So what are the verses that seem to disagree with each other?
The Genealogy of Jesus
Ask a defender this question: “was Jesus a descendant of Solomon?” The Gospel of Matthew 1:6 indicates that Jesus was a descendant of Solomon. But Luke 3:31 says Jesus is the son of Nathan, Solomon’s half-brother.
The defender would most likely respond by saying that one genealogy is most probably Joseph’s and one is Mary’s. The problem is that the two both claim to be Joseph’s.
To this, the defender would say that it was common tradition to ascribe a woman’s genealogy to her husband.
This may be true. But it’s not what the text says. So, either the text is wrong or it requires detailed, hidden knowledge about the culture in which it was written.
Ask the defender to point to one other historical document in which it is known that the genealogy of the wife is ascribed to the husband. It is likely that you will be met with a stammering non-answer.
Ask the defender to point to one other genealogy in the Bible that does this. Again, you'll most likely get nothing.
So why is it that we believe that about this passage? And how did we come to that conclusion? This is a great example of a conclusion that is preordained by the base assumption that "the Bible must be flawlessly accurate." Some defender somewhere came across this passage and couldn't find an explanation for it. So he said "ah HA, now we know that a woman's genealogy can be ascribed to a man." But it is unlikely that there would be any other reason for coming to this conclusion except that preconception.
If this is true, then what else in the Bible requires such hidden knowledge? This means that there are potentially other places in the Scriptures where the text doesn’t mean what it says, but forces the reader to have a very deep understanding of the culture -- an understanding based on nothing, really. That is, an understanding based only on a guess -- since the defenders could not really produce any other reason for believing this hypothesis. It is not as though someone came across another stack of documents that did this and then used those to understand the passage. It is hypothesized only because of the preconception.
In fact, there are some other possible explanations for this that still fulfill the hypothesis. For example, it is possible that Joseph was adopted. In that case, one genealogy would list his biological family and the other would list his adopted one. This explanation is also fairly reasonable. And equally without evidence. Is it right? perhaps. Perhaps not.
But, again, it requires information that is not in the Bible or any other historical document to understand.
This is a rough slope for Biblical defenders. It is sort of oxymoronic. Think about it. In order to show that the Bible is without flaw, I need to show that you cannot understand it by just reading it -- you need some additional body of information (like whether Joseph was adopted) that is not in it. In a sense, it means that in order to show that the Bible is flawless, I need to show that it is somewhat irrelevant. After all, what good is a book that is perfect but not understandable?
Does it matter? Does it really matter who Joseph's grandfather was?
It is a good question. Perhaps not. But let me explain why it might.
First, the genealogy of Christ itself is critical. If those genealogies are wrong, then there is no evidence that Jesus is the Son of David. If not the Son of David, then not the Christ, right?
Of course, the other weird thing here that no one seems to mention is that the Bible claims that Jesus wasn't really the son of Joseph anyway. So his genealogy is meaningless. Naturally, the other elephant-in-the-room question (albeit a very small elephant) is why is this genealogy in here at all? The defenders don't have much of an answer to this that I've ever seen except "God wanted it that way." Oh, but for the critics, this is fertile ground. See, if you step away from the assumption that the Bible is flawless and agree that this is a possible mistake (perhaps a scribal error), then the door opens. If the genealogy itself is unreliable, then that explains a number of things. (Some of these I'd like to cover in a follow up post). For example, the critic may say that this is an evidence that the whole idea of the virgin birth was added later -- after the gospels had long been written. Think about it. The only reason to put the genealogy of Joseph is if you believe that Joseph is the father of Jesus, right? Otherwise, it just doesn't matter. This isn't the only evidence the critics site for this, by the way, but, frankly, it is a decent argument. If Jesus was born of a virgin, they contend, why isn't the genealogy of Mary in here? Oh perhaps that was a breaking of tradition, of course, but in an inspired, God-breathed work, what difference would tradition make?
So from the critic's perspective, this may imply that someone added the genealogies later to "prove" Jesus was the Son of David. And then later still, someone amended them to imply that, while they were there and obviously took a lot of effort to produce, they weren't relevant since Jesus was not really Joseph's offspring anyway. So in the part of the gospels that say Jesus was the son of Joseph "so it was said," the "so it was said" was possibly added after the teaching of the virgin birth started to become popular in the 2nd century (after the writing of John's gospel, since it is not mentioned in there).
It is a logical argument. Of course, that does not make it right. Nor does it make it wrong. But it is one that the defenders have a hard time with, whether they realize it or not. It is a great example of how "un-assuming" the Biblical perfection can make a bunch of other pieces seem to click into place. Again, it doesn't mean it's right. But when you say "assume X is wrong" and a bunch of other pieces start to make sense, it is a persuasive point.
Second, if the genealogies are wrong -- or are right but not knowable without some mysterious piece of information not found in the Bible -- then why would we not believe the same thing about the resurrection? If the "trick" to the genealogies is that we don't really know that Joseph was adopted, then perhaps the "trick" to the resurrection is that we don't really know that Jesus had a twin brother who appeared on the scene after the crucifixion. Of course, there is no reason to believe this. But then, there's no reason to believe that the genealogy in Mathew is of Mary, while the one in Luke is of Joseph (or who knows? perhaps it is the other way around?).
Of course, I'm not really suggesting a "twin brother" theory. All I am saying is that if the gospels are unreliable in one place, then why are they assumed to be reliable in another? Perhaps the "trick" to the resurrection -- the part we don't know -- is that, in the culture, this term would have been used symbolically -- to show victory over evil. Or perhaps it was a "code" to anyone fighting the Romans that indicated that those who die for God would be rewarded.
Naturally, I am stretching here. But the point remains. If the genealogies aren't correct and aren't understandable, then how do we know anything else is?
-- More later.
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