* Cf. the dL-cad of Davidida from HftoanisJ] •• of Zerub tc Uodaviah in 1 Ch :>ii'-''> (llaupt's («xt).
140 GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHEIST
GENEALOGY OF JESUS CHRIST
Jesus. Our judsraent as to the probable historical value of sucli current lists must be formed in the light of ancient testimony (see below).
The genealo^'y of Lk has every appearance of restin" on more carefully prepared data, as we should expect from the evangelist's painstaking method (Lk 1'"^) ; but it is even more certjiin in this case that our author is adapting earlier material to his own uses. The pedigree, like the story of the infancj' to which it probably belonged, must have been deri\ed from Pal. sources. To the occidental mind, it is true, there would seem to be a certain incongruity between the account of the miraculous generation and the introduction of a pedigree of Joseph. This feeling is apparent in the evangelist's qualifying insertion in Z^ us ivoiil^ETo. It has been argued that even the sources used in these preliminary chapters are themselves in conllict on this point, the references to Joseph as the ' fatlier' of Jesus (2^-'"), and the genealogy, indicating a point of view dillerent from that of the main course of the story. But recent research has suggested that, to the contemporary Jewish mind, there was no incompatibility. Joseph might be not merely the putative or adoptive, but the leal father of Jesus, at the same time that the birth wa-s due solely to 'the power of the Highest' (1"). Isaac, in like manner, was spoken of as 'God- begotten ' (cf. Ro i"-^- ", He 11'^), without any idea of denj-ing the reality of his relation to Abraham. The lis (fofilieTo is therefore to be attributed to the evangelist as against the source.
It is also a fair inference, from the very object of the pedigree, that the source did not carry it back bej-ond Abraham. Hence the extension back to Adam is due to the humanitarian bent of the evangelist, which is even more apparent in the curious addition toS deov, by which the divine son- ship of the race is indirectly taught. Moreover, the text followed for these earliest 20 generations (10 from Creation to Noah, 10 from the Flood to Abraham) is manifestly the LXX, which alone gives the second Cainan (3'*), whereas the source in 1" cites from an Aramaic version.
Finally, there is a curious indication in 3^ that the evangelist has not only (as is probable) changed the place of the genealogy, but inverted its order. On 3'-'' we have the following comment from Plummer (Comm. p. 104) : ' Rhesa, who appears in Lk, but neither in Mt nor in 1 Ch, is probably not a name at all, but a title, which some Jewish copyist (?) mistook foraname. "Zerubbabel Rhesa," or "Zerubbabel the prince," has been made into " Zerubbabel (begat) Rhesa." ' This correction brings Lk into harmony with both Mt and 1 Ch. For (1) the Gr. 'iMorai' represents the Heb. Hananiah (1 Ch3"), a generation omitted by Mt ; and (2) Lk's 'lovSa is the same as Mt's 'Aj9ioi'5 (Ju(i-a = Ab-jud). Again, 'loiJSa or 'A^iovS may be identified with Hodaviah (1 Ch 3") ; for this name is interchanged with Judah, as is seen by a comparison of Ezr 3' and Neh 11» A^th Ezr 2« and 1 Ch 9'- ". To have caused the mistake, the original form of the gene- alogy must of course have been a simple list of names in the order Zerubbabel, Rhesa, Joanan, etc., and not, as now, 'Iwavdi' to5 'Pijffd toC Zopo- /Sd^eX, K.T.X.
Taking this list of names in the most original form to which we can restore it, we observe at once that its form is of the same mnemonic type as Mt's, only, as in the series from Zerub. to Jesna in .Mt, the commoner system of (double) decads is followed. There are precisely 40 names in all between David and Christ, of which 20 are pre-exilic and 20 post-exilic. The former series begins with Nathan 8. of Da\id, the latter with Salathiel ( = Shealtiel) f. of Zerub., ending with Joseph f. of Jesus. The list from Adam to Abraham likewise consists of 20, that from Abraham to David being, of course, a tesseradecad.
Twenty generations is not, indeed, an improbable number for the period from David to the Exile (c. 4U0 years) ; but a com- parison of Lk 32? with 1 Ch a"-*" will show that at least
four • generations have been omitted between Jcinan and Jod» j hence the number of generations at least is artificial.
Do the names themselves give any indication of being drawn from trustworthy sources ? Allowance must be made for a probable disposition on the part of 1st cent, scribes to assimilate the older names to those in current use [e.g. 'loii5d = in;;-ii.i, 'Iwai'di' = i.i;jj-), and possibly (so Hervey, Gene- alogies, pp. 36, 90 H'.) for a dis]>osition in certain families to form names by variations of a common root, though this might, with equal plausibility, be attributed to the pedigree-makers. Neverthe- less, it must be admitted that this list of names presentsiiihenomena unparalleled in any authenti- cated OT pedigree. There is no indication in the names of the OT of the practice referred to in Lk 1''' (cf. Gray, Heb. Prop. Names, 2 11'.). N^r can the practice of giving ' Scripture ' names, so mani- festly common in Maccab. times and later, have existed to any extent in the earlier jjeriod. Hence, while there may be nothin" strange in the n;imcs Levi and Joseph, as third and sixth ancestor of Joseph f. of Jesus, the series Joscjih, Ju<la, Simeon, Levi, as contemporaries of Ahaziali, Joash, Amaziah, and Uzziah, is surprising. Add to tlic>.e the names Matthat (bis), Mattathias (his), and Mattatha, variants upon tlie root of ' Nathan,' the names Na[h]um, Amos, and the fact that out of the total of 42 names in Mt and Lk not directly taken from the OT there are but 16 which have not more or less demonstrable affinity with the later 'scriptural' type, and the result cannot be con- sidered favourable to the historical trustwortlii- ness of the sources.