Why are the genealogies in Matthew and Luke different?
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The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would come from the line of David (2 Samuel 7:12-15, Isaiah 11:1, and Jeremiah 23:5-6). Both Matthew (at Matthew 1) and Luke (at Luke 3:23-38) provide genealogies of Jesus that confirm that he was a descendant of David, and therefore, a legitimate Messiah making a claim of as the true heir to the throne of Israel. Each genealogy also brings out themes that are important to that particular gospel writer. Matthew’s genealogy goes from Jesus to Abraham, Abraham being the father of the Jewish nation. By doing this Matthew emphasizes the Jewishness of Jesus. Luke’s genealogy goes all the way back to Adam, focusing on the universality of the gospel message — a message for Jews and gentiles alike everywhere.
While the two genealogies from Matthew and Luke are basically the same from Abraham to David, from David to Jesus they differ. Matthew follows the line of David’s son Solomon while Luke follows the line of Nathan, another son of David. So how do we account for two different genealogies and the differences we do see in the text?
Many skeptics point to this as a point of contention or contradiction, saying that Matthew or Luke got it wrong; creating or borrowing a genealogy in order to manufacture a Jesus with a legitimate ancestry. Yet, there are many credible and possible explanations for the two differing genealogies that coincide with the facts that we do have.
Two Parents, Two Genealogies
One of the simplest explanations are that these genealogies are representational of the two earthly parents of Jesus — Mary and Joseph. In this case Luke would be giving us Mary’s genealogies and Matthew gives us Josheph’s. Practically, this makes sense, since Luke’s birth narrative focuses on Mary and tells the story from her perspective. Matthew, on the other hand, gives us the angel’s message to Joseph and many of his understandings and responses. Through both Mary and Joseph’s line, Jesus was a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah. Although matrilineage (tracing the ethnic roots through the mother) is common practice in modern Judaism, the tradition can only quantifiably be dated back to the 2nd century. Within ancient Judaism it was the father who was seen as the carrier of the family name (especially which tribe one was descended from). While tracing one’s genealogy through the mother would have been seen as a little bit unusual, it would not have been ruled out as completely invalid. Not, that is, that the circumstances around Jesus’ birth where free of unusual occurrences to begin with!
Legal vs. Physical Portrayals
Another reason that has been hypothesized is that Matthew presents a royal or legal genealogy. In this explanation Matthew is said to be presenting an official line of Dividic kings, not necessarily his actual descendants. The point by the author being to show the reader that Jesus is in the line of Dividic kings and that Joseph has a claim to being connected to this line. Luke, on the other hand, within this theory would be giving us an actual physical descendency.
There is definitely something to say to the fact that Matthew is making a theological argument with his list of descendants. Matthew’s genealogy is curated, at least in part, for symbolic purposes. If one cross-references Matthew’s list with the genealogies of the books of Genesis, Chronicles, and Kings, we can see that Matthew duplicates and even leaves out certain individuals entirely (see chart below).
The answer to this puzzling choice lies in the fact that if we count the names we get three perfect sets of fourteen, totaling forty-two generations from Abraham to Jesus. This is not an act of mistake or purposeful misleading, but rather an attempt to use numbers to present a symbolic message to the reader that Jesus is in fact the Messiah. How? Well in ancient Judaism there was a concept called Gematria, where letters held numerical value, and this was used to present certain ideas or concepts. David’s name in Hebrew, for example looked like this:
דָּ (D) + וִ (V) + ד (D) = 4 + 6 + 4 = 14
Thus, Jesus’ genealogy is divided into three sets of fourteen generations, reflecting the importance of the numerical value of David’s name, and therefore reinforcin Jesus’ claim as the “Son of David” (Matthew 1:1).
Two Fathers
The Early Church Father Eusebius of Caesera, explained the discrepancy between the two gospels as saying that Matthew is tracing the biological lineage while Luke is taking into account an occurance known as “levirate marriage” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.1.7). Levirate marriage was a Jewish tradition that stated that if a man died without bearing sons his brother was to marry the widow and have a son who would carry on the dead brother’s family name. Eusebius, then, saw Melchi (Luke 3:24) and Matthan (Matthew 1:15) as married at different times to the same woman. This would mean that Heli (Luke 3:23) and Jacob (Matthew 1:15) were half-brothers. If Heli died without a son, and his (half) bother Jacob married Heli’s widow, his son would be Joseph. This would make Joseph the “son of Heli” legally and the “son of Jacob” biologically. Therefore, what this hypothesis solved was the problem of the variances in the lineages by saying that Matthew and Luke are both recording Josephs family line, but Luke follows the legal lineage while Matthew follows the biological one.
Conclusion
No matter which theory you ascribe to the bottom line is this — this supposed contradiction has many explanations as to why the two gospel authors would have given different lists. At the end of it all we still come out with the same conclusion, Jesus comes from a genealogical lineage that traces his roots do King David, and therefore, a legitimate Messiah and a legitimate claimant to the throne of Israel.