proto-Luke. At that point, canonical-Luke also does some editing of the main body of proto-Luke in light of Matthew, adding Matthean revisions on top of the original Lukan material.

Another interesting thing is that Luke 3:1 calls John the Baptist, "John son of Zechariah" instead of John the Baptist, but the name "John the Baptist" is used in Luke 7 & 9, without ever really having introduced the use of the title.

[mlinssen]

They weren't meant to be identical I'd think. Having a genealogy in the first place is a good start and it supports meeting another one. It is too much of a coincidence that one travels back

Then later Matthew comes along, takes the idea from proto-Luke, and develops a fully baked birth story.

It's what Matthew does all the time in my 72 logia: he perfects it all, he has the last word. Perhaps I phrased not very well, but that is what I meant when I said that he has Luke do the hard work. Matthew has himself a rare few tries at a first attempt to create something, and they suck hard really.

Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.
47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad

Thomas logion 109, 76, 8

109 said IS : the(F) reign-of(F) king she/r liken to a human has he therein in his(F) field a treasure he been-hidden he been-made without know as-regards he
and after to-cause his death did he place him within his child
would the child know not did he carry the(F) field which therein
did he give her outward and he-who have bought her did he come he plough did he fall to the treasure did he Begin of give copper to the(F) interest to they-who he desire them

76 said IS : the(F) reign-of(F) king of the father she likens to a human trader has he therein a Consignment did he fall to a Pearl
the trader who therein a wise-person is/are did he give-away his Consignment did he buy to him that-one Pearl alone
yourselves likewise you seek-after his treasure not-usually he perish in-case he continuing outward the place not-usually moth make-to-approach inward to the-place-there to eat Nor not-usually he worm destroy

8 and said he : the human liken to a fisher become-man of heart/mind
this have cast his(F) dragnet to Sea
did he draw her upward in Sea she filled of fish little within upper-part of heart/mind their
did he fall to a great fish good
viz. the fisher become-man of heart/mind did he cast the(PL) little all them the(PL) fish outward downward to Sea
did he choose the great fish Exempt-from toil
he-who there-be ear within he to hear let! he hear

Mind you, these are only in Thomas and Matthew...
Go on, argue Matthean priority here LOL. That on a side note; just observe how bad he really is at "being self-sufficient"

And if you don't think Matthew is pathetic here, then read the proper translation: Berean Literal

44 The kingdom of the heavens is like treasure having been hidden in the field, which a man having found, hid. And for joy over it, he goes and he sells all that he has, and buys that field.

45 Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a merchant seeking fine pearls. 46 And having found one very precious pearl, having gone away, he has sold all things as many as he had, and bought it.

47 Again, the kingdom of the heavens is like a dragnet having been cast into the sea, and having gathered together of every kind, 48 which when it was filled, they having drawn it up on the shore and having sat down, collected the good into vessels, and they cast out the bad.

Look at the net. It's pathetic, sad, hopeless, clumsy, careless, cheap, mundane, toddler stuff

[gryan]

Among those who assume GLuke was written after GMark, with knowledge of GMark, it has been argued that GLuke eliminated GMark's (Cf GMatthew's) stories of the mother and brothers of Jesus because they didn't fit the wisdom-image of Mary in GLuke's infancy narrative.

[rgprice]

when you look at the genealogy of Luke, it's actually not even anti-Marcionite the more I think about it. As Tyson argues in Marcon and Luke-Acts, almost nothing in Luke 3-23 is anti-Marcionite.

Luke 3:
23 Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24 the son of Matthat,
...
38 the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.

This is saying that Jesus is NOT actually the son of Joseph. So, its clarifying that Jesus isn't really a descendant of Joseph. It then gives Joseph's genealogy all the way back to "God". This God is of course the Creator God, and thus, under the Marcionite view would be the evil God. Is this not highlighting the fact that Joseph is a spawn of the evil Jewish God, but Jesus is actually not?

Nothing really about this genealogy indicates that Jesus was of the seed of David.

Luke contains the same references to David as are found in Mark, which actually deny that Jesus is of the seed of David.

Luke 20:
41 Then he said to them, “How can they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42 For David himself says in the book of Psalms,

‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
43 until I make your enemies your footstool.”’

44 David thus calls him Lord; so how can he be his son?”

Of course in Luke 18 someone calls him the son of David, following Mark, but Jesus never acknowledges the title. I've always found this odd, in Mark also. Someone calls him son of David, but he later refutes that "the Christ" is the son of David. To me this has seemed like a setup. First someone calls him son of David, to establish the fact that people call the Christ the son of David, then Jesus corrects the view, denying that he is.

So, to me it looks like the genealogy in Luke could actually be Marcionite in character. It is not designed to make Jesus of the seed of David, but rather to show that he is not only not of the seed of David, but he is not from the Creator God. Joseph is NOT his father, therefor his linage does not trace back to the God of Abraham who created Adam.

But, Matthew built his Gospel from proto-Luke and Mark, and thus took the idea of a genealogy from proto-Luke, but turned the concept on its head. However, Matthew didn't do it quite right, because he followed proto-Luke in tying the genealogy to Joseph. Thus, the Infancy Gospel of James came along and tried to correct all of this, by making a harmonization between Matthew and canonical Luke that correctly aligned the genealogy of Jesus with Mary.

[hakeem]

when you look at the genealogy of Luke, it's actually not even anti-Marcionite the more I think about it. As Tyson argues in Marcon and Luke-Acts, almost nothing in Luke 3-23 is anti-Marcionite.

Your statement shows that you apparently do not understand the teachings of Marcion as stated by his contemporary Justin Martyr and corroborated by multiple writers.

Justin's First Apology

And, as we said before, the devils put forward Marcion of Pontus, who is even now teaching men to deny that God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son, and preaches another god besides the Creator of all, and likewise another son.

The mere fact that gLuke attempted to make the genealogy of the supposed father of his Jesus go back to the Creator is most anti-Marcionite that one will ever get.

The author of gLuke goes out of his way to invent birth narratives about John the Baptist as being the son of a fictional Jewish priest and fabricates stories that the angel Gabriel was sent by the Jewish Creator God to explain to Mary how the son of the Creator God would be conceived.