Matthew deliberately manipulates OT data with an agenda!

[skepticlogician]

This is a really problematic issue because even the context is evidence that this was very likely done deliberately by Matthew, and we will see why.

We are all familiar with the 'begats' in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus. You can go and read them again for yourself:


Matthew 1:7-11 (King James Version)

 7 "And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa;"
 8 "And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;"
 9 "And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;"
 10 "And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias;"
 11 "And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:"


This is all fine and dandy, but if you go to the OT you can actually find this same genealogy in the first book of Chronicles. So, let's check it out and see if Matthew is true to his word.


1 Chronicles 3:10-16 (King James Version)

 10 "And Solomon's son was Rehoboam, Abia his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son,"
 11 "Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,"
 12 "Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,"
 13 "Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,"
 14 "Amon his son, Josiah his son."
 15 "And the sons of Josiah were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum."
 16 "And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son."


Uh-oh... We've got a problem here. Matthew is omitting three generations (names) after Joram and another one after Josiah!
Why would Matthew do that? Didn't he have access to the Old Testament? Well, that should be obvious because of the very fact that he is writing this genealogy. So, why on earth would he omit these 4 names? Was it an accident or was there an ulterior motive?

Well, we cannot be 100% sure but Matthew himself gives us a very telling hint of what probably was going on, in the very next verse:


Matthew 1:17 (King James Version)

"So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."

Hmmm... Three blocks of 14 generations, eh? So the number 14 does indeed have great significance for Matthew. So it's not at all crazy to think that when he found more generations in Chronicles that there was "supposed" to be, he simply omitted them!

So, this is not only another error/contradiction you find in the Bible, but this was probably done deliberately with the purpose of deceiving the readers!!

I don't know about you but this is quite shocking coming from a book that is supposed to be the 'Word of God', it doesn't matter from what point of view you look at it.

[velkyn]

nice!

[Jim]

skepticlogician: we all know that the Bible was infallibly written by God through the hands of men, and that the Lord works in mysterious ways.  There is nothing shocking about this, as long as you swallow the two previous red pills.

[skepticlogician]

^^^ I can almost see SmartNoodles and other fundies behind your words! hehehe...

[Jim]

Arrrgghhh!  His Noodleness has touched me.  I see clearly the saucy goodness of the universe.

[skepticlogician]

Sooooo... I see that no theists have responded to this one yet. Why?
I guess it's a difficult one, huh?

[mommykicksbutt]

wall-fly mode engaged

[kardula]

There is a possibility that the author of Matthew omitted them because the early readers of the books would have already understood who begot who and that information would have been known to them and understood that "son of" or "begat" would mean a descendant of.

[velkyn]

^^^^^ which would also indicate that there is little reason for the author of Mathew to be so hungn up on the 14 thing that he seems to want to create the illusion of.

[jetson]

^^^^^ which would also indicate that there is little reason for the author of Mathew to be so hungn up on the 14 thing that he seems to want to create the illusion of.

Perhaps Matthew was a dumb ass?  Just thinking outside of the box a bit.

[skepticlogician]

There is a possibility that the author of Matthew omitted them because the early readers of the books would have already understood who begot who and that information would have been known to them and understood that "son of" or "begat" would mean a descendant of.

That is not enough reason for Matthew to affirm something that is clearly incorrect. He clearly says 14 generations. That Joram is the great-great-grandfather of Azariah is absolutely not the same as saying that from Joram to Azariah there are only 2 generations, ignoring the other 3 generations in the middle. This is simple, Matthew is spreading false/incomplete information in order to accomodate to a nice pattern which he thinks is relevant.

[Backspace]

Somewhere in the OT god says his followers should not get hung up on genealogies, and yet they are brought up time an again throughout the book.

[Vynn]

Can't remember where it is (in one of the pauline epistles, i think), but in one passage in the NT the author quotes a section of OT scripture and then directly after that quote writes "not so!" and then continues on his point that is the opposite of the OT passage.

[jetson]

Can't remember where it is (in one of the pauline epistles, i think), but in one passage in the NT the author quotes a section of OT scripture and then directly after that quote writes "not so!" and then continues on his point that is the opposite of the OT passage.

I thought that was a requirement for NT writers!

[Wootah]

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/fabprof4.html
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesgen.html
http://contenderministries.org/discrepancies/contradictions.php#2

I don't know about you but this is quite shocking coming from a book that is supposed to be the 'Word of God', it doesn't matter from what point of view you look at it.

It's like a slap in the face?

[velkyn]

wootah, I don't known about the others, but I'm not looking to have links thrown at me.  I want to know how you explain things. I've seen all of the other nonsense before and I have ripped it apart before.  On the off chance you can do any better, explain on how you think your links show any explanation of contradictions.  Pick a couple that you think the strongest and go to town.

[Wootah]

wootah, I don't known about the others, but I'm not looking to have links thrown at me.  I want to know how you explain things. I've seen all of the other nonsense before and I have ripped it apart before.  On the off chance you can do any better, explain on how you think your links show any explanation of contradictions.  Pick a couple that you think the strongest and go to town.

Fair enough. Unfortunately I can only repeat their arguments not being versed well enough in Greek and the original documents and Jewish history and God knows what else....

Thus, the geneaology in Matthew traces Jesus back to Solomon and then to David. Full legal, dynastic lineage of Jesus is affirmed thereby.

(Luke's geneology: Hence the point of the genealogy is rather to show that Jesus has his place in the human race created by God.'

Matthew and Luke present different genealogies of Jesus--one through David's son Solomon (the royal line) and the other through David's son Nathan (the non-royal line). The royal line is traced in Matthew; the "natural" line in Luke. Matthew's genealogy goes only back to Abraham (to show the Jewish character of the King); Luke's goes back to Adam (to show the universal aspect of the Savior). Matthew's emphasizes Jesus' royalty; Luke, his humanity. It is generally accepted (but not unanimously) that the genealogy in Matthew belongs to Joseph's family, and the one in Luke applies to Mary's line. (The historical evidence is fairly strong that both Mary and Joseph were of the house of David.) Both genealogies are 'aware' of the virgin birth: Luke adds the phrase "He was the son, SO IT WAS THOUGHT, of Joseph" (3:23) and Matthew switches verbs from "X begat Y" to "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom (feminine pronoun) was born Jesus".

But I have never gone through them thoroughly enough. But that's what I dug up.

[velkyn]

thanks, wootah.  Now, we do have several folks here who do Greek, and the rest that you claim ignorance in. Would you accept their opinion of these claims?  I have seen the attempts to make one geneaology Mary's and one Joseph's.  Does this make sense in the context of the bible where a woman's position was as second class citizen?  Since lineage is by father, Jesus couldn't be of the line of David if he was purely of God. This seems to be only an attempt to make prophecy fit. I am also not aware of any basis for claiming a "royal" and "non-royal" line only that the messiah needed to be of the line of David.   

I am also curious on how this answers the OP question. Why the skipping just to make nice even bunches of 14?

[screwtape]

according to this site, 14 is the numerological number of David, though I have not found anything to corroborate it.  If the writer of matthew was into numerology, and a lot of jews were/ are, it makes sense.  Kabballah uses numerology and gematria is the whole mystical study of hebrew numerology.  A lot of people don't realize the malarkey that is associated with their supposedly modern religion.

some more info

[alihaymeg]

Fair enough. Unfortunately I can only repeat their arguments not being versed well enough in Greek and the original documents and Jewish history and God knows what else....

That is understandable, but you can't form opinions based on fact if you can't sort the accurate information from the apologetics. The arguments you site are standard apologetics. I actually am well versed in Greek and have seen many of these early fragments up close. This is a complicated issue that requires examination from several perspectives. Let's start with the historical critical perspective.

First it should be noted that both Mathew and Luke used Mark as a source. Mark is the earliest of the 4 Gospels. The evidence for this is clear. There are large sections of text in both Mathew and Luke that match Mark exactly. Many of these passages and sections are not common to Mathew and Luke though, which means that Mark had to be used as a source for both. The reason for the genealogies in Mathew and Luke are not so difficult to identify with a little examination. Mathew's agenda is to associate Jesus with the prophesied Jewish Messiah. He is not concerned with Gentiles as Luke is. That is why he traces the lineage of Christ back to Abraham. It is unclear as to whether or not the author of Mathew deliberately omitted the missing generations in order to make it appear to be 14. It is however very clear that he is wrong about that. Luke is concerned with including the whole of mankind into the Gospel message. That is why he traces the lineage of Christ all the way back to Adam. Each author has his own agenda and dogmatic position to defend. Don't make the mistake of cramming all 4 Gospels into 1 and creating your own 5th Gospel. They each tell a different story with different agendas attached.

[hazyarc]

wootah, I don't known about the others, but I'm not looking to have links thrown at me.  I want to know how you explain things. I've seen all of the other nonsense before and I have ripped it apart before.  On the off chance you can do any better, explain on how you think your links show any explanation of contradictions.  Pick a couple that you think the strongest and go to town.

Fair enough. Unfortunately I can only repeat their arguments not being versed well enough in Greek and the original documents and Jewish history and God knows what else....

Thus, the geneaology in Matthew traces Jesus back to Solomon and then to David. Full legal, dynastic lineage of Jesus is affirmed thereby.

(Luke's geneology: Hence the point of the genealogy is rather to show that Jesus has his place in the human race created by God.'

Matthew and Luke present different genealogies of Jesus--one through David's son Solomon (the royal line) and the other through David's son Nathan (the non-royal line). The royal line is traced in Matthew; the "natural" line in Luke. Matthew's genealogy goes only back to Abraham (to show the Jewish character of the King); Luke's goes back to Adam (to show the universal aspect of the Savior). Matthew's emphasizes Jesus' royalty; Luke, his humanity. It is generally accepted (but not unanimously) that the genealogy in Matthew belongs to Joseph's family, and the one in Luke applies to Mary's line. (The historical evidence is fairly strong that both Mary and Joseph were of the house of David.) Both genealogies are 'aware' of the virgin birth: Luke adds the phrase "He was the son, SO IT WAS THOUGHT, of Joseph" (3:23) and Matthew switches verbs from "X begat Y" to "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom (feminine pronoun) was born Jesus".

But I have never gone through them thoroughly enough. But that's what I dug up.

If you read the OP it is talking about Matthew and 1 Chronicles, NOT about Matthew and Luke.
Why did Matthew leave out those people?

[Nam]

I think one can say the Book of Matthew does that; I don't think one can say Matthew did that.  No one knows who wrote Matthew.  Whether it was "Matthew", or some other writer.  But, I guess I'm being semantic.

-Nam

[skepticlogician]

^^^^ Exactly, that's a whole story apart from the issue in question. Biblical scholars and those love investigation know the virtually null possibilities that Matthew himself wrote the Book of Matthew. But remember that most fundies don't care to acknowledge that evidence. For them it still inspired and what not. I'm still waiting on a decent apologetic answer to this contradiction... Although crickets have been chirping for quite a while now...

[velkyn]

well, since Wootah was only on a couple of hours ago, he certainly should be getting back to this.