Confused by the start of the new testament

[ConfusedNT]

Hi I'm confused by Matthew chapter 1. It starts by saying:

Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

But then when it goes through all the begats it ends up with Joseph not Mary. If Jesus was the son of God, and not Joseph's son, how was Jesus related to David and Abraham?

Or does it mean it in the familial sense (e.g. Joseph raised Jesus as his father) rather than the genetic sense?

Or am I misunderstanding the first part altogether?

I'm reading the King James version of the new testament if that makes a difference.

Oh really? That's interesting, I will have to do some reading.

I feel bad I don't know more about Judaism as its part of my heritage but not one that's been passed down (and I'm not Jewish as its not my maternal side)

Luke was writing for the Gentile audience, so traces the ancestry back to Adam, whereas Matthew was writing for the Jewish audience so only traced the Ancestry back to Abraham, the father of the Jews.
I would second John Drane for an interesting overview
It is strange how times change, now parents are clamouring to get their children into Christian schools for the values the faith encourages and the children are happy to participate in the selection process so now a matter of choice rather than force.
I, for one, have never heard the phrase culturally Christian before and certainly have seen little evidence to support it. Isn’t our current PM a practising Hindu?

They are all hope and faith, based on the fact that humans wrote them all, and then their is language differences and translation differences which can alter meanings, words ect.

@ConfusedNT

All the best with your studies and reading, may they give you what you seek.

From my Orthodox study bible, which has really good contextual notes:

"1:16 - Joseph can be named as Jesus' immediate predecessor since OT marriage laws confer hereditary rights on adopted as well as biological sons. The church fathers teach Mary was also descended from David; of whom is feminine in Greek, referring only to Mary. Thus, Jesus is shown to be born of Mary and not begotten of Joseph"

That is really helpful thank you, I appreciate that

@ConfusedNT The Catholic NT retains some books which come chronologically after the OT but before the time of Jesus.

Protestant Reformers threw them out. They are written in Greek unlike the OT. They are known as Apocrypha or hidden and iirc 2 of them were written by - or at least named for , women.

I think Calvin wanted to chuck out Revelation as well? Must admit I've never read them. Being dragged up a papist we didn't focus on the bible and my copy is a Protestant one.

This is a good example of religion, how can we truly know what to believe a d what is God's perspectives, when it's humans doing the editing ?

ConfusedNT · 08/01/2023 23:18
MrsSkylerWhite · 08/01/2023 23:03
You do realise that it’s a work of fiction?
I'm reading it from an academic perspective (it feels a bit grandiose to put it that way but that's the only word that fits that I can think of at this time of night) not a religious one“

In which case, ignore me and my bias and carry on. Which you will, obviously 😁

People at the time were not necessarily that bothered about biological descent. Some of the Roman emperors adopted men as their sons so they could succeed them in office. Jesus similarly was Joseph's son by adoption.

If I said ‘I believe there is someone watching me all the time and judging everything I do. ‘He’ will punish me if I do not submit to his will.’ I would be locked up. Yet we still think this is ok in religion? I can see why we had religion from an evolutionary point of view but not any more.

(I’d like to add, each to their own though, who am I to judge.)

That's really interesting. it genuinely blew my mind to find out the bibles were different. I mean I knew certain books were chosen and other books have been found whixh had been excluded, but separation of Catholisism from Protestantism is so much more recently I genuinely expected the bibles to be identical

I will look for the ones you mentioned and read them thank you

Yes I totally agree

That makes sense of the context as well thank you

Respectfully that's not really the point of the thread

That said I have received a lot of help and direction for my question so if it diverts at this point then I guess it's not too much of an issue, but at this point I'm not really interested in debating the point of religion personally.

That's really interesting. it genuinely blew my mind to find out the bibles were different. I mean I knew certain books were chosen and other books have been found whixh had been excluded, but separation of Catholisism from Protestantism is so much more recently I genuinely expected the bibles to be identical

The various orthodox and eastern traditions have more differences in their canons too. There's a handy table in this Wikipedia page.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon

That's incredibly useful thank you

if Jesus is the son of God, then he is not the descendent of David or Abraham

Christianity says Jesus is fully God and fully man.

That's interesting and then I suppose also explains why it specifies 'they will call his name Emmanuel' when in fact he is called Jesus.

The prophecy in Isaiah 7:14 doesn’t mean literally his name will be Emmanuel. Emmanuel means ‘God with us’ i.e. Jesus is fully God come down to earth to be with humans.

If you want to understand this in a sense wider than Christianity, Eckhart Tolle has a fascinating talk on the meaning of the cross (this intersection between being god and human)

This was such a good thread! I literally had the same question as you OP when reading the the book if Matthew the other night. Strange!

Its a good question, who is the father of Jesus? Others have pondered on it as well. Unfortunately a bishop, Nestor, was branded a heretic for coming up with the concept that Joseph & Mary were the parents of the human part of Jesus, and God the father of God-head part of Jesus. A spat grew in the early Christian church because he refused to call Mary “mother of god” or “god-bearer” as he believed Jesus God-head or divinity was endowed on him after birth.

www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/301-600/the-nestorian-controversy-11629695.html

Be very careful with the bible. It was written by many many people (too many cooks spoil the broth springs to mind) throughout centuries, and it was written in a couple of languages like Aramaic (now a dead language) or ancient Hebrew. These were all translated (lost in translation springs to mind) probably Latin first, then to English etc..
Even modern Hebrew is tricky to translate at times, as a word can have several unrelated meanings. I don’t speak Hebrew -or Aramaic, obviously - but it is all properly explained if you research it.
The Bible is also full of symbols that can’t really be taken literally. It’s a hard read. Written in an archaic language.

I thought the 'Mary was a virgin' was added to make it fit with Mithras. Not sure where I got that idea from.

Scholars think that the gospels were originally written in Greek and then first translated into Aramaic for the Syriac church (missionary work eastwards) and into Latin for the Roman church (missionary work westwards).

The Aramaic version is closer to the original and interesting as Jesus Christ is called Yeshua the Messiah. It is also not clear that Maryam is technically a virgin. It mostly says that Yoseph was engaged to Maryam but they’d hadn’t had sex yet. Maryam is found to be pregnant before the marriage and Yoseph is like that’s not mine and plans to break off the engagement in secret. Then he has a dream in which an angel tells him the Holy Spirit got Maryam pregnant and the baby will be the Messiah. In the dream he’s told to take Maryam to wife and is called her “guardian.”

It then quotes the prophecy that says “behold the virgin shall conceive” so Maryam became or was presumed to be a virgin in order to fit the prophecy.

biblehub.com/aramaic-plain-english/matthew/1.htm

From the One For Israel website:

'The NT says that Jesus was a descendant of David from both sides of his parents, both in regard to his biological mother’s ancestry and of his adoptive father. In Judaism, an adoptive father was always considered father in every respect. Based upon this as well among the nations the notion of “Apotropos” evolved...

And next to that, the Jewish tradition itself states that the Messiah should not have a biological father...

Rabbi Asor claims that both Matthew and Luke present Yeshu(a)’s genealogy in their gospels. And that these genealogies contradict each other, since they mention totally different names. That’s right! The genealogies are different from each other and indeed contain different names.
This should have helped the Rabbi understand that they do not present the same genealogy. Rather, Matthew presents the genealogy of Jesus’s father, while Luke, presents the genealogy of Jesus’s mother. These are two different genealogies and not one.
Today, we don’t have the genealogical scrolls, therefore it is impossible to prove the lineage of any contenders claiming to be the Messiah since the time of the second temple. In Jesus’ case, however, the scrolls were still available to been seen, and even the writings of his adversaries prove that he fulfilled the criteria. He was indeed from the line of David.'