With the exception of the period from Abraham to David, the two long lists of names giving the ancestry of Jesus are almost entirely different, and therefore apart from a few general principles it will be necessary to consider the details of Matthew 1 and Luke 3 separately.
The pre-Captivity father-to-son or son-to-father details can be checked from the Old Testament. The lists from Joseph to Judah (Luke 3:23-26) and from Joseph to Abiud (= Judah? Matthew 1:13-17) have no counterpart anywhere in Scripture. Even so, they—like all the rest—may be regarded as thoroughly dependable because very full records of all Jewish families (and, of course, especially of the family of David) were maintained in the temple up to the time of its destruction in A.D. 70. The famous Hillel traced his ancestry back to David. Josephus wrote concerning his own family tree: “I have thus traced my genealogy as I have found it in the public tables.” A priest especially had to verify the family of his prospective wife by reference to the archives in Jerusalem. Even in the far more troubled days of Nehemiah a register of the genealogy of those returning from Babylon was available (Nehemiah 7:5).
It is to be remembered too that a man’s pedigree, properly established, meant his title to inheritance in the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:28), even though he go away for a long time, as Jesus has done.
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Author: Harry Whittaker
Keywords: Genealogies of Jesus, Genealogy of Jesus, Genealogy, Genealogies, Genealogy of Mary
Bible reference(s): Matt. 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38
Source: Studies in the Gospels.
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.