Audela

Audela Study Desk

The Genealogy of Jesus

Two lists open the story of Jesus, and they are not the same. Read each one as its writer gives it, then open any name in it.

Read both lists first

Nothing here is explained before the text is read. Both passages appear in full, in the translation you are reading in.

Matthew 1:1-17 · WEBU

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Matthew's list, moving forward from Abraham to Christ.

Luke 3:23-38 · WEBU

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Luke's list, moving back from Jesus to Adam and to God.

Explore the line

Matthew's list and Luke's list stay separate, each in the order and direction its writer wrote it. Tap any name to see where it stands, what Scripture records about the person, and how to read the passage itself. 28 people in the line have a full profile.

Matthew · Abraham forward to Jesus

The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew

Matthew opens his gospel with a legal descent. He is writing to readers who know the promises given to Abraham and to David, and his first sentence answers the question those promises raise: is this Jesus the son of David and the son of Abraham, or is he not? Everything else in the gospel rests on that answer.

The line runs forward, from Abraham down to Christ, because Matthew is tracing a promise arriving. He follows the royal succession through Solomon and the of Judah, which is the line of the throne rather than the line of physical descent alone, and he arranges it in three groups: promise, monarchy, and exile giving way to the .

Matthew also breaks the pattern at the end. Through the whole list one man begets another, until verse 16, where Joseph is not said to beget Jesus but to be the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born. The genealogy is built so that its last link cannot be read as ordinary fatherhood.

From Abraham to David: the promise

Fourteen generations from the man who was called out of Ur to the man who was made . This stretch covers the patriarchs, the tribe of Judah, the years in Egypt, , the conquest and the judges.

From David to the exile: the monarchy

The of Judah, king after king, from Solomon to the deportation. Faithful reformers and idolaters stand in the same succession, because the line is held by God's promise rather than by their record.

From the exile to Christ: the return

After Babylon the has no palace, and most of these names appear nowhere else in Scripture. The line continues quietly through ordinary men until it reaches Joseph, Mary and Jesus.

What Matthew is emphasising

Jesus is the promised king

Matthew names David as in verse 6, the only title given in the whole list, and traces the throne through Solomon, Rehoboam and the kings of Judah. This is the line a claim to the throne of Israel would have to run through.

Jesus is Abraham's seed for the nations

The list begins with Abraham, to whom the promise was given that in him all nations of the earth would be blessed (). Matthew's gospel ends with the nations being taught and baptised (), so the first verse and the last chapter answer one another.

Grace runs through the line

Matthew names four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah. A Canaanite, a Moabitess, and two accounts marked by scandal stand inside the royal line without apology. The line is held by God's mercy, not by the purity of the people in it.

Exile is not the end

The middle group ends in Babylon and the third begins there. Matthew makes the deportation a hinge rather than a full stop, and the that looked finished in Jeconiah continues to Christ.

The virgin birth is built into the structure

Verse 16 changes the verb. Joseph is Mary's husband, and Jesus is born of her. Matthew then explains why in verses 18 to 23, quoting .

The questions readers bring

Where a question is disputed, the answer follows one order: what Scripture clearly shows, what Christians have proposed, what we cannot state with certainty, and what both accounts emphasise. Scripture tells the story. Scholars only help with the middle part.

Why are Matthew's and Luke's genealogies different?

What Scripture clearly shows

  • Matthew runs forward, from Abraham toward Jesus, and counts the names in three groups of fourteen.
  • Luke runs backward, from Jesus past Abraham to Adam, and then to God.
  • Both lists pass through David.
  • Matthew follows David through Solomon.
  • Luke follows David through Nathan, and never names Solomon.
  • Matthew names Jacob as the father of Joseph.
  • Luke associates Joseph with Heli.
  • Both lists pass through Shealtiel and Zerubbabel after the exile.
  • Matthew's final link changes shape: Joseph is called the husband of Mary, and Jesus is born of her rather than begotten of him.

What Christians have proposed

Interpretation, not Scripture. Each of these is an explanation readers have offered.

Two lines through one family: legal and natural descent

On this reading Matthew traces the legal right to David's , which passes through the royal succession, while Luke traces natural physical descent through another son of David. Adoption, levirate marriage or inheritance law could join the two lines at Joseph. This is a proposal drawn from how descent worked in Israel, not a statement Scripture makes.

Luke gives Mary's line

Some readers understand Heli as Mary's father, so that Luke records her ancestry and Matthew records Joseph's. Scripture does not say this. names Joseph, and Audela will not present this proposal as a biblical fact, however often it is repeated.

Levirate marriage at the point of Joseph's father

An old proposal, reported by early Christian writers, is that Jacob and Heli were related and that a levirate marriage made one man the legal father and the other the natural father of Joseph. It is a coherent explanation. It is not recorded in Scripture.

Two purposes rather than two competing records

Matthew's arrangement is openly selective: he counts fourteens, and between Joram and Uzziah he passes over three that Kings and Chronicles name. Ancient genealogies were often written to show a claim rather than to list every generation, so the two writers may be recording the same family for different ends. This explains the shape of the lists; it does not resolve every name in them.

What we cannot state with certainty

  • Scripture does not tell us which proposal is correct, and it never explains the difference between the two lists.
  • Scripture does not tell us how Jacob and Heli are related, if they are.
  • Scripture does not name Mary's father or mother anywhere.
  • Scripture does not tell us why Luke chose Nathan's line, or why Matthew's groups of fourteen are counted the way verse 17 counts them.
  • Anyone who says the question is settled is going beyond the text. The honest position is to hold the facts firmly and the explanations loosely.

What both accounts emphasise

  • Jesus is a real man with a real ancestry, recorded rather than imagined.
  • Jesus descends from David, which is what the promise of a king required.
  • Jesus is not begotten of Joseph. Both writers protect that.
  • The line arrives at a person, not a dynasty. Every name is travelling toward him.

Why does Matthew begin with Abraham?

What Scripture clearly shows

  • Matthew's first sentence gives three names and two titles: Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
  • The promise given to Abraham reached beyond his own family: in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
  • The promise given to David was a throne that would not end.
  • Matthew's gospel closes with the nations being taught and baptised, which answers the promise his first verse names.

What Christians have proposed

Interpretation, not Scripture. Each of these is an explanation readers have offered.

Matthew writes first for readers who know the promises

Because Matthew quotes the Old Testament constantly and explains Jewish custom rarely, many readers conclude he wrote with Jewish readers first in view. That is an inference from the way the gospel is written, and a reasonable one.

The two titles set the gospel's agenda

Son of David raises the question of the ; son of Abraham raises the question of the nations. Both questions are answered later in the gospel. This is an observation about structure, not a claim Matthew states.

What we cannot state with certainty

  • Scripture does not tell us who Matthew's first readers were, or when and where he wrote.
  • Scripture does not explain why he begins at Abraham rather than at Adam.

What both accounts emphasise

  • Luke reaches further back, to Adam and to God, and so takes in the whole human family.
  • Read together, the two openings say the promise to Israel and the need of all humanity meet in one person.

Why does Luke go all the way back to Adam?

What Scripture clearly shows

  • Luke's last words in the list are: which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
  • Immediately before the list, the voice from heaven calls Jesus the beloved Son.
  • Immediately after the list, Jesus is led into the wilderness and tempted, and does not fall.
  • Paul sets Adam and Christ side by side: through one man's disobedience death came, and through one man's obedience life comes.
  • Paul calls Christ the last Adam and contrasts the earthy man with the heavenly.
  • Adam was tempted and disobeyed.

What Christians have proposed

Interpretation, not Scripture. Each of these is an explanation readers have offered.

The placing is deliberate: Adam, then the temptation

Because Luke sets the descent to Adam directly before the , many Christians read the two scenes together: the first man was tested and failed, and this man is tested and holds. Luke does not say this. He arranges it, and the arrangement is hard to miss.

A gospel for the whole human race

Luke's gospel gives sustained attention to Samaritans, Gentiles, women and the poor. A line that reaches Adam rather than stopping at Abraham fits that emphasis. This is an observation about the book, offered as such.

What we cannot state with certainty

  • Luke never tells us why he ended at Adam, or why he placed the list between the baptism and the .
  • Scripture does not explain in what sense Adam is called the here, and it is not the same sense in which Jesus is called the Son in verse 22.

What both accounts emphasise

  • Jesus is fully and truly human, sharing the ancestry of everyone reading.
  • What Adam lost belongs to the whole race, and what Christ gives is offered to the whole race.

Scripture trails

Each trail is a set of passages read in order. They are meant to be opened, not summarised.

From Abraham to Christ

The promise given to one man, repeated, narrowed to a tribe, and finally named in a gospel's first sentence.

  • The promise given at the start.
  • In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
  • The sceptre placed in Judah's tribe.
  • Paul reads the promise as reaching one seed.
  • The son of David, the son of Abraham.
The promise to David

A promised to a , remembered in the psalms, held through exile, and named again by an angel.

  • The promise itself, in full.
  • The promise sung, including the covenant that will not be broken.
  • A child, and the throne of David.
  • A righteous Branch raised to David.
  • The throne of his father David, spoken to Mary.
The women in Jesus' genealogy

Matthew stops four times to name a mother. Read each account for itself before deciding what he is doing.

  • Tamar, whose son Perez stands in the line.
  • Rahab hides the spies in Jericho.
  • Rahab and her house are spared.
  • Ruth the Moabitess refuses to go back.
  • Obed is born, and the neighbours name him.
  • The account Matthew points at without naming Bathsheba.
  • Mary, and the link that is not ordinary fatherhood.
Kings, exile and return

The looks finished in Babylon. Follow the passages that say otherwise.

  • Jehoiachin carried to Babylon.
  • The hard word spoken over that king.
  • David will not lack a man to sit on the throne.
  • Zerubbabel, chosen, like a signet.
  • The line continues quietly to Joseph.
Jesus and Adam

Luke ends at Adam, then tells the . Paul later sets the two men side by side.

  • The first command given to the first man.
  • Adam tempted, and the fall.
  • The line reaching Adam, the son of God.
  • Jesus tempted in the wilderness, and steady.
  • One man's disobedience, one man's obedience.
  • In Adam all die, in Christ all are made alive.
  • The last Adam, a quickening spirit.
Promises fulfilled in the Messiah

The genealogies are claims. These passages are what the claims were made about.

  • Bethlehem, out of which the ruler comes.
  • The sign Matthew quotes after the genealogy.
  • A rod out of the stem of Jesse.
  • That it might be fulfilled.
  • Everything written must be fulfilled.
  • Of this man's seed God raised a Saviour.

Keep reading

The written study of both genealogies goes through the movement of each list, the four women Matthew names, and the details easy to miss.

Read the study of the genealogy of Jesus