In regard to Rahab, there is no evidence for her marriage with Salmon, nor is anything known that would be likely to have suggested the idea : it would seem that the compiler was determined to introduce the name, and tlierefore, without evi- dence and against all chronological probability, made her the wife of the father of Boaz.
This examination compels us to conclude that the genealogy is essentially and intentionally arti- ficial; the word 'begat' {iyin-qaev) is not intended necessarily to imply physical birtli, but merely marks the descent ; the compiler was more in- terested in the throne-succession than the actual lineage, and used his material to illustrate and enforce his main proposition that Jesus Christ was the son of David and of Abraliam, and he joined to the bare pedigree a sort of running commentary of notes.
Cortpy V,mf in I.k 3 sives a pedigree in the Lukan form, but tin- iKiints from JosL-pIi to liavid are taken from Mt.; the names .1.' . ,i III mi i; Mill irr inserted between Jechoniah and ,1 ,11' M two different persona, instead of
I , I, , - nil.- man ; and also Amazlah, Joash,
ani Ml ,, ' ill and Joram (see Resch, TIT x, 5,
1.11. 1;J _"1, .dilL.r-Lli- ill >A-, 1898, 1).
i. at. Luke's genealogy.— The descent of Joseph is traced through Nathan the son of David. It is possible that the family is referred to in Zee 12'-, where 'the family of the house of Nathan' is distinguished from 'the family of the house of David,' the latter phrase perhaps meaning the royal line. The rejection of the descent through Jechoniah may have been due to the influence of the prophecy of Jeremiah (22™): 'Thus saith tlie Lord, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days : for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah ' ; but there is no apparent reason why the line of Nathan should be selected, unless St. Luke had evidiTicc of the frut
before him; and, in the case ot ,t \ i i mi
evidently based his work upon tin n-
ful research, it is only fair, and til lii-,
to assume tliat he had such eviilLiicj. IUl a-iri'- ment with St. Matthew's genealogy in the nanie.s Zerubbabel and Shealtiel has not been satisfac torily explained ; it is, of course, open to any one to assume, without the possibility of either proof or
refutation, that Jechoniah was actually childless, and adopted Shealtiel, a descendant of Nathan ; but even so the further divergence in the descent from Zerubbabel remains as difficult as ever, for tlie pedigrees disagree with each other, and with the names given in 1 Ch 3''"'-. The number of derivatives of the name Nathan, and the repetition of the names Melchi, Joseph, and Jesus in the Lukan pedigree, can be taken equally well to prove its genuineness or the ingenuity of its compiler, .^part from small variations of little interest, there is nothing to notice in the names from David to Adam, except the insertion in v.** of a second Canaan in agreement with the LXX of Gn KF*.
5. Historical value of the two genealogies. — From what has been said above, it appears that St. Matthew (or the compiler of the First Gospel in its present form) did not aim at historical accuracy ; but from what we know of St. Luke's methods it may be assumed that he would not have inserted matter in his Gospel unless he had had satisfactory evidence of its genuineness and historical accuracy, and we have seen that the character of the list of names he gives, from Da^'id to Joseph, agrees well with this view. Attempts to harmonize the two genealogies have not been successful, and it is only necessary to indicate the general lines they have followed, and to collect such pieces of evidence as may throw light on the possible transmission of the pedigree.
The question was first discussed by Julius Afri- canus, who flourished early in the 3rd cent, after Christ, in a letter addressed to an unknown corre- spondent Aristides, of which a considerable portion has been preserved by Euseb. HE i. 7 (cf. Bouth, Reliq. Saera:, vol. ii. p. 228 ff.). In his text of St. Luke the names Matthat and Lei-i were evidentlj' left out, so that he regarded IMelchi as grandfather of .Joseph. He supposed that Matthan, a descendant of Solomon, married a woman named, according to tradition, Estha, by Avhom he had a son Jacob. On JIatthan's death, ^lelchi, a descendant of Nathan, married liis widow, who bore him a son Heli. Heli dii-d withuut cliildren, and Jacob, in accordance witli tin- l(\ii;\tr law, raised up seed to his brother, anil li-at -liKiiili. Thus Joseph was physically son .il .la,-,,),, l.-ually of Heli. The ditti- culties of till- tlu'orv :iiv Millirii'iillv di-ciissi.d by Dr. B. W. r.ac.in in lln-i iirj-' I'll.-.i'u. • ( ;,.„raloi;v
of Jesus Chri-t.- Tin' Muir.u. i l,li.:ili..ns „f
this theory thut lKi\e Ijuuii proiin^ud (i-uo, e.g., Farrar's St. Luke in the Cambridge Bible for Schools, rrccursus II.) in no way increase its prob- ability, and practically no evidence can be adduced in support of it. Eusebius does indeed speak of a narrative (itrropia) which Africanus had received by tradition (HE i. 7 ; cf. vi. 31) ; Africanus, how- ever, does not assert this in the fragments pre- served, and himself admits that the conjecture is imsupported by evidence (el koX m') ifi.tiApTi>pb% icTi), but claims that it is worthy of acceptance till a better or truer one is proposed.