It is funny, and a little scary, how much our views change over the years. Sometimes they are even required even though we had been trying to make sure that our beliefs were accurate.
One of the recent changes in my understanding of the Bible was first researched several years ago. While reading through the Bible, the genealogies seemed long and monotonous. In order to make more sense of all the names, I created a simple genealogy program and started to enter names and ages into it.
One of the problems that I ran into with this concerned the genealogies of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus. The genealogies given in Matthew 1 are very different from the lineage given in Luke 3.
At the time I had done some poking around and research to figure out why that was. Somehow my sources managed to convince me that Luke traced Mary’s ancestry, while Matthew was more concerned with arguing to the Jews and traced Joseph’s.
Last night I ended up looking at these passages again and I just could not see how that argument could work out. Here are the two passages that make the view impossible in my mind (emphasis mine):
Matthew 1:16: And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Luke 3:23: And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
Both passages are clearly talking about Joseph. How I was convinced otherwise, I have no idea. It seems that I let myself get distracted. This difference appears to pose quite a problem at first so I did some more digging.
The solution that I view as most probable is mildly complex and very intriguing. It was proposed by a man that is known as Julius Africanus who had, it seems, lived in Emmaus for some portion of his life. You might recall how Jesus traveled with several disciples who were walking there on the day of His resurrection. Many speculate that Africanus was even born in that town. He wrote this explanation for the differences between Matthew 1 and Luke 3 roughly 200 years after Jesus lived:
- Both genealogies are those of Joseph.
- That Joseph was the son of Jacob or of Heli, either by adoption, or because Jacob and Heli were either own brothers or half-brothers; so that,–
- On the death of one of the brothers, without issue, the surviving brother married his widow, who became the mother of Joseph by this marriage; so that Joseph was reckoned the son of Jacob and the son of Heli.
- Joseph and Mary were of the same lineage, but the Hebrews did not reckon descent from the side of the woman. For them St. Luke’s genealogy is the sufficient register of Christ’s royal descent and official claim. St. Luke gives his personal pedigree, ascending to Adam, and identifying Him with the whole human race.
If this is what happened, it is neat. Say that Joseph’s grandmother married and had a son. Her first husband died and she remarried. There was another son by that marriage.
As time passed on, one of those sons married but died without leaving his wife a son to carry on the family name. The Jewish law then commanded that the man’s brother marry her and raise up a son to bear his brother’s name (Deuteronomy 25:5,6).
Yes, I know. I’ve heard women say “My brother-in-law is alright, but he’d better not touch me.” There is a reason for this close view of family that we have strayed away from in our western world. Anyhow, back to the original point.
If only one son came out of that marriage – namely, Joseph – he would be heir of both sides of the family.
This is definitely more plausible than the teaching from 1502 that Luke traced Mary’s genealogy. The text of Luke it too explicit to hold to that belief.
Another example of a change in beliefs would concern the now-popular view that Jesus is going to return and claim His church before the tribulation period spoken of in Daniel and John’s Revelation.
During my senior year in high school I had written a paper examining the “pre-,” “mid-,” and “post-” tribulation rapture ideas. I had been taught pre-tribulation for most of my life and it was the doctrinal position of the church that I was attending at the time. In that paper I wrote that there were good arguments for all three but that I would hold to the pre-tribulation view.
My intent has since changed. There is a very informative book called The Incredible Cover Up (Dave MacPherson) that traces the origins of these separate views.
After extensive traveling and pouring through books, letters and notes, he found that the earliest reference to a split in Christ’s return (once for his church, then again later in judgment) came from a vision/prophesy in 1830 by a woman named Margaret MacDonald. This was picked up by Darby, who was visiting that night, and developed into an entire branch of theology.
The funny thing is that on the same night, Miss MacDonald also prophesied that one of the socialist leaders of their day in Great Britain was the Anti-Christ. If you judge by the Left Behind series (which I’ve read) or Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth or any other similar source, when the Anti-Christ appears the world only has seven years left. By all accounts, Margaret MacDonald prophesied wrongly. And the Bible does not teach a split return of Christ on its own – anybody who has studied what Darby and Scofield propagated can tell you that. So what happens? For now I’m forced to fall back to what is said in Deuteronomy 18:22:
When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.
Or, in this case, her.
It is humbling to find that I’ve messed up such things after examining them in the past. This is also useful as a reminder to keep my eyes on the one that all wisdom comes from. Proverbs 9:10:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
I pray that you seek wisdom and understanding also.