Jesus: The Son of Who?

Again, since it's Christmas time, I'll be turning my attention to the birth stories of Jesus of Nazareth and the genealogies recorded in Matthew and Luke. The first genealogy, going in canonical order, is found in Matthew 1:1-17 and the second genealogy is found in Luke 3:23-38.*

Now, the author of Matthew traces Jesus' supposed lineage back to Abraham and before it starts, it states "An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (1:1). Alright, well, that shouldn't be so hard to construct except there seems to be a hiccup at the end of the genealogy. When we get to verse 16, it states, "and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah."

A funny incident happens in the Greek at this verse that is only subtly present in the English translation. The genealogy preceding this always has a father actively producing an heir as a biological father. However, when it gets to Joseph, the verb that was actively designating the son as of the human father changes from an active verb (egennesen) to a passive verb (egennethe), indicating that Joseph did not take an active part in the fathering of Jesus. Also, the particle pronoun that is translated as "of whom" in the English, is a feminine particle pronoun which indicates that Jesus was born of Mary and was not in any relation to Joseph.

If this is so, then how is Jesus of Davidic lineage? If the Davidic lineage is traced through Joseph and Jesus is not of Joseph, then how is this so? One fellow suggested that perhaps Joseph "adopted" Jesus and that Jesus got all the rights of the household, including Joseph's lineage. But how is this so, if there were no legalities or papers involved? Does anyone have record of Jewish Laws of Adoption regarding a divine child in late antiquity? I think not.

The reason that Matthew seemingly writes this "tension" into his text is because he is trying to make Jesus of Davidic lineage (thus, worthy of the throne of Israel) and attempting to perserve the virgin birth of Christ by indicating that Joseph had nothing to do with the conception of Jesus. By attempting to do so, the author of Matthew seemingly ties his hands together.

When we look at the genealogy of Luke, one sees that Luke traces Jesus' lineage back through Adam and thus, God. However, Luke attempts to preserve the virgin birth as well but does a seemingly better job than Matthew does.

"Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli." (Luke 3:23)

Now, while Luke preserves the "virgin birth" of Jesus by not attempting to link Jesus' lineage to Abraham and David through Joseph (Luke was a gentile, this didn't matter much to him), there is an apparent flaw when one compares the father of Joseph in Luke with the father of Joseph in Matthew. Luke states that Heli was the father of Joseph and Matthew states that Jacob was the father of Joseph (look above, if you don't believe me), so how is this so?

One answer is that Matthew's genealogy of Jesus is traced through Mary but this is not possible because of the grammatical translation I laid out in Greek above.

Another answer is that faith overrides tensions or flaws in the text. Tell me, how is this so if "faith comes from hearing the message?" (Romans 10:17) Isn't the text where the "message" comes from?

Therefore, can Jesus be the Son of God without being born of a virgin? Sure he can; in the say way that he is the "Christ" or the "Messiah" without having to be born of a virgin. The Gospel According to Mark doesn't even have a story of a virgin birth and how do some manuscripts of Mark begin? "This is the beginning of the good news (euangelion) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1).

Therefore, I would argue that Jesus does not have to be born of a virgin to still be considered "Son of God" and at the center of the Christian religion.

How is this so? That is for the next post.

*All translations are NRSV unless otherwise noted.