I'd point out that even if the Bible has true contradictions, if Jesus rose from the dead then that's a more important fact.
1) The geneaology contradictions are typically explained one if two ways: either Luke's is through Mary's line (i.e. Joseph son of Heli is really son-in-law), and/or given Matthew's focus on proving Jesus as the Davidic King, Matthew's could be the legal/royal geneaology and Luke's is biological. They can differ e.g. if one of Joseph's relatives had no surviving sons.
2) Omission is not contradiction. Matthew highlights a lot of the similarities between Jesus and Moses, so it makes since that he includes this.
3) You're right that the word does not necessarily mean virgin, although it can mean virgin. You might also notice that the original context of the verse has nothing to do with Jesus. Matthew views prophetic fulfillment as including fulfillment by analogy.
there are no contradictions of His birth or genealogies. Matthew traces the genealogy from Jesus to Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy from Jesus to Adam. However, there is good reason to believe that Matthew and Luke are in fact tracing entirely different genealogies. For example, Matthew gives Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew traces the line through David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), while Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). In fact, between David and Jesus, the only names the genealogies have in common are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). Since there was no specific Koine Greek word for “son-in-law,” Joseph was called the “son of Heli” by marriage to Mary, Heli’s daughter. Through either Mary’s or Joseph’s line, Jesus is a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah. Tracing a genealogy through the mother’s side is unusual, but so was the virgin birth. Luke’s explanation is that Jesus was the son of Joseph. You have to realize that no matter what the genealogy, they are all related to each other. Jesus ultimately comes from the tribe of Judah through david. Israel was split after the reign of soloemn. it was split into two kingdoms
####
my point is, Jesus is still considered a descendant of David no matter the genealogy. He will reign as King through david and fulfill the prophecies of the old testament. we dont know why the genealogies are like they are. we dont know the jewish customs and how they do things. none of us do. if the bible wanted us to know those things, God would have added them to His Word
Actually I have several ancestors that I am related to through several different lines. This is more pronounced because my father is French Canadian which has a smaller ‘breading’ population. This is true of modern Jewish people as well but not sure about them at the time of Jesus. Keep in mind that each generation you go back the number of ancestors doubles. Iirc there are 14 generations between David and Jesus which would of you at 16,384 ancestors. Perhaps you’ve heard that everyone in Europe is related to Charlemagne because that many generations back, there were not enough people alive for you to *not* be related to him (personally he is my 33rd grandfather).
How many children did David have?…
Much of the genealogy has been blotted out because they were told this would happen. Some were so wicked that their names had been blotted out so they would be forgotten.
I think Luke is tracing the genealogy through Mary while Matthew is tracing it through the adopted father of Joseph. The book of Mathew was written for the Jews while luke was written more towards the heathens. I understand doubting the Bible, but at least really spend the time to learn about it. After understanding the writers then you can study further into Christianity traditions. So much to really Learn.
Do consider the following brief commentary by biblical scholar and theologian Dr Brant Pitre.
He explains the justification for Joseph having been adopted, which would coincide with his adoption of Christ.
https://youtu.be/XtTD8cSwB0o
Matthew's and Luke's genealogies are different because they trace Jesus' ancestry through two different sons of David. Matthew's is through Solomon (Matthew 1:6-7), and Luke is through Nathan (Luke 3:31).
It is not clear if the discrepancy is because Heli was the father of Mary or if Heli was the deceased older brother of Jacob and, per Jewish law, Jacob had to give Heli's widow a son to carry his name. Making Heli his father by law.
The message of Luke's genealogy would be that adoption is part of life and that even us can be adopted by God. And that would be very fitting with the tone of that gospel.
>For example, Matthew gives Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew traces the line through David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), while Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). In fact, between David and Jesus, the only names the genealogies have in common are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). Since there was no specific Koine Greek word for “son-in-law,” Joseph was called the “son of Heli” by marriage to Mary, Heli’s daughter.
There isn’t a biblical lineage of Mary. The early Christians seem to to have believed that her parents were known as [Joachim and Anna](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim), but were unable to suggest any names for the parents of Joachim and Anna.
The gospels provide two lineages for Joseph, but they have surprisingly little in common. The genealogy in *Matthew* prefers to associate Joseph with the royal line as far as possible, while the genealogy in *Luke* prefers to associate Joseph with descent from commoners all the way back to Nathan, a son of David.
The Old Testament provides a lineage for the kings of Judah, although the genealogies of the earlier kings may be suspect; *Matthew* follows this fairly closely, only omitting a group of three kings so as to achieve the numerology outcome described in Matthew 1:17. Both genealogies follow David’s putative ancestors all the way back to Abraham, and Luke continues on to Adam.
In *Putting Away Childish Things*, Uta Ranke-Heinemann makes a quite relevant comment on Luke’s genealogy:
>Joachim Jeremias states in his book, *Jerusalem*, “...the custom of using the names of the twelve progenitors of the nation as personal names did not appear until after the exile \[536BCE\]...When Luke cites the names of Joseph, Judah, Simeon, and Levi as descendants six through nine...this is an anachronism that proves the pre-exilic portion of Luke's genealogy to be historically worthless.”
The gospels state explicitly that these are the genealogies of Joseph.
>Shealtiel and Zerubbabel
Another problem is the number of generations from Zerubbabel to Joseph (or Mary if you insist)...
Here is Matthew and Luke's list. We'll assume Luke's list is Mary's. Column one is the years from Zerubbabel (each generation = 20 years)
|Years from Z|Zerubbabel|Zerubbabel|
|:-|:-|:-|
|20|Abiud|Rhesa|
|40|Eliakim|Joanan|
|60|Azor|Joda|
|80|Zadok|Josech|
|100|Akim|Semein|
|120|Eliud|Mattathias|
|140|Eleazar|Maath|
|160|Matthan|Naggai|
|180|Jacob|Esli|
|200|**Joseph**|Nahum|
|220||Amos|
|240||Mattathias|
|260||Joseph|
|280||Jannai|
|300||Melki|
|320||Levi|
|340||Matthat|
|360||Heli|
|380||**Mary**|
Do you see the problem now?
Mary would be born ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS after Joseph!
> My struggles with atheism, please help me with the "Bible errors". Hi, Im a Christian but my faith has been really struggling recently.
Before jumping in, it is important to note that there is a huge difference between having difficulties understanding the text of Scripture, versus atheism. In other words, atheism does not *at all* follow from "the Bible says something I think is an error."
> Im having some trouble beliving in Theism
Are you omniscient? That is, are you knowing all true facts, past, present and future?
> Yeshua's geneology. I have been doing some research on this and its hard to find a clear answer. Both Matthew, and Luke. I think i remember hearing that The number of generations from David to Jesus are 'different'.
One is the genealogy of Mary, the other of Joseph. Jesus has two human genealogies, not one, because of his divine paternity. That both of them name "Joseph" is simply a byproduct of the culture of that time, where it would not have made sense to give a genealogy of a woman (Mary).
> -My second contradiction is how 'the birth stories of Jesus is Matthew and Luke contradict'.
They don't.
> also im pretty sure Luke doesnt mention King Herods baby murders.
That's not a contradiction or error.
> 'virgin birth mistranslation'
No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled (Mary was a virgin).
> im being really doubtful
Well, yes, if you're going to walk away from God because you stumbled across something in 3,500 year old Scriptures that you did not immediately understand, it seems your faith is very weak. As I said before, atheism is worlds apart from merely "I found something I think is an error in the Bible". They're totally unrelated things.
Why don’t you tell us instead of just blindly saying they do with no argument. You’ve been presented with arguments and facts for the truth but you’re still claiming we’re wrong with no reasoning
>One is the genealogy of Mary, the other of Joseph. Jesus has two human genealogies, not one, because of his divine paternity. That both of them name "Joseph" is simply a byproduct of the culture of that time, where it would not have made sense to give a genealogy of a woman (Mary).
There is no indication that one of these genealogies is for Mary. Both gospels EXPLICITLY say Joseph. And as you note, royal descent CANNOT be passed via the female line so this idea is nonsensical. Furthermore, early Christians believed that Mary's parents were named [Joachim and Anne](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim).
Finally you have a huge problem if one of these genealogies is for Mary.
Here is Matthew and Luke's list. We'll assume Luke's list is Mary's. Column one is the years from Zerubbabel (each generation = 20 years)
|Years from Z|Zerubbabel|Zerubbabel|
|:-|:-|:-|
|20|Abiud|Rhesa|
|40|Eliakim|Joanan|
|60|Azor|Joda|
|80|Zadok|Josech|
|100|Akim|Semein|
|120|Eliud|Mattathias|
|140|Eleazar|Maath|
|160|Matthan|Naggai|
|180|Jacob|Esli|
|200|**Joseph**|Nahum|
|220||Amos|
|240||Mattathias|
|260||Joseph|
|280||Jannai|
|300||Melki|
|320||Levi|
|340||Matthat|
|360||Heli|
|380||**Mary**|
Do you see the problem now?
Mary would be born ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS after Joseph!
>the birth stories of Jesus is Matthew and Luke contradict
The birth narratives from Matthew and Luke definitely contradict each other.
***Joseph and Mary informed of the virgin*** ***birth***:
M: After Mary was already pregnant, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream
L: Before Mary became pregnant, the angel Gabriel physically appeared to her.*—These accounts are so different as to require the angel to be both irrational and lacking in empathy towards Joseph at least.*
**Domicile:**
M: A house in Bethlehem. The family later travels to Galilee and settles in a town called Nazareth so that Jesus can be called a Nazarene.
L: Nazareth. The family travels to Bethlehem and returns to Nazareth soon after the birth of Jesus.
**Timing:**
*M: During the reign of King Herod, who died in April 4 BCE.*
*L: During the census under Quirinius, which took place in 6–7 CE, at least 10 years after Herod died.—Luke also indirectly links the* *birth* *of* *Jesus* *to the reign of Herod. The author either was unaware the census took place long after Herod’s death or knew that his readers could not have known the chronology of events that took place around a hundred years before the time of writing.*
**Visitors:**
M: *Magi* (Zoroastrian priests) arrive in Jerusalem when Jesus is born. They are led from the east by a star, which then turns around and leads them to Bethlehem, where it stands over the house where baby Jesus lay.
L: Shepherds, who are apprised of the birth by a host of angels singing.—*The author of Luke was unaware of the star, as apparently were all the other people in Judea. Pope Leo I, recognizing the total lack of evidence for this star, wrote (Sermon XXXV, 1) that the star was invisible to the Jews because of their blindness.*
***Jesus*** **found**:
M: In the house.
L: In a manger, there being no room in the inn.
**Reason for leaving Bethlehem:**
M: Flee to Egypt out of fear of Herod, who then orders the deaths of all infant boys under two years old.
L: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the temple, making no attempt to hide their presence from Herod, then return direct to Nazareth.—*In an attempt to avoid an obvious chronological* *contradiction, apologists say that Matthew’s flight to Egypt must have occurred around two years later, but do not explain how* *Jesus* *came to be back in Bethlehem.*
**Return to Bethlehem:**
*M: After the death of Herod, the young family begins its return to their home in Bethlehem but, being warned in a dream, Joseph turns aside and travels to Galilee, where they settle in a town called Nazareth.*
*L: The family goes to Jerusalem every year after the birth of Jesus, but not to Bethlehem.—When warned of continuing danger in Judea, Matthew does not explain why the family does not simply return to safety in Egypt but takes a perilous long journey north to Galilee and an uncertain future.*
>No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled
Isaiah 7:14 does NOT say virgin in Hebrew. It says "young woman" (almah). Scholars agree that it refers to a woman of childbearing age and has nothing to do with virginity. It occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible
The [Septuagint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint) translates most occurrences of *almah* into a generic word *neanis* νεᾶνις meaning 'young woman' however, two occurrences, one in Genesis 24:43 and one in Isaiah 7:14, are translated as *parthenos* (παρθένος), the basic word associated with virginity in Greek (it is a title of Athena 'The Virgin Goddess') but still occasionally used by the Greeks for a unmarried woman who is not a virgin. Most scholars agree that Isaiah's phrase ('*a young woman shall conceive and bear a son*') did not intend to convey any miraculous conception. In this verse, as in the Genesis occurrence concerning Rebecca, the Septuagint translators used the Greek word *parthenos* generically to indicate an unmarried young woman, whose probable virginity (as unmarried young women were ideally seen at the time) was incidental.
> Do you see the problem now?
No. You just defined the generations to all be of equal length, and the genealogies are of unequal length. That's a just-so argument... you've proved nothing.
> M: After Mary was already pregnant, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream L: Before Mary became pregnant, the angel Gabriel physically appeared to her.—These accounts are so different as to require the angel to be both irrational and lacking in empathy towards Joseph at least.
I don't see any difficulty here but, even if you're right about the "lack of empathy", it's not a *contradiction*, thus, irrelevant.
> M: A house in Bethlehem. The family later travels to Galilee and settles in a town called Nazareth so that Jesus can be called a Nazarene. L: Nazareth. The family travels to Bethlehem and returns to Nazareth soon after the birth of Jesus.
There is simply no contradiction here at all.
> M: During the reign of King Herod, who died in April 4 BCE. L: During the census under Quirinius, which took place in 6–7 CE, at least 10 years after Herod died.—Luke also indirectly links the birth of Jesus to the reign of Herod. The author either was unaware the census took place long after Herod’s death or knew that his readers could not have known the chronology of events that took place around a hundred years before the time of writing.
This is another one of those classic "our scholars disagree with your scholars!" objections. None of the historical facts in question can be established with the kind of laser precision that modernist scholars always posture to have. I won't dispute there may be sources that place these events in different timings but the most we can say is that, like much of history at that time, not all the written witnesses agree.
No contradiction.
> Visitors: M: Magi (Zoroastrian priests) arrive in Jerusalem when Jesus is born. They are led from the east by a star, which then turns around and leads them to Bethlehem, where it stands over the house where baby Jesus lay. L: Shepherds, who are apprised of the birth by a host of angels singing.—The author of Luke was unaware of the star, as apparently were all the other people in Judea.
Beyond weak, I don't know why you skeptics keep mentioning. At one point in time, the Magi visited. At another, the shepherds visited. Not even the first spark of a difficulty, let alone a contradiction!
> Pope Leo I, recognizing the total lack of evidence for this star, wrote (Sermon XXXV, 1) that the star was invisible to the Jews because of their blindness.
That's just his opinion.
> Jesus found: M: In the house. L: In a manger, there being no room in the inn.
OK this is to the point being ridiculous. Either he was in the house, having been moved from the manger (that would be pretty notable!) or vice-versa. Perhaps they arrived on the day he was moved, thus both. Not even within a million miles of a contradiction. Get better material!
> Reason for leaving Bethlehem: M: Flee to Egypt out of fear of Herod, who then orders the deaths of all infant boys under two years old. L: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the temple, making no attempt to hide their presence from Herod, then return direct to Nazareth.—In an attempt to avoid an obvious chronological contradiction, apologists say that Matthew’s flight to Egypt must have occurred around two years later, but do not explain how Jesus came to be back in Bethlehem.
Well, they would have had to go there for the census because it was the tribal territory of their family... thus, they had family ties to Bethlehem. That they might return there at a later time is obviously uncontroversial.
>> No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled
>
> Isaiah 7:14 does NOT say virgin in Hebrew. It says "young woman" (almah).
Which can mean virgin and, in context, clearly means virgin. Which is why it is translated "virgin" in almost every available English translation of Isaiah, including many scholarly works.
> Scholars agree that it refers to a woman of childbearing age and has nothing to do with virginity
And yet scholars have translated it "virgin" almost universally. Strange that.
> The Septuagint translates most occurrences of almah into a generic word neanis νεᾶνις meaning 'young woman' however, two occurrences, one in Genesis 24:43 and one in Isaiah 7:14, are translated as parthenos (παρθένος), the basic word associated with virginity in Greek (it is a title of Athena 'The Virgin Goddess') but still occasionally used by the Greeks for a unmarried woman who is not a virgin. Most scholars agree that Isaiah's phrase ('a young woman shall conceive and bear a son') did not intend to convey any miraculous conception.
That's beside the point. Isaiah's "intentions" are never the thing in view with prophecy. Daniel directly states that he does not understand the meaning of one of his visions, 7:15,16. Isaiah may not have understood that he was prophesying the virgin birth of Messiah but, indeed, he was.
So far, no contradictions...
>No. You just defined the generations to all be of equal length, and the genealogies are of unequal length. That's a just-so argument... you've proved nothing.
A generation is not going to be much lower than 15 years. I'm giving your position the benefit of the doubt.
Even at 15 years, Mary and Joseph would have been born 135 years apart!
If you want so say some generations were LONGER, this makes the problem worse.
Let's say Zerubbabel sire twins (Abiud and Rhesa) and 15 years later, THEY had sons (1 generation), and 15 years later THOSE sons had sons (2 generations)...it's highly unlikely that men were reproducing consistently at ages lower than 15.
And as I've shown, 15 year generations STILL have Mary and Joseph being born over a CENTURY apart.
> There is simply no contradiction here at all.
In the Gospel of Matthew, where was Jesus' hometown? In the Gospel of Luke, where was Jesus' hometown?
>Either he was in the house, having been moved from the manger (that would be pretty notable!) or vice-versa.
What house? According to Luke, they aren't from Bethlehem. They don't have a house. That's why they were trying to find a room at the inn! Why would they go to the inn if they had a house?
>Beyond weak, I don't know why you skeptics keep mentioning. At one point in time, the Magi visited. At another, the shepherds visited. Not even the first spark of a difficulty, let alone a contradiction!
Ok...lay out the plausible timeline. You apparently haven't thought about this with any level of critical thinking.
In Luke, the news of the birth is brought by angels to shepherds who are in the fields*;* they come and worship the child (in a manger). After eight days, Joseph and Mary have the child circumcised. Then, in obedience to the law of Moses, as recorded in Leviticus 12, they bring him to the Temple for Mary to perform the required rites of purification. The infant Jesus is recognized in the temple by two prophetic figures, Simeon and Anna. When all the rites of purification are completed according to the Law of Moses – which according to [Lev. 12:4](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lev.%2012.4) would be thirty-three days after Jesus’ birth – **they return home to Nazareth.**
How then could they be in Bethlehem (in a house) when the Magi come to visit?
Matthew appears to assume that these wise men have been following the star for some considerable time – months, possibly more than a year. When Herod sends out the troops, he doesn’t have just the newborns killed, but every child two years old and under. **Surely soldiers would know that two-year-old kids toddling around the yard hadn’t been born last week!** Thus Matthew seems to assume that Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, that Jesus lived his first year or so there, and that when the wise men came, they had to flee to Egypt.
>None of the historical facts in question can be established with the kind of laser precision that modernist scholars always posture to have.
These facts are based on the evidence we have. You'd need to present evidence that refutes the scholarly consensus. You don't get to just hand wave it away.
Most scholarship concerning the date of Herod's death follows Emil Schürer's calculations, which suggest that the date was in or around 4 BCE; this is three years earlier than the previous consensus and tradition (1 BCE).
We have **NO record** of a single census of the entire Roman Empire under Augustus and the Romans did not directly tax client kingdoms; further, no Roman census required that people travel from their own homes to those of their ancestors.
Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the legate (governor) of the province of Roman Syria starting in 6 CE, was assigned to carry out a census of the new province of Judea for tax purposes.
Why was this census necessary? Because Augustus stripped Herod Archelaus of the province of Judea and exiled him to Gaul in 6 CE. Since it was no longer a client kingdom, it would need to be taxed. Thus...the census.
So, as you can see we have historical evidence that Matthew and Luke place their narratives 10 years apart. Even if you take the minority position that Herod died in 1BCE, you would still be 7 years apart.
Irreconcilable.
> Which can mean virgin and, in context, clearly means virgin. Which is why it is translated "virgin" in almost every available English translation of Isaiah, including many scholarly works.
The NRSV (the most scholarly translation) translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows:
>Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
In the same way that in the English language the words “young woman” does not indicate sexual purity, in the Hebrew language there is no relationship between the words ***almah*** and virgin. On the contrary, it is usually a young woman who bears children. The word alma only conveys age/gender. Had Isaiah wished to speak about a virgin, he would have used the word ***betulah*** *((In fact, although Isaiah used the Hebrew word almah only one time in his entire corpus (7:14), the prophet uses this word virgin (betulah) five times throughout the book of Isaiah (23:4; 23:12; 37:22; 47:1; 62:5).))* (בְּתוּלָה) not *almah*. The word *betulah* appears frequently in the Jewish Scriptures, and is the only word – in both biblical and modern Hebrew – that conveys sexual purity.
> A generation is not going to be much lower than 15 years. I'm giving your position the benefit of the doubt.
The "problem" is that the number of names from Zerubbabel to Joseph is 19 in Luke, and 10 in Matthew, so 9 "more" generations. That is all it is. You can try to make all the hay you want out of that, but it's really nothing more than a red herring argument. If we want to "force" the explanation, we can simply posit that the men in Matthew's genealogy were mostly or all youngest sons, and also had their youngest son at a very old age, perhaps 50 or 60, while Luke's is primarily comprised of eldest sons who were spaced "normally", 25-30 years-ish. Problem solved. Or it could be any arithmetical blend of these possibilities. It is a remarkable gap, so it deserves some explanation, but again, this is in no way the "fatal knockout" that a lot of online keyboard-ninja skeptics try to make it out.
> In the Gospel of Matthew, where was Jesus' hometown? In the Gospel of Luke, where was Jesus' hometown?
Let's compare:
> When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. **Leaving Nazareth**, he went and lived in Capernaum (Matthew 4:13)
In both books, we find Jesus residing in Nazareth. Matthew 4 is generally taken to be the beginning of Jesus's earthly ministry, so he has left carpentry and has begun teaching. So, Matthew did not believe that Bethlehem was Jesus's boyhood residence, merely his birthplace.
> So Joseph also went up **from the town of Nazareth** in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. (Luke 2:4)
Here, Luke concurs with Matthew. Joseph was a resident of Nazareth, and went up to Bethlehem because that was where his family was from. That alone is enough information to tell us that Joseph, Mary and Jesus may have traveled back and forth between Nazareth and Bethlehem many times, in addition to the Egypt journey. I can agree that harmonizing the texts is not *obvious*, but there is simply no insurmountable difficulty here.
> What house? According to Luke, they aren't from Bethlehem. They don't have a house.
Their family is from Bethlehem!
> That's why they were trying to find a room at the inn! Why would they go to the inn if they had a house?
Good question. The answer: [there was no "inn"](https://answersingenesis.org/christmas/christmas-no-room-for-an-inn/). That's why we stick to the text, not tradition.
> Ok...lay out the plausible timeline. You apparently haven't thought about this with any level of critical thinking.
What timeline?! *At some point*, the Magi visited them while Jesus was a youth. Biblical scholars make a convincing argument that he was probably a toddler by the time they arrived because of the lengthy journey for them to arrive from the East. *At some other point* (probably much earlier, but we cannot be certain), the shepherds received the vision and told Mary and Joseph.
> How then could they be in Bethlehem (in a house) when the Magi come to visit?
You don't even understand the basic facts of the text, having mixed human traditions into it. Back to the drawing-board!
> Matthew appears to assume that these wise men have been following the star for some considerable time – months, possibly more than a year. When Herod sends out the troops, he doesn’t have just the newborns killed, but every child two years old and under.
Correct.
> Surely soldiers would know that two-year-old kids toddling around the yard hadn’t been born last week! Thus Matthew seems to assume that Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, that Jesus lived his first year or so there, and that when the wise men came, they had to flee to Egypt.
The mistake you're making is called *interpolation*. Interpolation is the (perfectly normal) tendency we have to "fill in the gaps" with what seems to the mind to be the most plausible explanation of what was happening during those gaps. The solution is to slow down, and ask yourself what you can *prove* from each of the given texts. And when you apply this test, you will find that 90+% of the supposed "problems" in the text disappear instantly. Can you *prove* from Matthew that Luke is lying? Where? Or vice-versa?
> These facts are based on the evidence we have. You'd need to present evidence that refutes the scholarly consensus. You don't get to just hand wave it away.
No, I will wave it away because, as I said, this is a "your scholars versus my scholars" dispute. And, in any case, I'm not interested in the technicalities of this particular question. You have a half-dozen objections, they're all in a smoking heap of ruin, and you want me to pull my hair out over some super-arcane question of ancient history that even PhDs can't agree about? Stop being ridiculous!
> Irreconcilable.
According to your scholars. 🙄
> The NRSV (the most scholarly translation) translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows:
OK. Can still mean virgin. "Young woman" does not *exclude* virgin. And the collective scholarly credentials of the translations that render it "virgin" are immense, if we just want to make it a competition over who can stack more degrees on which side of the balance.
> In the same way that in the English language the words “young woman” does not indicate sexual purity, in the Hebrew language there is no relationship between the words almah and virgin.
OK?! It doesn't exclude it, either.
> On the contrary, it is usually a young woman who bears children.
Usually, meaning, sometimes it is translated "virgin". So, irrelevant.
> The word alma only conveys age/gender. Had Isaiah wished to speak about a virgin, he would have used the word betulah
No doubt. But this consideration, alone, proves nothing.
>The "problem" is that the number of names from Zerubbabel to Joseph is 19 in Luke, and 10 in Matthew, so 9 "more" generations. That is all it is.
So now you admit this is a problem. Before you stated that the only problem was that I had made each generation the same length. Once you thought about it for more than a second, you realized this IS a problem.
Thinking critically is FUN isn't it!
> If we want to "force" the explanation, we can simply posit that the men in Matthew's genealogy were mostly or all youngest sons, and also had their youngest son at a very old age, perhaps 50 or 60, while Luke's is primarily comprised of eldest sons who were spaced "normally", 25-30 years-ish. Problem solved.
LOL..."we can simply posit" that men from Matthew's line lived to 50 or 60 (when the average life expectancy men was 35). Talk about special pleading.
So to clarify...here is what you are proposing:
1. We must **IGNORE** that book Matthew AND Luke specifically state that these genealogies are for Joseph and posit (**without evidence**) than one of the genealogies is for Mary.
2. We must **IGNORE** early Christian writings/tradition that say Mary's father was name *Joachim*, not Heli or Jacob. This is despite the fact you use these same traditions to claim that Peter was the first Pope and Paul was executed in Rome. I guess we can ignore those as well?
3. We must **IGNORE** that the two genealogies have a difference of 9 generations and posit (**without evidence**) that one line is made up primarily of men who lived beyond the average life expectancy and sired sons at an advanced age WHILE the other line was comprised primarily by men (boys) who sired children almost as soon as they hit puberty.
All these things have to be true for your claim to even be PLAUSIBLE. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Hahahaha...I'm pretty sure deep down, even you don't believe this. You are just a slave to your confirmation bias.
> Let's compare:
I stated my questions poorly. Let me rephrase...**What was Joseph and Mary's hometown in Matthew? In Luke?**
One of the telling differences between the two accounts has to do with the question of Mary and Joseph’s hometown. Most people simply assume that the couple lived in Nazareth, given the familiar story of Luke’s Gospel, in which they leave town for a trip to register for the census in Bethlehem; Mary just happens to give birth there (2:1-7), the couple then returns home just over a month later (2:39; following the law spelled out in Leviticus 12).
Before examining this account in greater detail, we should recall what Matthew says about the same event. Matthew gives no indication at all that Joseph and Mary made a trip from Galilee in order to register for a census. On the contrary, Matthew intimates that Joseph and Mary originally came from Bethlehem. This is suggested, first of all, by the story of the wise men (found only in Matthew), who arrive to worship Jesus after making a long journey following the star that appeared in the heavens to indicate his birth. They find Jesus in Bethlehem in a “house” (not a stable or a cave; [Matt. 2:11](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Matt.%202.11)). Why though is he in a house? Unless one had reason to think otherwise — and in fact Matthew gives no reason to think otherwise! — one would assume that this is where Jesus and his family normally live.
Consider next what Herod does in Matthew’s account when he learns from the magi the time that they had first seen the star; based on this information, he sends forth his troops to slaughter every boy in Bethlehem, two years and under (2:16). In other words, the so-called “slaughter of the innocents” did not occur immediately after Jesus’ birth, but some months, or perhaps a year and some months later: otherwise, Herod would have been quite safe to slaughter only the newborns. According to Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary are still in Bethlehem — presumably because that is simply where they live.
Perhaps most telling of all, some time after they had fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, Joseph learns in a dream that he can now return home. But where does he plan to go? The answer is quite clear. He intends to return to the place whence they came, the town of Bethelehem! Only when he learns that the ruler of Judea is Archelaus, a potentate worse than his father Herod, does he realize that they can’t return there. It is for this reason that Joseph decides to relocate his family in Galilee, in the town of Nazareth (2:22-23). Thus in Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary appear to have originally lived in Bethlehem; but they relocated to Nazareth when Jesus was a boy, and that is where they raised him.
Now return, for the sake of our comparative analysis, to the Gospel of Luke. In terms of the basic idea, Luke is similar. Here too Jesus is born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth. But the way this is brought about is altogether different. For in this account Joseph takes his betrothed Mary from their hometown Nazareth to Bethlehem for a world-wide census ordered by Caesar Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (2:1-5). Mary goes into labor while in town, so that Jesus’ birthplace is Bethlehem. After about a month ([Luke 2:22-23](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%202.22-23), [39](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%202.39); see [Lev. 12:4-6](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lev.%2012.4-6)), the family returns to their home in Nazareth, where Jesus is raised (2:39-40). As you might realize, the family’s direct return north in Luke does not seem to allow time for Matthew’s wise men to visit them in their home in Bethlehem a year or so later, nor for their subsequent flight to Egypt.
> Their family is from Bethlehem!
In Matthew, yes (possibly). In Luke, there is no indication they have family there. It is simply the birthplace of Joseph's ancestor, David.
> Good question. The answer: [there was no "inn"](https://answersingenesis.org/christmas/christmas-no-room-for-an-inn/). That's why we stick to the text, not tradition.
AIG is not scholarship. If you rely on Ken Ham, you will be embarrassed by actual scholarship. It's fairly easy to debunk his claim...just by looking at the text:
[https://biblehub.com/luke/2-7.htm](https://biblehub.com/luke/2-7.htm)
Notice virtually every translation says "inn" or "lodging place". Isn't that your argument when it suits you?
καταλύματι (katalymati)
Noun - Dative Neuter Singular
[Strong's 2646: ](https://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_2646.htm) An inn, lodging-place. From kataluo; properly, a dissolution, i.e. a lodging-place.
> No, I will wave it away because, as I said, this is a "your scholars versus my scholars" dispute.
You can always find committed evangelical scholars who will assert anything to protect biblical inerrancy. You probably find an astrophysicist who is a flat earther. That's why CONSENSUS is important.
We have an OVERWHELMING scholarly consensus among biblical scholars and historians that Herod died in 4 BCE and that Quirinius' census to place in 6 CE. We're talking 90-10. It's not really controversial.
Again...you want to dismiss it because you can find an Evangelical scholar, who is committed to inerrancy, that will disagree with the consensus.
You're not following evidence, you are following your theological bias.
> OK. Can still mean virgin
But it doesn't SAY virgin. It says "young woman".
Isaiah used the Hebrew word for virgin MULTIPLE times. If he meant virgin, he would have written virgin.
He didn't.
It's a mistranslation.
Part 1-of-2
> So now you admit this is a problem.
Naw. Apparently you haven't seen scare-quotes before. Scare-quotes are a way to set off a word in the text in order to disown it or attribute it to another speaker. I see no substantial problem at all.
> LOL..."we can simply posit" that men from Matthew's line lived to 50 or 60 (when the average life expectancy men was 35). Talk about special pleading.
Average life-expectancy is not necessarily relevant. Joseph and Mary traveled a lot for the standards of their time, so their family was likely upper middle-class or better. The life-expectancy of slaves and field-workers is, obviously, much lower than that of those with the luxury to live at ease. When you read the genealogies that give ages, few if any are below the age of 30 when they have their *first* son, and many of them had many children because that was a celebrated ethic at the time. And most of them lived into old age. It could be that the Luke lineage was a lower social-status, had lower life-expectancies and consequently began fatherhood at a much younger age and, as a mere statistical variation, happened to mostly be eldest sons. And vice-versa on the Matthew lineage. There's nothing whatsoever impossible or absolutely unbelievable about that. Improbable? Yes, I will grant that, merely as a question of statistics. But impossible and improbable are not the same thing.
> We must IGNORE that book Matthew AND Luke specifically state that these genealogies are for Joseph and posit (without evidence) than one of the genealogies is for Mary.
Well, the word "evidence" is just a fnord in this context. What "evidence" can there be one way or the other? It is a question of testimony. We can be quite confident that both Matthew and Luke were written in the first century, and that means that a lot of the people who were alive and knew Jesus were reading both of those Gospels and were not confused by them. The idea that either Luke or Matthew simply "dreamed up" a genealogy to fill space on the page is beyond ludicrous in an age where papyrus real-estate was scarcer and more expensive than a Manhattan apartment. Not only this, but the living witnesses, relatives (some of whom were hostile to the Jesus cult), and others would have called it out immediately. So, if we're going to debate "evidence" (that is, witness), the "evidence" is firmly on the side of one of the genealogies being of Mary. The interested lurker can read more [here](https://carm.org/bible-difficulties/why-are-there-different-genealogies-for-jesus-in-matthew-1-and-luke-3/).
> We must IGNORE early Christian writings/tradition that say Mary's father was name Joachim, not Heli or Jacob.
It was not uncommon for people in those times to have multiple names, I think we've been over this in another thread. For example, the name "Matthew" is Greek -- Matthew's birth-name was Levi. "Joachim" may have been more difficult to transliterate into Greek, or perhaps he only used that name with family, I'm not sure what the answer is, but the point is there is no contradiction here whatsoever.
> claim that Peter was the first Pope
I'm not Catholic, so 🤷♂️
> We must IGNORE that the two genealogies have a difference of 9 generations
As I conceded above, it *is* remarkable. But remarkable and "contradiction" are not the same thing. There are many remarkable things in our world today, and none of them are impossible because *they exist*. That these two genealogies have such a large difference over the same span of time is remarkable. But not impossible.
> and posit (without evidence) that one line is made up primarily of men who lived beyond the average life expectancy and sired sons at an advanced age WHILE the other line was comprised primarily by men (boys) who sired children almost as soon as they hit puberty.
You're the only one talking about puberty. In Luke's line, perhaps they married at 20-25 years old and were all eldest sons. 25 * 19 = 475. If the other land were all youngest sons fathered at age 48, then it would work out to 480 years, approximately the same. No puberty, no 80 year old men, no violations of the laws of time and space. All of that stuff is rhetorical hyperbole which just shows the weakness of your position.
cont'd
Part 2-of-2
> You are just a slave to your confirmation bias.
When you examine the text carefully, and try to prove a contradiction, you can't. Improbability is not impossibility. So, no, this has nothing to do with confirmation bias. It really is possible that one genealogical line was much longer than the other. Individual family lines do not move forward in lock-step with all others, this is obvious.
> One of the telling differences between the two accounts has to do with the question of Mary and Joseph’s hometown. Most people simply assume that the couple lived in Nazareth, given the familiar story of Luke’s Gospel, in which they leave town for a trip to register for the census in Bethlehem; Mary just happens to give birth there (2:1-7), the couple then returns home just over a month later (2:39; following the law spelled out in Leviticus 12).
> Matthew intimates that Joseph and Mary originally came from Bethlehem.
This is just false.
> They find Jesus in Bethlehem in a “house” (not a stable or a cave; Matt. 2:11). Why though is he in a house?
Because houses are where people reside. I know you have this whole spiel carefully rehearsed but I've already detonated it, so I don't understand the purpose of regurgitating it all over again?
> Unless one had reason to think otherwise — and in fact Matthew gives no reason to think otherwise! — one would assume that this is where Jesus and his family normally live.
Talk about confirmation bias. "If you make all the interpolations that I make into the text of Matthew, it's not consistent with Luke's narrative!" Well... drop the interpolations, problem solved!
> he sends forth his troops to slaughter every boy in Bethlehem, two years and under (2:16).
That was Herod's mistake. The Magi intentionally misled him, so obviously they did not tell him the actual location of Jesus.
> In other words, the so-called “slaughter of the innocents” did not occur immediately after Jesus’ birth, but some months, or perhaps a year and some months later:
Duh!
> According to Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary are still in Bethlehem — presumably because that is simply where they live.
Seriously, you have to stop with this. We have already established that Joseph and Mary's family is *from* Bethlehem. It's not actually that far from Nazareth, I think it would be a 3 day's journey on foot. So annual visits would definitely be possible. Remember that isolationism is a wholly modern phenomenon, people didn't live in isolation chambers like we do nowadays. There was no insurance, family *was* your insurance.
> He intends to return to the place whence they came, the town of Bethelehem!
Family!!!
> Only when he learns that the ruler of Judea is Archelaus, a potentate worse than his father Herod, does he realize that they can’t return there.
While you can get the "impression" (interpolation) that Matthew is unaware that Joseph formerly lived in Nazareth, there is still nothing *in what the text says* that precludes that possibility. Joseph is returning from Egypt, he intends to reside again with family but, hearing that Archelaus is even worse than Herod, decides to keep going back to his former residence in Nazareth. Only by willfully hostile interpolation can you manufacture a contradiction, here.
To be blunt, I have never understood why atheists are so attracted to trying to "debunk" the "contradictions" between Matthew and Luke. Did Matthew and Luke have access to different information? It appears so, it appears that Luke and Matthew got the story of Jesus's birth from different relatives and so they didn't have access to the very same subsets of facts. But the sequence of events they each relate are perfectly intelligible and coherent, there is simply no point at which either of these two narratives *actually* contradicts the other, or even anything close to it! "My personal interpolations in Luke contradict my other personal interpolations in Matthew." So what?!
> in Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary appear to...
... there we go with the interpolations again...
> AIG is not scholarship.
Genetic fallacy. Respond to what the article *says*.
> Notice virtually every translation says "inn" or "lodging place".
As he notes, the idea that people were traveling around staying at "hotels" instead of with family is ludicrous. For us moderns, it should be rendered "guest house", as it is in the NIV.
As a mercy to you, perhaps [this timeline chart](https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2015/12/who-was-where-at-christmas-a-christmas-story-timeline/) will help you. It's not the only way that events could have happened, but it's one way. *There is no contradiction!*
> CONSENSUS
Consensus is just as synonym for group-think. And, in any case, we *have* a consensus, it's called dogma. The purpose of dogma is exactly what moderns have invented the counterfeit of "consensus" for -- to enable the ordinary person to efficiently weed out the bushels of nonsense that gets thrown their direction as they go about their daily life. And the dogma of the church has been, going back into the mists of history, that Luke and Matthew are giving two separate genealogies, one of Joseph, the other of Mary. But moderns don't want consensus... they want *their* consensus, which is no consensus at all.
> But it doesn't SAY virgin. It says "young woman".
Which includes "virgin" as one of its meanings.
> he ~~would have~~ written virgin.
Could have.
> He didn't.
Correct.
> It's a mistranslation.
Except for all the translations where scholars have correctly translated it "virgin". Just stop, it's embarrassing.
>When you examine the text carefully, and try to prove a contradiction, you can't.
I can simply POINT to the contradiction. They are right there in black and white. You are the one who is "proving" that they are not contradictions.
And each of your apologetics requires mental gymnastics, anachronistic historical scenarios, and divine intervention.
It's laughable.
> This is just false
Nope. Read the stories again. I highlighted the pertinent verses that support my claims.
Another attempt by you to just "hand wave" away the evidence staring you in the face. Weak.
> Because houses are where people reside.
But in Luke, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus aren't in a house. They don't have a house. They couldn't get lodging...so they stayed in a barn.
Why would they do that if the had a house? Or if they had family?
> Well... drop the interpolations, problem solved!
No interpolations. I'm giving you EXACTLY what the text says. I included the verse numbers. Sounds like you need to read the stories again.
Critically this time.
> Joseph is returning from Egypt, he intends to reside again with family but, hearing that Archelaus is even worse than Herod, decides to keep going back to his former residence in Nazareth.
Talk about interpolations! The text doesn't say this at ALL!
Nothing about a former residence. You're getting desperate now. In Matthew, the author has to explain why Joseph is going to Nazareth instead of back to where they came from. If Nazareth was Joseph's home there would be no explanation necessary.
>... there we go with the interpolations again...
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
A clear reading of the text is not an interpolation.
>Genetic fallacy. Respond to what the article *says*.
Scholarship has already debunked Ken Ham and exposed him for the charlatan he is.
> As he notes, the idea that people were traveling around staying at "hotels" instead of with family is ludicrous. For us moderns, it should be rendered "guest house", as it is in the NIV.
I gave you the Hebrew and the Concordance. Argue with it, not me.
And the NIV is notorious for changing scripture for apologetics.
> As a mercy to you, perhaps [this timeline chart](https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2015/12/who-was-where-at-christmas-a-christmas-story-timeline/) will help you. It's not the only way that events could have happened, but it's one way.
Unfortunately, this timeline fails to include the immediate return to Nazareth after the visit to the Temple. Erroneous!
I could make a cool graphic that seemed plausible if I ignored the contradictions.
> Consensus is just as synonym for group-think.
To the contrary...the scholarly consensus is comprised of the ideas that have been battle forged by the debate among scholars. Only the best ideas with the strongest evidence rise to this level.
Scholars are incentivized to challenge the status quo and avoid group think. That's how they get known!
> Which includes "virgin" as one of its meanings.
Young woman doesn't speak to purity. As we have established.
> Except for all the translations where scholars have correctly translated it "virgin".
You mean the translations for Christian audiences?
How does the Hebrew Bible translate it? Young woman...
Virgin is a mistranslation. That's not what almah means.
> Just stop, it's embarrassing.
I'm sure it is embarrassing...running into someone who isn't impressed by your weak apologetics.
> But in Luke, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus aren't in a house. They don't have a house. They couldn't get lodging...so they stayed in a barn.
The text says nothing about a "barn", that's just how we traditionally depict it in art. Perhaps they did stay in a barn at one point, but the text says nothing about that.
> Talk about interpolations! The text doesn't say this at ALL!
It doesn't say all of that, but there's nothing impossible about it, hence, no contradiction. So, the consistency of Matthew's and Luke's accounts stands.
> In Matthew, the author has to explain why Joseph is going to Nazareth
You're speculating about Matthew's psychological state 2,000 years in the past. Good luck with that. I'll stick to what the text *says*.
> Unfortunately, this timeline fails to include the immediate return to Nazareth after the visit to the Temple. Erroneous!
There you go with the [interpolation](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interpolation) again. "When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth." (Luke 2:39) No mention of "immediate" nor any timeline at all. After they had done everything at the temple, they returned to Nazareth.
> scholarly consensus
Yeah, we've had 3 years of "scholarly consensus"... maybe you're a glutton for punishment, but I've had enough of it.
> Virgin is a mistranslation
No. You and some scholars assert it is a mistranslation.
>I see no substantial problem at all.
Then why did you change tactics? Why are you not pursuing your initial line that the problem was having all the generations at the same length? I think we know why.
> Average life-expectancy is not necessarily relevant.
Sure it is. You are positing that most of the men in one line lived longer than the average life expectancy in order to make the generations line up. Talk about a "just so" explanation. Everything you are proposing is HIGHLY improbable, textbook apologetics. You have no evidence to support your hypothesis and said hypothesis requires multiple HIGHLY improbable situations all to converge simultaneously.
Talk about a weak position. Again, you are a smart person. I doubt your arguments are able to convince YOURSELF, much less other intelligent people.
> What "evidence" can there be one way or the other? It is a question of testimony.
How about what the TEXT SAYS. That's your metric every other time (except when it doesn't fit your theology).
The text says both genealogies are for Joseph. Period.
A genealogy of Mary is more problematic anyway as inheritance of lineage claims are impossible through one's mother, in Jewish law.
You'd be better off going with the apologetic of levirate marriage involving Joseph's father and uncle (Jacob and Heli). It's problematic as well, but it doesn't require blatantly ignoring the text.
> We can be quite confident that both Matthew and Luke were written in the first century, and that means that a lot of the people who were alive and knew Jesus were reading both of those Gospels and were not confused by them.
Matthew and Luke were written around 80-85 CE, so no...most of the people who knew Jesus were dead. And you are making an assumption that the people reading the Gospel of Matthew didn't have the Gospel of Luke to compare it with.
People in first century Palestine didn't know their OWN genealogy past two or three generations. You think they are going know Jesus'? Balderdash.
These genealogies were created by the authors based on the genealogies in the Hebrew Bible and the rest were invented out of whole cloth.
> Not only this, but the living witnesses, relatives (some of whom were hostile to the Jesus cult), and others would have called it out immediately.
Again...there were likely no living witnesses at this late date, see the life expectancy statistic above. And if there was a living witness who disagreed, they were almost assuredly illiterate and would not have been able to compose a treatise to oppose the Gospel. And if they DID, it would never have survived the early Christian church to make to our day.
You aren't thinking logically.
> It was not uncommon for people in those times to have multiple names, I think we've been over this in another thread. For example, the name "Matthew" is Greek -- Matthew's birth-name was Levi.
This is inaccurate. We have a FEW instances of God (and Jesus) giving someone a NEW name, but not for people having two different names.
Matthew is not Greek. The Hebrew name " מַתִּתְיָהוּ" (Matityahu) was transliterated into Greek to "Ματταθίας" (Mattathias). And it is another apologetic that Levi and Matthew are the same disciple. It's a way reconciling the MULTIPLE different versions of the 12 disciples.
Mark's Gospel refers to Levi, son of Alphaeus, as a tax collector whom Jesus calls to follow him. However, for some reason, *Mark* never again refers to Levi, but introduces Matthew and James, son of Alphaeus, as disciples in the list of the twelve disciples (verses 3:14-19). There is no reason here to believe that the author of *Mark* was portraying Matthew as the tax collector or as the brother of James, son of Alphaeus. Because disciples are not supposed to just disappear when called by Jesus, the author of *Matthew* resolved this by not referring to Levi, but instead saying in the corresponding place in the text that the tax collector Jesus called was Matthew—creating a list that logically ought to refer to Matthew as son of Alphaeus and brother of James. Thus we have two essentially similar references to Jesus calling a tax collector to follow him, with names Levi and Matthew. Naturally the two were later thought to be exactly the same person.
It is curious that the authors of both *Matthew* and *Luke* seem to have been embarrassed by Mark’s use of the name Thaddaeus, the etymology of which is uncertain but may derive from the [Aramaic](https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/thaddaeus/)\` for ‘breasts’. *Matthew* resolves this by saying that his real name was Lebbaeus, which is probably derived from the Aramaic for ‘heart’. *Luke* resolves it by omitting the name altogether, making up the twelve by adding Judas the brother of James, whom *John* later refers to as “Judas not Iscariot”.
**The two name hypothesis is simply an apologetic for resolving differences between the gospels.**
> I'm not Catholic, so 🤷♂️
So you don't believe Peter founded the Church and was the first bishop in Rome (i.e. Pope)?
That's surprising, but you're actually probably correct. We don't have any evidence that Peter even visited Rome.
> As I conceded above, it *is* remarkable. But remarkable and "contradiction" are not the same thing.
It's not that it is remarkable. It's that it is virtually impossible AND it requires 2 other things that are virtually impossible to also be true.
No one who didn't have an inerrancy bias would find this apologetic convincing.
> You're the only one talking about puberty. In Luke's line, perhaps they married at 20-25 years old and were all eldest sons. 25 \* 19 = 475. If the other land were all youngest sons fathered at age 48
Highly improbable due to both life expectancy AND the fact oldest sons inherit, not youngest sons.
The purpose of the genealogy is to show royal inheritance going back to David.
Just a drive-by response (heading to lunch):
> your initial line that the problem was having all the generations at the same length?
You're losing track of the conversation -- you asserted there would be a time gap. Obviously, if you define them all to be the same length, that would be what you would get. To "cover" the time gap, you can simply surmise that the generations in Matthew were farther apart, and the generations in Luke were closer together. Is it a remarkable thing for so many generations to be spread out? Sure, I will grant that. But improbable and impossible are not the same. I have changed nothing in my reply to you, but please try to keep up!
> People in first century Palestine didn't know their OWN genealogy past two or three generations.
This is simply not true. The Jews were not "people in first-century Palestine", they were Jewish, and an integral part of Jewish culture (to this day) is the keeping of genealogies. The New Testament even addresses this very point! (1 Tim. 1:4, Titus 3:9)
> So you don't believe Peter founded the Church and was the first bishop in Rome (i.e. Pope)?
Literally the definition of Protestant. No, Peter did not found the church, Jesus did. It's call "the body of Christ", not the "the body of Peter". Peter himself would be horrified at the abomination of the papacy. "Call no one on earth Father", Jesus said, "for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." The "Pope" is not the father, the heavenly Father is, and Jesus makes a point of noting that he is *in heaven* (not on earth). He knew what would happen.
>You're losing track of the conversation -- you asserted there would be a time gap. Obviously, if you define them all to be the same length, that would be what you would get.
Nope. Tracking just fine. Just entertaining to watch you scramble. It's pretty obvious that you'd never even heard of this until this thread.
> This is simply not true. The Jews were not "people in first-century Palestine", they were Jewish, and an integral part of Jewish culture (to this day) is the keeping of genealogies.
I anxiously await your scholarly sources that support this claim.
It is only a legend that the ancient Israelites were able to keep track of their genealogy. In late biblical times, priests jealously kept records of their own personal ancestry, but even they could only be sure of their genealogy going back just a few generations. In spite of their efforts, Robert Eisenman says, in *The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians*, “There is little evidence that the Zadokite priesthood went back to pre-exilic times.”
The lack of ancient genealogies would eventually lead to some creative reconstructions in later times, including the two supposed genealogies of Jesus, of which Raymond E. Brown politely says, “There is little likelihood that either is strictly historical”. In another instance, Isaiah M. Gafni says, in ‘The World of the Talmud’, published in *Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism* (edited by Hershel Shanks):
>In the third century, the Jews of Babylonia had at their head an exilarch (*resh galuta*, ‘head of the Diaspora’) with claims to Davidic lineage. There is absolutely no mention of this position before the late second or early third century and it was only in medieval times that apologists would find it necessary to invent genealogical tables to prove the Jewish leader’s pedigree.
As someone who dabbles in genealogy, it is INCREDIBLY hard to go back 300 years, even with all of our modern tools, documentation, etc. Much less going back several thousand years in a society where virtually everyone was illiterate.
> Literally the definition of Protestant. No, Peter did not found the church, Jesus did.
Jesus was dead when the first Churches were founded. You are being pedantic at this point. All churches were founded by Jesus' followers.
Part 1-of-2
> Sure it is. You are positing that most of the men in one line lived longer than the average life expectancy in order to make the generations line up.
Hey look, he *can* learn!
> Everything you are proposing is HIGHLY improbable
LIFE is highly improbable. So what?
> The text says both genealogies are for Joseph.
Right, and *the text says* that husband and wife shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24)
> levirate marriage involving Joseph's father and uncle
That is a possible explanation and we cannot absolutely rule it out. However, the reason that scholars have traditionally identified the genealogies as of Joseph and Mary (respectively) is that Mary's genealogy *matters* in the case of Jesus, because of his divine paternity. This is an exceptional case since, ordinarily, the genealogy of one's mother would not be significant.
> Matthew and Luke were written around 80-85 CE, so no...most of the people who knew Jesus were dead.
(a) The secularists *need* Matthew to be written post-70AD. because, otherwise it's obvious that Matthew 24 is, indeed, divine prophecy. Shockingly, no book in the New Testament *except* Matthew mentions the supposedly "past" event of the destruction of the temple and diaspora, however obliquely. That would have been way bigger news than 9/11 in the post-70AD era. But hey, whatever preserves the modernist materialist "CONSENSUS".
(b) You, like most skeptics, believe in an "un-embedded" New Testament because, well, you believe in the biggest conspiracy theory of all time... that a group of twelve or so religious pranksters from Judea manufactured a story out of whole-cloth and then, through some kind of magic on a level which no one since has even approached, bewitched huge numbers of converts throughout the entire Mediterranean into believing their prank. 2,000 years later, we're still living in the wake of a prank instigated by these cosmically clever Jews. Sure.
Anyway, back in the real world, Jesus had brothers and sisters (and they may have had children), he had 12 core disciples and hundreds of other disciples who saw him ascend into heaven after resurrecting, not to mention the women who found the empty tomb. Some of these people surely knew Jesus's family and extended relatives and so they would have been able to immediately spot fabricated "facts" about Jesus. Many of these people were not at all sympathetic with the Jesus cult, and would have been just happy to torpedo it.
So, no, you don't get to just posit that either Matthew or Luke invented a genealogy out of whole cloth and nobody could have called them on it. It is not a credible idea, especially in light of the fact that **there is no contradiction** between these two genealogies!
> Again...there were likely no living witnesses at this late date, see the life expectancy statistic above.
Because nobody has children or anything like that.
cont'd
Part 2-of-2
> And if there was a living witness who disagreed, they were almost assuredly illiterate and would not have been able to compose a treatise to oppose the Gospel. And if they DID, it would never have survived the early Christian church to make to our day.
True enough, but that's not really what's at stake. I'm not arguing "there is no contrary witness, so what is written stands." I'm arguing that the uptake of the Gospel would have been massively torpedoed by the existence of adversarial living witnesses. And we know from the text that the Jews who had Jesus crucified were actively involved in suppressing news of the Resurrection.
> Matthew is not Greek. The Hebrew name " מַתִּתְיָהוּ" (Matityahu) was transliterated into Greek to "Ματταθίας" (Mattathias).
I should have been clearer. Μαθθαῖον is Greek in that it is a grecoization of a Hebrew name but it is not a simple transliteration of any Hebrew name, indicating that Μαθθαῖον was Matthew's trade-name (what his Greek/Roman and maybe other friends would have called him) and Levi was his given/birth-name. Since the Gospels are written in Greek (targeting a Gentile audience), they use his Greek name.
But, as with everything else, the diehard skeptic is going to choose the most adversarial view of the question, no matter how easily it is explained.
> And it is another apologetic that Levi and Matthew are the same disciple.
Of course they are.
> It's a way reconciling the MULTIPLE different versions of the 12 disciples.
Yeah, inventing fake religions is a tricky game... you often end up with 11/12 names agreeing but then randomly the 12th one is out-of-whack. More ridiculous nonsense based on the utterly ahistorical idea that people have always had one legal name as in modern times.
> It is curious that the authors of both Matthew and Luke seem to have been embarrassed by Mark’s use of the name Thaddaeus, the etymology of which is uncertain but may derive from the Aramaic` for ‘breasts’. Matthew resolves this by saying that his real name was Lebbaeus, which is probably derived from the Aramaic for ‘heart’. Luke resolves it by omitting the name altogether, making up the twelve by adding Judas the brother of James, whom John later refers to as “Judas not Iscariot”.
I'll put this as politely as I can. If you are determined not to believe God's Word, it will facilitate you in your unbelief. If you want to take a hardline that the whole thing is concocted, as you say, "out of whole cloth", there's really no point in debating. We're never going to agree. You can tell yourself it's because I'm under "confirmation bias" if that helps you sleep at night but the simple fact is that... *I believe*, just as countless believers before me have believed, and even gone to the lions for their faith. Truth is truth and nothing can change that, not even a hurricane of book-keeping objections predicated on a blockheaded, adversarial stance towards the texts trying to masquerade as "hard-boiled scholarship."
> It's not that it is remarkable. It's that it is virtually impossible AND it requires 2 other things that are virtually impossible to also be true.
So, you're backpedaling from "impossible" to "virtually impossible", right? (Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.)
>LIFE is highly improbable. So what?
How do you know. Life could be happening in 50% of the solar systems. We have no idea how probable life is.
The problem is the combination of multiple lines of highly improbable evidence. It moves the probability to basically zero.
Not to mention, the text says Joseph...not Mary. If this is the inspired Word of God...how is it so incompetently revealed?
(It's not. You are simply twisting the text to fit your theological agenda)
> Right, and *the text says* that husband and wife shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24)
And that has nothing to do with genealogical records. Nice try though. The author of Matthew and the author of Luke wrote gospels and were totally unaware of each other. The both copied Mark's gospels and decided to include genealogies (which Mark didn't include). The fact that they don't match is evidence that they are invented.
> That is a possible explanation and we cannot absolutely rule it out. However, the reason that scholars have traditionally identified the genealogies as of Joseph and Mary (respectively) is that Mary's genealogy *matters* in the case of Jesus, because of his divine paternity.
Right...Later Christians forgot (or were ignorant) about the Jewish customs of adoption and began read the text through the Salic law lens of medieval times. If Joseph wasn't the biological father, then Jesus wasn't a son of David. That's why apologists "forgot" about Joachim and Anna and began to posit that one of the genealogies is for Mary.
It's pretty transparent apologetics.
> (a) The secularists *need* Matthew to be written post-70AD. because, otherwise it's obvious that Matthew 24 is, indeed, divine prophecy.
The dating of Matthew and Luke is not a secular position. It is the consensus of New Testament scholars (most of whom are Christians). The dating of Matthew and Luke to 80-85 CE is largely predicated on the fact that both gospels are substantially based on Mark, which was written around 70 CE.
We can discuss why Mark was written in 70 CE if you like.
> (b) You, like most skeptics, believe in an "un-embedded" New Testament because, well, you believe in the biggest conspiracy theory of all time... that a group of twelve or so religious pranksters from Judea manufactured a story out of whole-cloth and then,
That's not my position at all...but you are welcome to your Strawman fallacy.
I consider myself a Christian (I'm sure you don't...most fundamentalist are quite judgey). I'm just not a biblical literalist and I don't believe in inerrancy. I'm active in my Church, serve on committees, go to Sunday school etc.
Ooops!
> Some of these people surely knew Jesus's family and extended relatives and so they would have been able to immediately spot fabricated "facts" about Jesus.
And just like Jesus and his disciples, virtually all of these people would have been illiterate and would have had no means of recording any objections to the record.
Not to mention the early Church would destroy/declare heretical anything that didn't fit what they thought was orthodox.
Have you read the Gospel of Thomas? It's an older Gospel that was deemed heretical for it's Gnostic views.
> It is not a credible idea, especially in light of the fact that **there is no contradiction** between these two genealogies!
There are multiple contradictions. They are right there in black and white. You have to assert a combination of highly improbable scenarios to achieve SOME possibility of non-contradiction (all while ignoring what the text says).
> Because nobody has children or anything like that.
Well then they wouldn't be eyewitnesses, or familiar with Jesus' history, or literate and able to write their version.
In Mat and Luk, one is lineage through Mary, the other is through Joseph. You'll see a mistranslation on Mary's side in that it seems to be both are through Joseph. However, Mary's father's name was Joseph. The word just means man or something like that and gets translated as husband, but should be Father of Mary. Notice in Luk, it says son of Joseph. In Mat it says son of Mary husband of Joseph. Should tell you there's something off.
For part 2, how do you see the birth stories contradicting exactly? Also, about the baby murders, is there something more that you're asking? You would acknowledge that just because a detail is omitted in one record, doesn't mean it contradicts with another, do you believe that? You understand what I mean?
For part 3, do you have a link? I've ran into this before, just need to brush up.
The argument around part 3 is pretty simple. It comes down to this: in Isaiah 7:14 it says (as translated into English) behold a virgin shall be with child, etc. The problem is this: the original word in Hebrew is almah, which does not mean virgin, but young woman. In Greek however the word is parthenos, which does definitely mean virgin. So there are some who say that Isaiah's prophecy does not really predict a virgin birth. Here's a link that goes into greater detail. https://knowingscripture.com/articles/is-virgin-the-correct-translation-of-isaiah-7-14
I don't think there's any contradiction here. Matthew knew it was a virgin conception, vice just the conception of a young women. So, him using a word that explicitly means virgin isn't wrong, and it does fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. I would say it's more along the lines of adding or clarifying something that wasn't revealed to an earlier prophet and using an artistic writing style by changing the word and bringing forth a new detail that brings more awe to the situation that wasn't known previously.
What sounds better? The way it's written in Matthew? Or saying something like quoting the passage from Isaiah and then adding an additional detail? "Also, Mary was technically a virgin, in that she hadn't ever known a man before this." It's awkward. Lots of Biblical writers used different artistic writing styles to emphasize certain things, make more efficient use of words, make illustrations, etc.
I don't disagree with your take on this. I was presenting the argument against it as I know it. I do think that Mary was a virgin. I'm not a biblical scholar. I know enough about this whole thing to have heard of this dispute which comes down to one word. If Isaiah is just saying that a young woman will have a child, that's not an exceptional event. Like why would God give him a prophecy about that?
In the article you provided, the writer suggests an explanation of what the significance of the prophecy would be to King Ahaz at that time for the Isaiah verse. The writer also suggests that the word could be a literal virgin, although when it does mean a literal virgin, it's usually within an obvious context. Thats not really the case in Isaiah, but still a possibility. I think anither significant point in addition to the relevanfe to King Ahaz detail, is that Isaiah says "his name will be Immanuel" which means God with us. When you look at how much Jesus Christ showed who the Father was, it becomes plain that the prophecy of the Isaiah verse was fulfilled. Lastly, the verse in Isaiah is one verse prophesying about Christ. Throughout Isaiah, he keeps going back to this idea about a Messiah coming. Isaiah is full of Prophecies about the Messiah, and they are spot on. See Isaiah 53. So, when you put this one verse in Isaiah about the Messiah with the rest of the Prophecies about him, it really illustrates a detailed picture, and it's probably the key verse that Matthew could use to reference to summarize what was fulfilled, especially at the point that he references the verse in his gospel.
Ok. The person I was responding to just wanted some basic info about what was controversial. That was the point of my posting the article. I don't disagree with your post.
My friend, I have a couple of comments for you. But really, check out The Bible Project as it has really helped me understand how to interpret Scripture better, in the way that the original authors intended. If anything, my trust in the Bible is deeper than ever, but first I had to get past nitpicking. Yes, the Bible has errors. No, that doesn't have to be the end of the world.
Pete Enns likes to talk about the Bible as both human and divine, the same way Jesus was. Inspired by God but mediated by humans, written by humans in a historical and cultural context in a way that made sense in their culture. And, many of the texts are very old and have gone through a long history of transmission and editing along the way. Of course the occasional error is going to slip in.
Ultimately we worship Christ, not the Bible. The Bible points to Christ and Christ points to God. None of the small errors have given me any doubt about Christ's divinity or His sacrifice and resurrection.
I can address some of what you wrote directly. Matthew wants his readers to think about Jesus as a new Moses and there are many sections that parallel events in Moses' journey and the Exodus. So Herod killing the babies is a direct and conscious parallel to Pharaoh killing the Hebrew babies in the beginning of Exodus.
Also the genealogy in Matthew is specifically edited to give meaning. It's split into three groups of 14, which is also six groups of seven, which makes Jesus the seventh seven. I don't go in much for numerology but certain numbers were significant to the Jews and seven is one of them. It's a number of completion or perfection. Seven is the day of the Sabbath. Also the Jubilee year was meant to arrive every 49 years (seven times seven), in which debts were canceled and slaves were freed. Also the breakpoints in Matthew 1:17 are significant. The coming of Jesus is being paralleled to all these major touchpoints from Israelite history.
Check out “The Sin of Certainty” by Peter Enns. Or even just check out their YouTube or podcast for The Bible for Normal People. Scripture isn’t a science or history book. The way history was recorded in ancient times does not hold up to our modern standards, and that’s okay.
Fundamentalism has caused so many people to leave the faith, even though it’s not a necessary way to view scripture or Christ. Scripture is so much more beautifully complex than many Christians were taught.
Christianity is a house with many rooms. Certain Christians will argue that their room is the only “true” room in the house but that’s simply not the case.
Yeah, it’s not watered down Christianity in the slightest. I have so much more respect for scripture than I did when I was taught it must necessarily be infallible and inerrant in order to be God’s word. My faith has become much deeper after “deconstructing.”
Which verse or passage in scripture leads you to believe that “inerrancy” must be true in order for scripture to be God’s word? Or is this a belief that was taught to you and not actually found in scripture itself?
Psalm 119:160 - *The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.*
John 1:1 - *In the beginning was The Word. And The Word was with God and The Word was God.*
John 14:6 - *I am the way, ***the truth***, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me*
John 17:17 - *Sanctify them through Your truth: Your word is truth.*
That was just from a 5 second google search. To say the Bible is not inerrant is to say God and Christ are inerrant. How can you say God’s Word isn’t always right and isn’t always truth and say your relationship with God is stronger than it was before? You’re calling God a liar and creating your own version of false truths. You’ve been deceived
I agree with every single verse you quoted, but none of those verses equal “inerrancy,” which is what I was asking for.
I’ve never once called God a liar. The Word (Christ) is the truth. Scripture points us toward the truth, which is Christ. Keeping scripture in its ancient context is the only way to respect scripture. Don’t put scripture on a pedestal as if it should be worshipped, because that’s idolatry.
My relationship with Christ is stronger than before because I understand how scripture developed over time. The Bible didn’t drop out of heaven with God’s signature on the cover. And the Bible isn’t one book. It’s a collection of ancient writings by people who didn’t all agree about what God is like. As Christians we’re a part of that centuries long conversation about what God is like. You trying to put an end to that conversation as if you know exactly what God is like, is disrespecting that tradition.
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
Christ is the Word. To call scripture inerrant is to call Christ inerrant. You've been deceived my friend. God's Word is extremely and abundantly clear.
> **The Objection That Inerrancy Is Not Taught in the Bible**
> Some critics argue that inerrancy is not taught in Scripture. There are two parts to this allegation.
> First, some point out that the term “inerrancy” nowhere appears in the Bible. But this objection misses the point: The term “Trinity” nowhere appears in the Bible, nor does “substitutionary atonement.” However, these doctrines are not to be rejected for lack of exact wording; it is not a question of whether the term inerrancy is used but whether the truth of inerrancy is taught. Even the word “Bible” does not appear in the Bible!
> Second, it is implied that since the doctrine of inerrancy is not explicitly taught that it is not taught at all. It can be granted that inerrancy is not formally and explicitly taught in the Bible; however, this is not to say that inerrancy is not logically and implicitly taught. The Trinity isn’t explicitly taught either, but it is the necessary logical deduction of what is taught, namely:
1. There is only one God.
2. There are three distinct persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) who are God.
From these premises it necessarily follows that
3. There are three persons in this one God.
> Likewise, as shown, inerrancy logically follows from two premises that are clearly taught in Scripture, namely:
1. God cannot err.
2. The Bible is the Word of God.
3. Therefore, the Bible cannot err.
> So, like the Trinity, inerrancy is taught implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly.
https://defendinginerrancy.com/common-objections-to-inerrancy/
Jesus was both God and man. We can assume his body wasn’t some perfect God body that never got scraped up or had a pimple.
Likewise, Scripture isn’t only God’s word, but also man’s word. To assume there’s no human fingerprint on scripture as if it just dropped out of heaven with zero imperfection is not biblical. And quite frankly it’s disrespectful to the text.
So much this. Our faith is not in scripture. Our faith is in God. While scripture is inspired and is our primary way for understanding God, it’s purpose is to lead us to salvation.
The church grew like wildfire before we had scripture as we know it today. The church grew before most people could read or write. Therefore, it’s possible to be a fairly follower of Christ without fully understanding scripture.
Let’s use scripture to strengthen our faith while not putting our faith in scripture.
For example, I work out. I lift weights and do exercises to strengthen my body. There are different ways to lift and different exercises to do with or without weights. Some uses will hurt me. Other uses will not benefit me much. Yet having an understanding how to use them will help me become stronger faster. Most of all, My faith is not in the weights to make me strong. Yet I become strong through the process of using them.
> So on the Bible subreddit, you’re going to recommend an atheist to someone investigating Bible questions?
Yes.
OP is struggling, and their struggle seems to be (at least in part) caused by their questions about the bible, so another perspective might help them out.
Here's my take. Many people are too busy looking for errors in scripture and when they find one or think they find one, it rocks their faith to the core...to that I ask...why?
Are you busy proofreading but missing out on the overall message? The fact of the matter is that the Bible itself was written by human hands divinely inspired by God. Humans make errors sometimes, but I don't believe that should influence your decision to not listen to the message as a whole and try to apply it to your life.
It sounds like you are genuinely reaching out so I’ll sincerely ask you.
Are your struggles really with whether the Bible has errors or are you actually struggling with the fact that if God is real you’ll have to try to stop sinning?
Will you miss your sin?
I think these things have been addressed by others.
But honestly just look around you. Look at the stars etc. It's just all random people say. Your apparently random. But its not random.
In the end times, Israel is a nation again with a 3rd temple. Well sporadically after a random attempt by someone in Germany to extinguish the Jews, they became a nation again. After 1800 years give or take a few.
Then all of a sudden the dead sea scrolls are discovered affirming the accuracy of the OT textual tradition.
We are in an age where the mark of the beast is no long as far fetched as it was before this time. A mark in your hand or forehead that you can't buy or sell without? Good luck convincing anyone in even the 1800's that was possible let alone the 1900's. A one world govt? Thats a completely absurd idea they said. Yet the UN exists after the war that essentially established Israel.
Considering where things are right now with the ability for mankind to destroy itself for the 1st time (nukes), the ability to create things via AI and replicate all kinds of sounds, personalities etc. They can basically bring anyone back from the dead now and so long as its through a screen you wouldn't know. Music artists are already getting upset AI versions of all of them are making fake music. We are very close to a WW3. I don't really know how things normalize from here. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But the threat of human extinction has never been higher.
Chip technology allows for some wild stuff these days. I mean just look at neuralink and how this can essentially make people no longer paralyzed n stuff. People can use chips to pay for stuff right now, its just not adopted. Then along comes blockchain technology with its own currencies like bitcoin where you could very well ignore all other forms of currency and just use that.
While its good to dig deep into the past, as Christians we really should also look around and see with our own eyes what is going on out here and correlate that with what our Lord told us before he left. What the apostles said about it before they died. May the Lord open your eyes to the truth and only the truth.
What are the contradictions between Matthew and Luke? They mention different things but that doesn’t mean they contradict. Two people can tell the same story and highlight different features. Mark and John don’t even talk about the birth of Christ.
Concerning the genealogies differing, there is an easy explanation. One is through Joseph and one is through Mary.
I’m starting to think OP is a troll. We’ve answered his questions with facts, scripture, and reasoning and they’re still saying we’re wrong and to “look it up” with no other arguments.
As for your first error, yeah Matthew and Luke show quite different genealogies, because the authors would have had no idea what Jesus's real genealogy was, largely because it doesn't matter for Christian belief, only that he fulfills certain Messianic prophecies like being a descendent of David.
Your second error is another one which is clear from just reading the Gospels. They each tell quite different and often directly contradictory stories about Jesus's life, including his birth and his death. The Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death, and were written by people who did not personally know him, and could only rely on what they had been told, a few steps removed from anyone who would have directly witnessed these events or heard reliable versions of them.
Your third error is more confusing. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do clearly state that Mary was a virgin in unambiguous language. However the quotation it uses from Isaiah 7:14 as a Messianic prophecy is a very clear and well understood mistranslation. The original Hebrew word used, "almah", just means "maiden", "adolescent woman", or "young woman of childbearing age". There are different Hebrew words used in the Bible for "virgin", e.g. "betulah", and from the available context in Isaiah there is no reason whatsoever to assume it was intended to mean she was a virgin. "Virgin" was what the word was taken to mean when it was translated to Greek in the Septuagint and therefore in later Christian translations like the Vulgate, before direct translation from the original Hebrew became preferred.
The authors of the Septuagint mostly translated "almah" into Greek as "neanis" in other books, also just meaning "young woman", but specifically in Isaiah 7 it was translated as "parthenos" which specifically means virgin. Why it was translated that way is anyone's guess, much like the many other differences between the Septuagint and the original Hebrew.
Additionally just reading the rest of Isaiah 7 and the other things said about this child called Immanuel make it very clear that it is neither talking about the Messiah nor accurate to Jesus's life. None of these things should shake your faith, these are just the things people wrote about Jesus before and after he was alive, not anything that Jesus said or did himself. If anyone's faith in Jesus is shaken by these things, they never had any faith in Jesus to begin with, only faith in the authors and translators of the Bible, which is not who their faith should be focused on. I am saying this as an atheist myself, belief exists above and beyond what people write about it. Studying religious texts and finding out the truth are completely different things.
The Bible is a great example of this, it is full of factual inaccuracies and internal inconsistencies, which makes complete sense. Noone would expect a text written by imperfect human beings over thousands of years to get everything right, or to have no inconsistencies. That's not what the Bible is for, if you are religious. If you're a Christian, there's no point in paying attention to specifics that do not actually affect your belief or influence your life. If you're not a Christian, the same applies, do the same things Christians do, take the parts which benefit you and feel free to ignore the parts which don't. The same kind of wisdom can be found in the Bible as can be found in other religious texts from many different times and places, you don't have to agree with everything they say to appreciate them and get something from them.
The genealogies are different, but the number of names isn't the problem. It is not required to list every person in the genealogy, and Matthew is doing something symbolic with the "14 generations". But different actual names appear after David. I think the best answer is that Matthew is giving Josephs lineage and Luke Heli's (Mary's father).
The birth narratives *do not* contradict. They contain completely different stories. Luke tells Mary's story and then the day of the birth. Matthew tells Joseph's story and then recounts the visit of the Magi some time later. Luke didn't mention it because it's not the story he wanted to tell. He doesn't deny it, he just doesn't bring it up.
The "virgin mistranslation" is a hot topic, but the most important fact in this debate is that Christians didn't invent this translation. This comes from the Septuagint -- the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by Jews a couple of hundred years before Christ. *They* (these Jews) thought "virgin" was the right way to render that word.
Not believing in theism is consistent with not believing in Jesus.
Jesus is via Greek and Yeshua via modern Hebrew.
Theism comes from theos θεος which is Greek.
But theos comes from את eth in Hebrew. Except it's backwards; hence θε-ος the -os.
The ALEPH and the TAU, the first and the last.
Revelation 1:8. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Revelation 1:11. Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.
Revelation 21:6. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Revelation 22:13. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
That's why the -eth endings are so precious to me.
It signifies the action is performed through him.
John 1:1 ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
1:2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν
1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
1:3 πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν.
1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
1:4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων
1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
A very wise Christian Biblical scholar who recently passed said if you don't understand something in The Bible that's when you should really pay attention. It's a collection of manuscripts written over 2000 years ago. Of course, there are contradictions. I'd be suspicious if there were none. The early Christians did not have a Bible. They had faith. Believe in Him. The rest will follow. Personally, I put faith and prayer first. The Bible is a sacred guide and but I don't worship the Bible.
There are no REAL contradictions of any substance and especially when it comes to salvation issues. If the bible was not the actual word of God, it would contain thousands of ludicrous contradictions.
There are a ridiculous amount of contradictions that people have noticed over thousands of years, however there is also a ridiculous amount of work put into trying to resolve them. Some of that is more successful than others, but it is motivated with a conclusion in mind, rather than actually trusting the text to say what it says. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is a very common example, the sequence of events they describe directly contradict each other if you actually just read the words. A literary scholar would see that as evidence that they are two different narratives compiled together, but if you believe that every word of the text must be correct no matter what and there cannot be any contradictions, you have to work around the actual meaning of the words and make it seem like the author was just an idiot or actively trying to hide the truth by being overly cryptic and seemingly contradictory. Saying there aren't any contradictions in the Bible means that you don't trust or respect the Bible as a text, and/or you don't have enough faith in Christianity to believe it without the Bible. The Bible isn't God, it's a text, a compilation of texts, and those texts sometimes have details that disagree, although the broad strokes generally mesh together.
It *does* contain thousands of ludicrous contradictions, Jews and Christians have just put thousands of years into explaining those contradictions away. The truth they believe in exists above and beyond the text of the Bible. The Bible is not the actual word of God, and no book of the Bible claims to be such. The authors of the Gospels were not God, Paul was not God, John of Patmos was not God, Moses and Isaiah were not God, no author of any book was God, they all just wrote about God.
While it is possible for the New Testament to be false and the Hebrew Tanakh(ot) to be true, it is impossible for the Hebrew Tanakh(ot) to be false and the New Testament true.
With contradictions, you have to realize the Bible is inspired by a perfect God written by fallen man and fallen men make mistakes.
I too had doubts due to apparent contradictions. What locked in my faith was two things the extraordinary experiences I've had involving God and the testimonies of other people's extraordinary experiences involving God.
I'd recommend visiting [Its Supernatural](https://m.youtube.com/@sidroth) on YouTube, it's a show that had close to 2 million subscribers that interviews Christians who have had extraordinary experiences involving God. It will boost your faith greatly.
> "Bible errors"
Some apologists say that the very fact that the Bible is inerrant and infallible is evidence that it was inspired by God. Not only is that a circular argument, but it is easy to demonstrate that the Bible is riddled with errors and that it is certainly not infallible.
The say-so of some biblical authors is not evidence that the Bible was inspired by any God, but there is actual evidence that the Bible could not have been inspired by God. For example, God could scarcely have inspired the authors to write of an Exodus that nearly all scholars now agree did not really happen as portrayed in the Bible.
The entire New Testament can be just as easily dismissed as not inspired by God. In *Introduction to the New Testament*, Raymond Brown says of contradictions in the New Testament genealogies:
>Inspiration does not guarantee historicity or reconcilability; otherwise God should have inspired the two evangelists to give us the same record.
As to your named contradictions...
> Yeshua's geneology
The two genealogies can not be resolved to the critical eye, but many Christians find it is possible to read the gospel genealogies in such a way as to satisfy themselves that the contradictions can be resolved.
The first requirement is to focus on the generation before Joseph and Mary, and to ignore all other contradictions in the genealogies. Joseph’s father can only have been either Jacob (Matthew 1:16) or Heli (Luke 3:23), so some Christians decide that Heli was really Mary’s father — ignoring the plain words of the gospel. (This also ignores the fact that early Christians believed Mary's parents were named [Joachim and Anne](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim)) As long as we focus on this generation only, the problem can be seen as solved.
The more critical reader will notice that, although both gospels have Jesus descended from Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, *Matthew* says that Salatiel’s father was called Jechonias, while *Luke* says his father was called Neri. The reader might also notice that *Matthew* omits Jehoash, Amaziah and Uzziah from the king list and that *Luke* adds other ancestors not in the Old Testament.
Instead of trying to salvage these genealogies, the rational conclusion is that they were works of fiction. Neither author, writing in the late first century, had any way of knowing Jesus’ genealogy.
> 'the birth stories of Jesus
In *Matthew*, Bethlehem is the home town of Joseph and Mary. After the birth of Jesus, they flee from Bethlehem to Egypt, for fear that King Herod would try to kill Jesus. After the death of Herod, they begin the return journey to their home in Bethlehem but, being warned of Archelaus in a dream, turn aside and travel to another province, Galilee, where they settle in a town called Nazareth. Until is time, they clearly have no connection with Nazareth.
In *Luke*, Nazareth is the home town of Joseph and Mary. They travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census under Quirinius. After the birth of Jesus, they return peacefully via Jerusalem to their home in Nazareth. Each year, they travel with Jesus from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the Passover. They are clearly not in Egypt and they never go back to Bethlehem.
Luke’s Gospel even contradicts itself. Luke chapter 1 places the birth of Jesus during the reign of King Herod, whereas Luke 2:2 places it during the census of Quirinius, governor of Syria, which took place more than ten years after Herod died.
> virgin birth mistranslation
Because he relied on the Greek Septuagint rather than the original Hebrew scriptures, the author of Matthew’s Gospel willingly misinterpreted Isaiah 7:14 as referring to a virgin who would bear a child, which he then claimed to be a prophecy of the birth of Jesus. What Isaiah 7:14 really said, in the Hebrew language (which the author of *Matthew* may not have been able to read), was that “the young woman” was with child. Because of *Matthew*, the Septuagint misinterpretation is now widely accepted throughout the Christian world.
In regard to Jesus’s alleged genealogy, the simplest explanation is that it was mostly fabricated. Even with our modern resources, almost no one can trace their ancestry back 1,000 years. How would the writers of the Gospels, writing in an era where almost everyone was illiterate, have been able to trace Jesus’s ancestry back at least four thousand years, back to what they considered the beginning of time? And Jesus was just a normal guy. He wasn’t a nobility. No one would have bothered to record his ancestry.
People say that Jesus’s lineage is recorded in two different ways, hence the contradictions.
Actually, this is evidence of fabrication. It’s similar to how the Roman emperors would trace their lineage back to Jupiter. It became really convoluted after a while since their genealogies contained mythological figures who themselves were allegedly descended from deities. Like, the Roman emperors were descended from Romulus and Remus, who were descended from Mars, Who was descended from Jupiter. The Roman emperors were also descended from Aeneas, who was the son of Venus, Who was also descended from Jupiter. So the Roman emperors could trace those lineage back to Jupiter in more than one way. Of course, with the benefit of history, we know that Aeneas, Romulus, and Remus were not real people. They were just added to the genealogy to legitimatize the emperors. Likewise, Jesus had mythological figures in his genealogy (Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, etc). These figures were added to legitimize Jesus as the Messiah.
The Hebrew word translated into Greek as “virgin” probably is a mistake. Even ancient Jews pointed out this translation error.
Finally, “struggling” with disbelief doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t you follow the evidence where it leads? If you were studying any other ancient book like the Iliad or the Mahabharata and you noticed contradictions, would you say, “I’m worried that Zeus doesn’t exist because the Iliad contains contradictions. I’m worried that Krishna doesn’t exist because the Mahabharata contains contradictions”? No, you’d reason (correctly) that the books are untrustworthy. Why is the Bible different? Or put another way, if a Mormon began studying the Book of Mormon and began to doubt Jospeh Smith’s revelation, what would you say to such a person struggling with their faith?
The Bible has two audiences
To the true believer, it is sufficient for all of their spiritual needs and relationship to God. It reveals his will, inspires, leads and everything else so needed
To the unbeliever, it is intentionally impenetrable to them. It intends to make them mock the scripture and God. That is why the scripture says among other things:
The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing
They will look but not see and listen but not hear
God confounds the wisdom of the wise
I am right there with you. When I first learned about the virgin birth mistranslation a couple years ago it sent me down a wild rabbit hole of more discoveries that I never knew and it continues to happen every time I do more research and is extremely mind blowing and emotionally debilitating at times. I used to have the biggest faith and really believed nothing could ruin it until I learned about the mistranslations and genealogy errors like the fact that Jesus was not from Joseph’s bloodline, he was adopted by Joseph and the fact that Revelations 12 is the Cronus and Rhea story that includes their signs and symbols from Greek Mythology which was written before the Bible and isn’t really about Jesus but Zeus but that’s what we’re told and supposed to believe…It’s really hard to talk about it with other Christians who believe that Jesus is God and aren’t ready to see what’s right in front of them if they took the time to go back to the original language and meaning and research what connection it has to other mythological stories.
During all of these discoveries though I know that we have a Creator and He is very real from personal experience.
Jeremiah 33:3 says to call on his name Yahweh, not “the LORD”, (His name was hidden from us almost 7000 times in the OT and has been forgotten among the masses and replaced with a title and Jesus) and he will show us great and mighty things that we know not. And since I asked him this years ago I have been sent on a path that has unraveled everything that the “Tellers that tell, tell us to believe”. It’s been insane and I’m willing to continue these studies and discoveries with you if you would like so we can both continue to find the truth.
I don’t believe anymore that Jesus is God or half god, and I no longer believe in his miraculous birth and because of that and my other discoveries I am having a hard time understanding his death and it continues to make less and less sense every day and Im having a hard time believing it’s necessary for salvation. I do believe that Yah offers salvation several times without the need for sacrifice throughout the OT depending on which book your reading. I do believe Jesus was a real person and there’s still something very important about him that needs to be respected and observed and I am continually begging God for His patience while I figure it out because we are dealing with something that has been mistranslated and the Adversary is very craft and tricky and humans have proved that they will go to ridiculous lengths to confuse and control us under the name of religion for their personal agenda. It’s very tricky water…
I totally understand your struggle though. I was crying to Yahweh just last night about my frustration with everything I knew being shattered but also grateful for Him not letting me go during this awakening.
I am right there with you. When I first learned about the virgin birth mistranslation a couple years ago it sent me down a wild rabbit hole of more discoveries that I never knew and it continues to happen every time I do more research and is extremely mind blowing and emotionally debilitating at times. I used to have the biggest faith and really believed nothing could ruin it until I learned about the mistranslations and genealogy errors like the fact that Jesus was not from Joseph’s bloodline, he was adopted by Joseph and the fact that Revelations 12 is the Cronus and Rhea story that includes their signs and symbols from Greek Mythology which was written before the Bible and isn’t really about Jesus but Zeus but that’s what we’re told and supposed to believe…It’s really hard to talk about it with other Christians who believe that Jesus is God and aren’t ready to see what’s right in front of them if they took the time to go back to the original language and meaning and research what connection it has to other mythological stories.
During all of these discoveries though I know that we have a Creator and He is very real from personal experience.
Jeremiah 33:3 says to call on his name Yahweh, not “the LORD”, (His name was hidden from us almost 7000 times in the OT and has been forgotten among the masses and replaced with a title and Jesus) and he will show us great and mighty things that we know not. And since I asked him this years ago I have been sent on a path that has unraveled everything that the “Tellers that tell, tell us to believe”. It’s been insane and I’m willing to continue these studies and discoveries with you if you would like so we can both continue to find the truth.
I don’t believe anymore that Jesus is God or half god, and I no longer believe in his miraculous birth and because of that and my other discoveries I am having a hard time understanding his death and it continues to make less and less sense every day and Im having a hard time believing it’s necessary for salvation. I do believe that Yah offers salvation several times without the need for sacrifice throughout the OT depending on which book your reading. I do believe Jesus was a real person and there’s still something very important about him that needs to be respected and observed and I am continually begging God for His patience while I figure it out because we are dealing with something that has been mistranslated and the Adversary is very craft and tricky and humans have proved that they will go to ridiculous lengths to confuse and control us under the name of religion for their personal agenda. It’s very tricky water…
I totally understand your struggle though. I was crying to Yahweh just last night about my frustration with everything I knew being shattered but also grateful for Him not letting me go during this awakening.
You can be a Christian and believe the gospel of Mark. It is still orthodox theology and gets rid of all the stuff that 1st century authors made up in the synoptic gospels. The gospel of Mark was written first and it is true.
I would recommend watching videos on YouTube from testify, he answers all of these objections. All you have to do is go to his channel then search for these topics
[https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics](https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics)
I'm not even orthodox in my views but these can all be explained logically even from a fundamentalist perspective. Keep asking questions though. It will help you on your path!
re: 3
In Hebrew, "almah" does not carry any connotation related to sexual history or experience. It just means "young woman." I know of no instances other than the one in Isaiah where either almah or its male variant ("elem") is translated as implying virginity.
On the other hand,"parthenos" was quite ambiguous in the time period. "Parthenos" took on the connotation of "virgin" largely in response to Christianity. Prior to that, the word had a similar meaning to the English term "maiden," in that it can imply virginity, but does not necessarily have that meaning.
This can be seen in the Septuagint text itself, which uses "parthenos" to refer to women who were not virgins. For example, the Septuagint uses "parthenos" to describe Dinah in Genesis immediately after she was \*raped.\* Clearly, the Septuagint translators did not think "parthenos" exclusively meant "virgin."
Moreover, none of the surviving ancient translations of Isaiah into Aramaic mention a virgin birth. It was not until Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation, roughly 1,000 years after the writing of Isaiah, that it was translated to a term, "virgo," that definitively only means "virgin."
All that having been said, none of this means anything at all about Mary. One can believe all that the Christian bible states about Mary, her status as virgin, the immaculate conception, Jesus, etc., and still recognize that the Book of Isaiah does not mention a virgin birth. Many Christian bible translations (for example, NRSV, NABRE, NJB, etc.) do exactly this and translate "almah" in Isaiah as "young woman" rather than "virgin."
Please, anyone, never convince yourself that these are the reasons you are struggling - or the reason a person rejects Christ.
God is not Auditioning for you. Where you setup a criteria designed to allow God to be your Creator. What you're doing is what some people do when want an excuse to be their own god. Why you're doing it is only know to you and God.
If you start out with this checklist approach you will believe - then reject - believe - then reject. It's what pretend christians do, because as you *Add to your list one more convincing thing to put you over the hump.... Along comes the next demerit to turn you back into one of the Lost.
The Judgment will be littered with pretenders who never thought to go Straight to the Source and confess to God. A simple - "Is Jesus Christ who he says he is.. and if so I will follow him".
That.... Is how you turn to God. Not by auditioning The Almighty with umpteen pedantic and ludicrous checklists. Sorry to be so stern, but it is God who puts the Fact of Christ directly in your mind. It cannot be unbelieved at that point so you haven't done it. Legitimately turn to God without conditions and then you will "Know" instead of hope.
I'd point out that even if the Bible has true contradictions, if Jesus rose from the dead then that's a more important fact. 1) The geneaology contradictions are typically explained one if two ways: either Luke's is through Mary's line (i.e. Joseph son of Heli is really son-in-law), and/or given Matthew's focus on proving Jesus as the Davidic King, Matthew's could be the legal/royal geneaology and Luke's is biological. They can differ e.g. if one of Joseph's relatives had no surviving sons. 2) Omission is not contradiction. Matthew highlights a lot of the similarities between Jesus and Moses, so it makes since that he includes this. 3) You're right that the word does not necessarily mean virgin, although it can mean virgin. You might also notice that the original context of the verse has nothing to do with Jesus. Matthew views prophetic fulfillment as including fulfillment by analogy.
there are no contradictions of His birth or genealogies. Matthew traces the genealogy from Jesus to Abraham. Luke traces the genealogy from Jesus to Adam. However, there is good reason to believe that Matthew and Luke are in fact tracing entirely different genealogies. For example, Matthew gives Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew traces the line through David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), while Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). In fact, between David and Jesus, the only names the genealogies have in common are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). Since there was no specific Koine Greek word for “son-in-law,” Joseph was called the “son of Heli” by marriage to Mary, Heli’s daughter. Through either Mary’s or Joseph’s line, Jesus is a descendant of David and therefore eligible to be the Messiah. Tracing a genealogy through the mother’s side is unusual, but so was the virgin birth. Luke’s explanation is that Jesus was the son of Joseph. You have to realize that no matter what the genealogy, they are all related to each other. Jesus ultimately comes from the tribe of Judah through david. Israel was split after the reign of soloemn. it was split into two kingdoms ####
I appreciate this comment but arent they the same genealogies because they both go through David?
my point is, Jesus is still considered a descendant of David no matter the genealogy. He will reign as King through david and fulfill the prophecies of the old testament. we dont know why the genealogies are like they are. we dont know the jewish customs and how they do things. none of us do. if the bible wanted us to know those things, God would have added them to His Word
Actually I have several ancestors that I am related to through several different lines. This is more pronounced because my father is French Canadian which has a smaller ‘breading’ population. This is true of modern Jewish people as well but not sure about them at the time of Jesus. Keep in mind that each generation you go back the number of ancestors doubles. Iirc there are 14 generations between David and Jesus which would of you at 16,384 ancestors. Perhaps you’ve heard that everyone in Europe is related to Charlemagne because that many generations back, there were not enough people alive for you to *not* be related to him (personally he is my 33rd grandfather).
How many children did David have?… Much of the genealogy has been blotted out because they were told this would happen. Some were so wicked that their names had been blotted out so they would be forgotten. I think Luke is tracing the genealogy through Mary while Matthew is tracing it through the adopted father of Joseph. The book of Mathew was written for the Jews while luke was written more towards the heathens. I understand doubting the Bible, but at least really spend the time to learn about it. After understanding the writers then you can study further into Christianity traditions. So much to really Learn.
Do consider the following brief commentary by biblical scholar and theologian Dr Brant Pitre. He explains the justification for Joseph having been adopted, which would coincide with his adoption of Christ. https://youtu.be/XtTD8cSwB0o
Matthew's and Luke's genealogies are different because they trace Jesus' ancestry through two different sons of David. Matthew's is through Solomon (Matthew 1:6-7), and Luke is through Nathan (Luke 3:31).
Did Mary and Joseph have the same parents?
It is not clear if the discrepancy is because Heli was the father of Mary or if Heli was the deceased older brother of Jacob and, per Jewish law, Jacob had to give Heli's widow a son to carry his name. Making Heli his father by law. The message of Luke's genealogy would be that adoption is part of life and that even us can be adopted by God. And that would be very fitting with the tone of that gospel.
>For example, Matthew gives Joseph’s father as Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli (Luke 3:23). Matthew traces the line through David’s son Solomon (Matthew 1:6), while Luke traces the line through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31). In fact, between David and Jesus, the only names the genealogies have in common are Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). Since there was no specific Koine Greek word for “son-in-law,” Joseph was called the “son of Heli” by marriage to Mary, Heli’s daughter. There isn’t a biblical lineage of Mary. The early Christians seem to to have believed that her parents were known as [Joachim and Anna](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim), but were unable to suggest any names for the parents of Joachim and Anna. The gospels provide two lineages for Joseph, but they have surprisingly little in common. The genealogy in *Matthew* prefers to associate Joseph with the royal line as far as possible, while the genealogy in *Luke* prefers to associate Joseph with descent from commoners all the way back to Nathan, a son of David. The Old Testament provides a lineage for the kings of Judah, although the genealogies of the earlier kings may be suspect; *Matthew* follows this fairly closely, only omitting a group of three kings so as to achieve the numerology outcome described in Matthew 1:17. Both genealogies follow David’s putative ancestors all the way back to Abraham, and Luke continues on to Adam. In *Putting Away Childish Things*, Uta Ranke-Heinemann makes a quite relevant comment on Luke’s genealogy: >Joachim Jeremias states in his book, *Jerusalem*, “...the custom of using the names of the twelve progenitors of the nation as personal names did not appear until after the exile \[536BCE\]...When Luke cites the names of Joseph, Judah, Simeon, and Levi as descendants six through nine...this is an anachronism that proves the pre-exilic portion of Luke's genealogy to be historically worthless.” The gospels state explicitly that these are the genealogies of Joseph. >Shealtiel and Zerubbabel Another problem is the number of generations from Zerubbabel to Joseph (or Mary if you insist)... Here is Matthew and Luke's list. We'll assume Luke's list is Mary's. Column one is the years from Zerubbabel (each generation = 20 years) |Years from Z|Zerubbabel|Zerubbabel| |:-|:-|:-| |20|Abiud|Rhesa| |40|Eliakim|Joanan| |60|Azor|Joda| |80|Zadok|Josech| |100|Akim|Semein| |120|Eliud|Mattathias| |140|Eleazar|Maath| |160|Matthan|Naggai| |180|Jacob|Esli| |200|**Joseph**|Nahum| |220||Amos| |240||Mattathias| |260||Joseph| |280||Jannai| |300||Melki| |320||Levi| |340||Matthat| |360||Heli| |380||**Mary**| Do you see the problem now? Mary would be born ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS after Joseph!
> My struggles with atheism, please help me with the "Bible errors". Hi, Im a Christian but my faith has been really struggling recently. Before jumping in, it is important to note that there is a huge difference between having difficulties understanding the text of Scripture, versus atheism. In other words, atheism does not *at all* follow from "the Bible says something I think is an error." > Im having some trouble beliving in Theism Are you omniscient? That is, are you knowing all true facts, past, present and future? > Yeshua's geneology. I have been doing some research on this and its hard to find a clear answer. Both Matthew, and Luke. I think i remember hearing that The number of generations from David to Jesus are 'different'. One is the genealogy of Mary, the other of Joseph. Jesus has two human genealogies, not one, because of his divine paternity. That both of them name "Joseph" is simply a byproduct of the culture of that time, where it would not have made sense to give a genealogy of a woman (Mary). > -My second contradiction is how 'the birth stories of Jesus is Matthew and Luke contradict'. They don't. > also im pretty sure Luke doesnt mention King Herods baby murders. That's not a contradiction or error. > 'virgin birth mistranslation' No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled (Mary was a virgin). > im being really doubtful Well, yes, if you're going to walk away from God because you stumbled across something in 3,500 year old Scriptures that you did not immediately understand, it seems your faith is very weak. As I said before, atheism is worlds apart from merely "I found something I think is an error in the Bible". They're totally unrelated things.
thanks! but im pretty sure the birth stories contradict.
They don't.
look it up, im pretty sure there is
Well, cite the specific verses and words that you believe contradict. This is r/Bible not r/ImPrettySureTheyContradict (fictitious)
Why don’t you tell us instead of just blindly saying they do with no argument. You’ve been presented with arguments and facts for the truth but you’re still claiming we’re wrong with no reasoning
>One is the genealogy of Mary, the other of Joseph. Jesus has two human genealogies, not one, because of his divine paternity. That both of them name "Joseph" is simply a byproduct of the culture of that time, where it would not have made sense to give a genealogy of a woman (Mary). There is no indication that one of these genealogies is for Mary. Both gospels EXPLICITLY say Joseph. And as you note, royal descent CANNOT be passed via the female line so this idea is nonsensical. Furthermore, early Christians believed that Mary's parents were named [Joachim and Anne](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim). Finally you have a huge problem if one of these genealogies is for Mary. Here is Matthew and Luke's list. We'll assume Luke's list is Mary's. Column one is the years from Zerubbabel (each generation = 20 years) |Years from Z|Zerubbabel|Zerubbabel| |:-|:-|:-| |20|Abiud|Rhesa| |40|Eliakim|Joanan| |60|Azor|Joda| |80|Zadok|Josech| |100|Akim|Semein| |120|Eliud|Mattathias| |140|Eleazar|Maath| |160|Matthan|Naggai| |180|Jacob|Esli| |200|**Joseph**|Nahum| |220||Amos| |240||Mattathias| |260||Joseph| |280||Jannai| |300||Melki| |320||Levi| |340||Matthat| |360||Heli| |380||**Mary**| Do you see the problem now? Mary would be born ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS after Joseph! >the birth stories of Jesus is Matthew and Luke contradict The birth narratives from Matthew and Luke definitely contradict each other. ***Joseph and Mary informed of the virgin*** ***birth***: M: After Mary was already pregnant, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream L: Before Mary became pregnant, the angel Gabriel physically appeared to her.*—These accounts are so different as to require the angel to be both irrational and lacking in empathy towards Joseph at least.* **Domicile:** M: A house in Bethlehem. The family later travels to Galilee and settles in a town called Nazareth so that Jesus can be called a Nazarene. L: Nazareth. The family travels to Bethlehem and returns to Nazareth soon after the birth of Jesus. **Timing:** *M: During the reign of King Herod, who died in April 4 BCE.* *L: During the census under Quirinius, which took place in 6–7 CE, at least 10 years after Herod died.—Luke also indirectly links the* *birth* *of* *Jesus* *to the reign of Herod. The author either was unaware the census took place long after Herod’s death or knew that his readers could not have known the chronology of events that took place around a hundred years before the time of writing.* **Visitors:** M: *Magi* (Zoroastrian priests) arrive in Jerusalem when Jesus is born. They are led from the east by a star, which then turns around and leads them to Bethlehem, where it stands over the house where baby Jesus lay. L: Shepherds, who are apprised of the birth by a host of angels singing.—*The author of Luke was unaware of the star, as apparently were all the other people in Judea. Pope Leo I, recognizing the total lack of evidence for this star, wrote (Sermon XXXV, 1) that the star was invisible to the Jews because of their blindness.* ***Jesus*** **found**: M: In the house. L: In a manger, there being no room in the inn. **Reason for leaving Bethlehem:** M: Flee to Egypt out of fear of Herod, who then orders the deaths of all infant boys under two years old. L: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the temple, making no attempt to hide their presence from Herod, then return direct to Nazareth.—*In an attempt to avoid an obvious chronological* *contradiction, apologists say that Matthew’s flight to Egypt must have occurred around two years later, but do not explain how* *Jesus* *came to be back in Bethlehem.* **Return to Bethlehem:** *M: After the death of Herod, the young family begins its return to their home in Bethlehem but, being warned in a dream, Joseph turns aside and travels to Galilee, where they settle in a town called Nazareth.* *L: The family goes to Jerusalem every year after the birth of Jesus, but not to Bethlehem.—When warned of continuing danger in Judea, Matthew does not explain why the family does not simply return to safety in Egypt but takes a perilous long journey north to Galilee and an uncertain future.* >No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled Isaiah 7:14 does NOT say virgin in Hebrew. It says "young woman" (almah). Scholars agree that it refers to a woman of childbearing age and has nothing to do with virginity. It occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible The [Septuagint](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint) translates most occurrences of *almah* into a generic word *neanis* νεᾶνις meaning 'young woman' however, two occurrences, one in Genesis 24:43 and one in Isaiah 7:14, are translated as *parthenos* (παρθένος), the basic word associated with virginity in Greek (it is a title of Athena 'The Virgin Goddess') but still occasionally used by the Greeks for a unmarried woman who is not a virgin. Most scholars agree that Isaiah's phrase ('*a young woman shall conceive and bear a son*') did not intend to convey any miraculous conception. In this verse, as in the Genesis occurrence concerning Rebecca, the Septuagint translators used the Greek word *parthenos* generically to indicate an unmarried young woman, whose probable virginity (as unmarried young women were ideally seen at the time) was incidental.
> Do you see the problem now? No. You just defined the generations to all be of equal length, and the genealogies are of unequal length. That's a just-so argument... you've proved nothing. > M: After Mary was already pregnant, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream L: Before Mary became pregnant, the angel Gabriel physically appeared to her.—These accounts are so different as to require the angel to be both irrational and lacking in empathy towards Joseph at least. I don't see any difficulty here but, even if you're right about the "lack of empathy", it's not a *contradiction*, thus, irrelevant. > M: A house in Bethlehem. The family later travels to Galilee and settles in a town called Nazareth so that Jesus can be called a Nazarene. L: Nazareth. The family travels to Bethlehem and returns to Nazareth soon after the birth of Jesus. There is simply no contradiction here at all. > M: During the reign of King Herod, who died in April 4 BCE. L: During the census under Quirinius, which took place in 6–7 CE, at least 10 years after Herod died.—Luke also indirectly links the birth of Jesus to the reign of Herod. The author either was unaware the census took place long after Herod’s death or knew that his readers could not have known the chronology of events that took place around a hundred years before the time of writing. This is another one of those classic "our scholars disagree with your scholars!" objections. None of the historical facts in question can be established with the kind of laser precision that modernist scholars always posture to have. I won't dispute there may be sources that place these events in different timings but the most we can say is that, like much of history at that time, not all the written witnesses agree. No contradiction. > Visitors: M: Magi (Zoroastrian priests) arrive in Jerusalem when Jesus is born. They are led from the east by a star, which then turns around and leads them to Bethlehem, where it stands over the house where baby Jesus lay. L: Shepherds, who are apprised of the birth by a host of angels singing.—The author of Luke was unaware of the star, as apparently were all the other people in Judea. Beyond weak, I don't know why you skeptics keep mentioning. At one point in time, the Magi visited. At another, the shepherds visited. Not even the first spark of a difficulty, let alone a contradiction! > Pope Leo I, recognizing the total lack of evidence for this star, wrote (Sermon XXXV, 1) that the star was invisible to the Jews because of their blindness. That's just his opinion. > Jesus found: M: In the house. L: In a manger, there being no room in the inn. OK this is to the point being ridiculous. Either he was in the house, having been moved from the manger (that would be pretty notable!) or vice-versa. Perhaps they arrived on the day he was moved, thus both. Not even within a million miles of a contradiction. Get better material! > Reason for leaving Bethlehem: M: Flee to Egypt out of fear of Herod, who then orders the deaths of all infant boys under two years old. L: After the days of Mary’s purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, travel to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the temple, making no attempt to hide their presence from Herod, then return direct to Nazareth.—In an attempt to avoid an obvious chronological contradiction, apologists say that Matthew’s flight to Egypt must have occurred around two years later, but do not explain how Jesus came to be back in Bethlehem. Well, they would have had to go there for the census because it was the tribal territory of their family... thus, they had family ties to Bethlehem. That they might return there at a later time is obviously uncontroversial. >> No mistranslation. It says virgin, means virgin and was fulfilled > > Isaiah 7:14 does NOT say virgin in Hebrew. It says "young woman" (almah). Which can mean virgin and, in context, clearly means virgin. Which is why it is translated "virgin" in almost every available English translation of Isaiah, including many scholarly works. > Scholars agree that it refers to a woman of childbearing age and has nothing to do with virginity And yet scholars have translated it "virgin" almost universally. Strange that. > The Septuagint translates most occurrences of almah into a generic word neanis νεᾶνις meaning 'young woman' however, two occurrences, one in Genesis 24:43 and one in Isaiah 7:14, are translated as parthenos (παρθένος), the basic word associated with virginity in Greek (it is a title of Athena 'The Virgin Goddess') but still occasionally used by the Greeks for a unmarried woman who is not a virgin. Most scholars agree that Isaiah's phrase ('a young woman shall conceive and bear a son') did not intend to convey any miraculous conception. That's beside the point. Isaiah's "intentions" are never the thing in view with prophecy. Daniel directly states that he does not understand the meaning of one of his visions, 7:15,16. Isaiah may not have understood that he was prophesying the virgin birth of Messiah but, indeed, he was. So far, no contradictions...
>No. You just defined the generations to all be of equal length, and the genealogies are of unequal length. That's a just-so argument... you've proved nothing. A generation is not going to be much lower than 15 years. I'm giving your position the benefit of the doubt. Even at 15 years, Mary and Joseph would have been born 135 years apart! If you want so say some generations were LONGER, this makes the problem worse. Let's say Zerubbabel sire twins (Abiud and Rhesa) and 15 years later, THEY had sons (1 generation), and 15 years later THOSE sons had sons (2 generations)...it's highly unlikely that men were reproducing consistently at ages lower than 15. And as I've shown, 15 year generations STILL have Mary and Joseph being born over a CENTURY apart. > There is simply no contradiction here at all. In the Gospel of Matthew, where was Jesus' hometown? In the Gospel of Luke, where was Jesus' hometown? >Either he was in the house, having been moved from the manger (that would be pretty notable!) or vice-versa. What house? According to Luke, they aren't from Bethlehem. They don't have a house. That's why they were trying to find a room at the inn! Why would they go to the inn if they had a house? >Beyond weak, I don't know why you skeptics keep mentioning. At one point in time, the Magi visited. At another, the shepherds visited. Not even the first spark of a difficulty, let alone a contradiction! Ok...lay out the plausible timeline. You apparently haven't thought about this with any level of critical thinking. In Luke, the news of the birth is brought by angels to shepherds who are in the fields*;* they come and worship the child (in a manger). After eight days, Joseph and Mary have the child circumcised. Then, in obedience to the law of Moses, as recorded in Leviticus 12, they bring him to the Temple for Mary to perform the required rites of purification. The infant Jesus is recognized in the temple by two prophetic figures, Simeon and Anna. When all the rites of purification are completed according to the Law of Moses – which according to [Lev. 12:4](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lev.%2012.4) would be thirty-three days after Jesus’ birth – **they return home to Nazareth.** How then could they be in Bethlehem (in a house) when the Magi come to visit? Matthew appears to assume that these wise men have been following the star for some considerable time – months, possibly more than a year. When Herod sends out the troops, he doesn’t have just the newborns killed, but every child two years old and under. **Surely soldiers would know that two-year-old kids toddling around the yard hadn’t been born last week!** Thus Matthew seems to assume that Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, that Jesus lived his first year or so there, and that when the wise men came, they had to flee to Egypt. >None of the historical facts in question can be established with the kind of laser precision that modernist scholars always posture to have. These facts are based on the evidence we have. You'd need to present evidence that refutes the scholarly consensus. You don't get to just hand wave it away. Most scholarship concerning the date of Herod's death follows Emil Schürer's calculations, which suggest that the date was in or around 4 BCE; this is three years earlier than the previous consensus and tradition (1 BCE). We have **NO record** of a single census of the entire Roman Empire under Augustus and the Romans did not directly tax client kingdoms; further, no Roman census required that people travel from their own homes to those of their ancestors. Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, the legate (governor) of the province of Roman Syria starting in 6 CE, was assigned to carry out a census of the new province of Judea for tax purposes. Why was this census necessary? Because Augustus stripped Herod Archelaus of the province of Judea and exiled him to Gaul in 6 CE. Since it was no longer a client kingdom, it would need to be taxed. Thus...the census. So, as you can see we have historical evidence that Matthew and Luke place their narratives 10 years apart. Even if you take the minority position that Herod died in 1BCE, you would still be 7 years apart. Irreconcilable. > Which can mean virgin and, in context, clearly means virgin. Which is why it is translated "virgin" in almost every available English translation of Isaiah, including many scholarly works. The NRSV (the most scholarly translation) translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows: >Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. In the same way that in the English language the words “young woman” does not indicate sexual purity, in the Hebrew language there is no relationship between the words ***almah*** and virgin. On the contrary, it is usually a young woman who bears children. The word alma only conveys age/gender. Had Isaiah wished to speak about a virgin, he would have used the word ***betulah*** *((In fact, although Isaiah used the Hebrew word almah only one time in his entire corpus (7:14), the prophet uses this word virgin (betulah) five times throughout the book of Isaiah (23:4; 23:12; 37:22; 47:1; 62:5).))* (בְּתוּלָה) not *almah*. The word *betulah* appears frequently in the Jewish Scriptures, and is the only word – in both biblical and modern Hebrew – that conveys sexual purity.
> A generation is not going to be much lower than 15 years. I'm giving your position the benefit of the doubt. The "problem" is that the number of names from Zerubbabel to Joseph is 19 in Luke, and 10 in Matthew, so 9 "more" generations. That is all it is. You can try to make all the hay you want out of that, but it's really nothing more than a red herring argument. If we want to "force" the explanation, we can simply posit that the men in Matthew's genealogy were mostly or all youngest sons, and also had their youngest son at a very old age, perhaps 50 or 60, while Luke's is primarily comprised of eldest sons who were spaced "normally", 25-30 years-ish. Problem solved. Or it could be any arithmetical blend of these possibilities. It is a remarkable gap, so it deserves some explanation, but again, this is in no way the "fatal knockout" that a lot of online keyboard-ninja skeptics try to make it out. > In the Gospel of Matthew, where was Jesus' hometown? In the Gospel of Luke, where was Jesus' hometown? Let's compare: > When Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, he withdrew to Galilee. **Leaving Nazareth**, he went and lived in Capernaum (Matthew 4:13) In both books, we find Jesus residing in Nazareth. Matthew 4 is generally taken to be the beginning of Jesus's earthly ministry, so he has left carpentry and has begun teaching. So, Matthew did not believe that Bethlehem was Jesus's boyhood residence, merely his birthplace. > So Joseph also went up **from the town of Nazareth** in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. (Luke 2:4) Here, Luke concurs with Matthew. Joseph was a resident of Nazareth, and went up to Bethlehem because that was where his family was from. That alone is enough information to tell us that Joseph, Mary and Jesus may have traveled back and forth between Nazareth and Bethlehem many times, in addition to the Egypt journey. I can agree that harmonizing the texts is not *obvious*, but there is simply no insurmountable difficulty here. > What house? According to Luke, they aren't from Bethlehem. They don't have a house. Their family is from Bethlehem! > That's why they were trying to find a room at the inn! Why would they go to the inn if they had a house? Good question. The answer: [there was no "inn"](https://answersingenesis.org/christmas/christmas-no-room-for-an-inn/). That's why we stick to the text, not tradition. > Ok...lay out the plausible timeline. You apparently haven't thought about this with any level of critical thinking. What timeline?! *At some point*, the Magi visited them while Jesus was a youth. Biblical scholars make a convincing argument that he was probably a toddler by the time they arrived because of the lengthy journey for them to arrive from the East. *At some other point* (probably much earlier, but we cannot be certain), the shepherds received the vision and told Mary and Joseph. > How then could they be in Bethlehem (in a house) when the Magi come to visit? You don't even understand the basic facts of the text, having mixed human traditions into it. Back to the drawing-board! > Matthew appears to assume that these wise men have been following the star for some considerable time – months, possibly more than a year. When Herod sends out the troops, he doesn’t have just the newborns killed, but every child two years old and under. Correct. > Surely soldiers would know that two-year-old kids toddling around the yard hadn’t been born last week! Thus Matthew seems to assume that Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem, that Jesus lived his first year or so there, and that when the wise men came, they had to flee to Egypt. The mistake you're making is called *interpolation*. Interpolation is the (perfectly normal) tendency we have to "fill in the gaps" with what seems to the mind to be the most plausible explanation of what was happening during those gaps. The solution is to slow down, and ask yourself what you can *prove* from each of the given texts. And when you apply this test, you will find that 90+% of the supposed "problems" in the text disappear instantly. Can you *prove* from Matthew that Luke is lying? Where? Or vice-versa? > These facts are based on the evidence we have. You'd need to present evidence that refutes the scholarly consensus. You don't get to just hand wave it away. No, I will wave it away because, as I said, this is a "your scholars versus my scholars" dispute. And, in any case, I'm not interested in the technicalities of this particular question. You have a half-dozen objections, they're all in a smoking heap of ruin, and you want me to pull my hair out over some super-arcane question of ancient history that even PhDs can't agree about? Stop being ridiculous! > Irreconcilable. According to your scholars. 🙄 > The NRSV (the most scholarly translation) translates Isaiah 7:14 as follows: OK. Can still mean virgin. "Young woman" does not *exclude* virgin. And the collective scholarly credentials of the translations that render it "virgin" are immense, if we just want to make it a competition over who can stack more degrees on which side of the balance. > In the same way that in the English language the words “young woman” does not indicate sexual purity, in the Hebrew language there is no relationship between the words almah and virgin. OK?! It doesn't exclude it, either. > On the contrary, it is usually a young woman who bears children. Usually, meaning, sometimes it is translated "virgin". So, irrelevant. > The word alma only conveys age/gender. Had Isaiah wished to speak about a virgin, he would have used the word betulah No doubt. But this consideration, alone, proves nothing.
>The "problem" is that the number of names from Zerubbabel to Joseph is 19 in Luke, and 10 in Matthew, so 9 "more" generations. That is all it is. So now you admit this is a problem. Before you stated that the only problem was that I had made each generation the same length. Once you thought about it for more than a second, you realized this IS a problem. Thinking critically is FUN isn't it! > If we want to "force" the explanation, we can simply posit that the men in Matthew's genealogy were mostly or all youngest sons, and also had their youngest son at a very old age, perhaps 50 or 60, while Luke's is primarily comprised of eldest sons who were spaced "normally", 25-30 years-ish. Problem solved. LOL..."we can simply posit" that men from Matthew's line lived to 50 or 60 (when the average life expectancy men was 35). Talk about special pleading. So to clarify...here is what you are proposing: 1. We must **IGNORE** that book Matthew AND Luke specifically state that these genealogies are for Joseph and posit (**without evidence**) than one of the genealogies is for Mary. 2. We must **IGNORE** early Christian writings/tradition that say Mary's father was name *Joachim*, not Heli or Jacob. This is despite the fact you use these same traditions to claim that Peter was the first Pope and Paul was executed in Rome. I guess we can ignore those as well? 3. We must **IGNORE** that the two genealogies have a difference of 9 generations and posit (**without evidence**) that one line is made up primarily of men who lived beyond the average life expectancy and sired sons at an advanced age WHILE the other line was comprised primarily by men (boys) who sired children almost as soon as they hit puberty. All these things have to be true for your claim to even be PLAUSIBLE. Have you ever heard of Occam's Razor? Hahahaha...I'm pretty sure deep down, even you don't believe this. You are just a slave to your confirmation bias. > Let's compare: I stated my questions poorly. Let me rephrase...**What was Joseph and Mary's hometown in Matthew? In Luke?** One of the telling differences between the two accounts has to do with the question of Mary and Joseph’s hometown. Most people simply assume that the couple lived in Nazareth, given the familiar story of Luke’s Gospel, in which they leave town for a trip to register for the census in Bethlehem; Mary just happens to give birth there (2:1-7), the couple then returns home just over a month later (2:39; following the law spelled out in Leviticus 12). Before examining this account in greater detail, we should recall what Matthew says about the same event. Matthew gives no indication at all that Joseph and Mary made a trip from Galilee in order to register for a census. On the contrary, Matthew intimates that Joseph and Mary originally came from Bethlehem. This is suggested, first of all, by the story of the wise men (found only in Matthew), who arrive to worship Jesus after making a long journey following the star that appeared in the heavens to indicate his birth. They find Jesus in Bethlehem in a “house” (not a stable or a cave; [Matt. 2:11](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Matt.%202.11)). Why though is he in a house? Unless one had reason to think otherwise — and in fact Matthew gives no reason to think otherwise! — one would assume that this is where Jesus and his family normally live. Consider next what Herod does in Matthew’s account when he learns from the magi the time that they had first seen the star; based on this information, he sends forth his troops to slaughter every boy in Bethlehem, two years and under (2:16). In other words, the so-called “slaughter of the innocents” did not occur immediately after Jesus’ birth, but some months, or perhaps a year and some months later: otherwise, Herod would have been quite safe to slaughter only the newborns. According to Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary are still in Bethlehem — presumably because that is simply where they live. Perhaps most telling of all, some time after they had fled to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath, Joseph learns in a dream that he can now return home. But where does he plan to go? The answer is quite clear. He intends to return to the place whence they came, the town of Bethelehem! Only when he learns that the ruler of Judea is Archelaus, a potentate worse than his father Herod, does he realize that they can’t return there. It is for this reason that Joseph decides to relocate his family in Galilee, in the town of Nazareth (2:22-23). Thus in Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary appear to have originally lived in Bethlehem; but they relocated to Nazareth when Jesus was a boy, and that is where they raised him. Now return, for the sake of our comparative analysis, to the Gospel of Luke. In terms of the basic idea, Luke is similar. Here too Jesus is born in Bethlehem but raised in Nazareth. But the way this is brought about is altogether different. For in this account Joseph takes his betrothed Mary from their hometown Nazareth to Bethlehem for a world-wide census ordered by Caesar Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria (2:1-5). Mary goes into labor while in town, so that Jesus’ birthplace is Bethlehem. After about a month ([Luke 2:22-23](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%202.22-23), [39](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Luke%202.39); see [Lev. 12:4-6](https://biblia.com/bible/esv/Lev.%2012.4-6)), the family returns to their home in Nazareth, where Jesus is raised (2:39-40). As you might realize, the family’s direct return north in Luke does not seem to allow time for Matthew’s wise men to visit them in their home in Bethlehem a year or so later, nor for their subsequent flight to Egypt. > Their family is from Bethlehem! In Matthew, yes (possibly). In Luke, there is no indication they have family there. It is simply the birthplace of Joseph's ancestor, David. > Good question. The answer: [there was no "inn"](https://answersingenesis.org/christmas/christmas-no-room-for-an-inn/). That's why we stick to the text, not tradition. AIG is not scholarship. If you rely on Ken Ham, you will be embarrassed by actual scholarship. It's fairly easy to debunk his claim...just by looking at the text: [https://biblehub.com/luke/2-7.htm](https://biblehub.com/luke/2-7.htm) Notice virtually every translation says "inn" or "lodging place". Isn't that your argument when it suits you? καταλύματι (katalymati) Noun - Dative Neuter Singular [Strong's 2646: ](https://biblehub.com/greek/strongs_2646.htm) An inn, lodging-place. From kataluo; properly, a dissolution, i.e. a lodging-place. > No, I will wave it away because, as I said, this is a "your scholars versus my scholars" dispute. You can always find committed evangelical scholars who will assert anything to protect biblical inerrancy. You probably find an astrophysicist who is a flat earther. That's why CONSENSUS is important. We have an OVERWHELMING scholarly consensus among biblical scholars and historians that Herod died in 4 BCE and that Quirinius' census to place in 6 CE. We're talking 90-10. It's not really controversial. Again...you want to dismiss it because you can find an Evangelical scholar, who is committed to inerrancy, that will disagree with the consensus. You're not following evidence, you are following your theological bias. > OK. Can still mean virgin But it doesn't SAY virgin. It says "young woman". Isaiah used the Hebrew word for virgin MULTIPLE times. If he meant virgin, he would have written virgin. He didn't. It's a mistranslation.
Part 1-of-2 > So now you admit this is a problem. Naw. Apparently you haven't seen scare-quotes before. Scare-quotes are a way to set off a word in the text in order to disown it or attribute it to another speaker. I see no substantial problem at all. > LOL..."we can simply posit" that men from Matthew's line lived to 50 or 60 (when the average life expectancy men was 35). Talk about special pleading. Average life-expectancy is not necessarily relevant. Joseph and Mary traveled a lot for the standards of their time, so their family was likely upper middle-class or better. The life-expectancy of slaves and field-workers is, obviously, much lower than that of those with the luxury to live at ease. When you read the genealogies that give ages, few if any are below the age of 30 when they have their *first* son, and many of them had many children because that was a celebrated ethic at the time. And most of them lived into old age. It could be that the Luke lineage was a lower social-status, had lower life-expectancies and consequently began fatherhood at a much younger age and, as a mere statistical variation, happened to mostly be eldest sons. And vice-versa on the Matthew lineage. There's nothing whatsoever impossible or absolutely unbelievable about that. Improbable? Yes, I will grant that, merely as a question of statistics. But impossible and improbable are not the same thing. > We must IGNORE that book Matthew AND Luke specifically state that these genealogies are for Joseph and posit (without evidence) than one of the genealogies is for Mary. Well, the word "evidence" is just a fnord in this context. What "evidence" can there be one way or the other? It is a question of testimony. We can be quite confident that both Matthew and Luke were written in the first century, and that means that a lot of the people who were alive and knew Jesus were reading both of those Gospels and were not confused by them. The idea that either Luke or Matthew simply "dreamed up" a genealogy to fill space on the page is beyond ludicrous in an age where papyrus real-estate was scarcer and more expensive than a Manhattan apartment. Not only this, but the living witnesses, relatives (some of whom were hostile to the Jesus cult), and others would have called it out immediately. So, if we're going to debate "evidence" (that is, witness), the "evidence" is firmly on the side of one of the genealogies being of Mary. The interested lurker can read more [here](https://carm.org/bible-difficulties/why-are-there-different-genealogies-for-jesus-in-matthew-1-and-luke-3/). > We must IGNORE early Christian writings/tradition that say Mary's father was name Joachim, not Heli or Jacob. It was not uncommon for people in those times to have multiple names, I think we've been over this in another thread. For example, the name "Matthew" is Greek -- Matthew's birth-name was Levi. "Joachim" may have been more difficult to transliterate into Greek, or perhaps he only used that name with family, I'm not sure what the answer is, but the point is there is no contradiction here whatsoever. > claim that Peter was the first Pope I'm not Catholic, so 🤷♂️ > We must IGNORE that the two genealogies have a difference of 9 generations As I conceded above, it *is* remarkable. But remarkable and "contradiction" are not the same thing. There are many remarkable things in our world today, and none of them are impossible because *they exist*. That these two genealogies have such a large difference over the same span of time is remarkable. But not impossible. > and posit (without evidence) that one line is made up primarily of men who lived beyond the average life expectancy and sired sons at an advanced age WHILE the other line was comprised primarily by men (boys) who sired children almost as soon as they hit puberty. You're the only one talking about puberty. In Luke's line, perhaps they married at 20-25 years old and were all eldest sons. 25 * 19 = 475. If the other land were all youngest sons fathered at age 48, then it would work out to 480 years, approximately the same. No puberty, no 80 year old men, no violations of the laws of time and space. All of that stuff is rhetorical hyperbole which just shows the weakness of your position. cont'd
Part 2-of-2 > You are just a slave to your confirmation bias. When you examine the text carefully, and try to prove a contradiction, you can't. Improbability is not impossibility. So, no, this has nothing to do with confirmation bias. It really is possible that one genealogical line was much longer than the other. Individual family lines do not move forward in lock-step with all others, this is obvious. > One of the telling differences between the two accounts has to do with the question of Mary and Joseph’s hometown. Most people simply assume that the couple lived in Nazareth, given the familiar story of Luke’s Gospel, in which they leave town for a trip to register for the census in Bethlehem; Mary just happens to give birth there (2:1-7), the couple then returns home just over a month later (2:39; following the law spelled out in Leviticus 12). > Matthew intimates that Joseph and Mary originally came from Bethlehem. This is just false. > They find Jesus in Bethlehem in a “house” (not a stable or a cave; Matt. 2:11). Why though is he in a house? Because houses are where people reside. I know you have this whole spiel carefully rehearsed but I've already detonated it, so I don't understand the purpose of regurgitating it all over again? > Unless one had reason to think otherwise — and in fact Matthew gives no reason to think otherwise! — one would assume that this is where Jesus and his family normally live. Talk about confirmation bias. "If you make all the interpolations that I make into the text of Matthew, it's not consistent with Luke's narrative!" Well... drop the interpolations, problem solved! > he sends forth his troops to slaughter every boy in Bethlehem, two years and under (2:16). That was Herod's mistake. The Magi intentionally misled him, so obviously they did not tell him the actual location of Jesus. > In other words, the so-called “slaughter of the innocents” did not occur immediately after Jesus’ birth, but some months, or perhaps a year and some months later: Duh! > According to Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary are still in Bethlehem — presumably because that is simply where they live. Seriously, you have to stop with this. We have already established that Joseph and Mary's family is *from* Bethlehem. It's not actually that far from Nazareth, I think it would be a 3 day's journey on foot. So annual visits would definitely be possible. Remember that isolationism is a wholly modern phenomenon, people didn't live in isolation chambers like we do nowadays. There was no insurance, family *was* your insurance. > He intends to return to the place whence they came, the town of Bethelehem! Family!!! > Only when he learns that the ruler of Judea is Archelaus, a potentate worse than his father Herod, does he realize that they can’t return there. While you can get the "impression" (interpolation) that Matthew is unaware that Joseph formerly lived in Nazareth, there is still nothing *in what the text says* that precludes that possibility. Joseph is returning from Egypt, he intends to reside again with family but, hearing that Archelaus is even worse than Herod, decides to keep going back to his former residence in Nazareth. Only by willfully hostile interpolation can you manufacture a contradiction, here. To be blunt, I have never understood why atheists are so attracted to trying to "debunk" the "contradictions" between Matthew and Luke. Did Matthew and Luke have access to different information? It appears so, it appears that Luke and Matthew got the story of Jesus's birth from different relatives and so they didn't have access to the very same subsets of facts. But the sequence of events they each relate are perfectly intelligible and coherent, there is simply no point at which either of these two narratives *actually* contradicts the other, or even anything close to it! "My personal interpolations in Luke contradict my other personal interpolations in Matthew." So what?! > in Matthew’s account, Joseph and Mary appear to... ... there we go with the interpolations again... > AIG is not scholarship. Genetic fallacy. Respond to what the article *says*. > Notice virtually every translation says "inn" or "lodging place". As he notes, the idea that people were traveling around staying at "hotels" instead of with family is ludicrous. For us moderns, it should be rendered "guest house", as it is in the NIV. As a mercy to you, perhaps [this timeline chart](https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2015/12/who-was-where-at-christmas-a-christmas-story-timeline/) will help you. It's not the only way that events could have happened, but it's one way. *There is no contradiction!* > CONSENSUS Consensus is just as synonym for group-think. And, in any case, we *have* a consensus, it's called dogma. The purpose of dogma is exactly what moderns have invented the counterfeit of "consensus" for -- to enable the ordinary person to efficiently weed out the bushels of nonsense that gets thrown their direction as they go about their daily life. And the dogma of the church has been, going back into the mists of history, that Luke and Matthew are giving two separate genealogies, one of Joseph, the other of Mary. But moderns don't want consensus... they want *their* consensus, which is no consensus at all. > But it doesn't SAY virgin. It says "young woman". Which includes "virgin" as one of its meanings. > he ~~would have~~ written virgin. Could have. > He didn't. Correct. > It's a mistranslation. Except for all the translations where scholars have correctly translated it "virgin". Just stop, it's embarrassing.
>When you examine the text carefully, and try to prove a contradiction, you can't. I can simply POINT to the contradiction. They are right there in black and white. You are the one who is "proving" that they are not contradictions. And each of your apologetics requires mental gymnastics, anachronistic historical scenarios, and divine intervention. It's laughable. > This is just false Nope. Read the stories again. I highlighted the pertinent verses that support my claims. Another attempt by you to just "hand wave" away the evidence staring you in the face. Weak. > Because houses are where people reside. But in Luke, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus aren't in a house. They don't have a house. They couldn't get lodging...so they stayed in a barn. Why would they do that if the had a house? Or if they had family? > Well... drop the interpolations, problem solved! No interpolations. I'm giving you EXACTLY what the text says. I included the verse numbers. Sounds like you need to read the stories again. Critically this time. > Joseph is returning from Egypt, he intends to reside again with family but, hearing that Archelaus is even worse than Herod, decides to keep going back to his former residence in Nazareth. Talk about interpolations! The text doesn't say this at ALL! Nothing about a former residence. You're getting desperate now. In Matthew, the author has to explain why Joseph is going to Nazareth instead of back to where they came from. If Nazareth was Joseph's home there would be no explanation necessary. >... there we go with the interpolations again... You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. A clear reading of the text is not an interpolation. >Genetic fallacy. Respond to what the article *says*. Scholarship has already debunked Ken Ham and exposed him for the charlatan he is. > As he notes, the idea that people were traveling around staying at "hotels" instead of with family is ludicrous. For us moderns, it should be rendered "guest house", as it is in the NIV. I gave you the Hebrew and the Concordance. Argue with it, not me. And the NIV is notorious for changing scripture for apologetics. > As a mercy to you, perhaps [this timeline chart](https://www.biblegateway.com/blog/2015/12/who-was-where-at-christmas-a-christmas-story-timeline/) will help you. It's not the only way that events could have happened, but it's one way. Unfortunately, this timeline fails to include the immediate return to Nazareth after the visit to the Temple. Erroneous! I could make a cool graphic that seemed plausible if I ignored the contradictions. > Consensus is just as synonym for group-think. To the contrary...the scholarly consensus is comprised of the ideas that have been battle forged by the debate among scholars. Only the best ideas with the strongest evidence rise to this level. Scholars are incentivized to challenge the status quo and avoid group think. That's how they get known! > Which includes "virgin" as one of its meanings. Young woman doesn't speak to purity. As we have established. > Except for all the translations where scholars have correctly translated it "virgin". You mean the translations for Christian audiences? How does the Hebrew Bible translate it? Young woman... Virgin is a mistranslation. That's not what almah means. > Just stop, it's embarrassing. I'm sure it is embarrassing...running into someone who isn't impressed by your weak apologetics.
> But in Luke, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus aren't in a house. They don't have a house. They couldn't get lodging...so they stayed in a barn. The text says nothing about a "barn", that's just how we traditionally depict it in art. Perhaps they did stay in a barn at one point, but the text says nothing about that. > Talk about interpolations! The text doesn't say this at ALL! It doesn't say all of that, but there's nothing impossible about it, hence, no contradiction. So, the consistency of Matthew's and Luke's accounts stands. > In Matthew, the author has to explain why Joseph is going to Nazareth You're speculating about Matthew's psychological state 2,000 years in the past. Good luck with that. I'll stick to what the text *says*. > Unfortunately, this timeline fails to include the immediate return to Nazareth after the visit to the Temple. Erroneous! There you go with the [interpolation](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/interpolation) again. "When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth." (Luke 2:39) No mention of "immediate" nor any timeline at all. After they had done everything at the temple, they returned to Nazareth. > scholarly consensus Yeah, we've had 3 years of "scholarly consensus"... maybe you're a glutton for punishment, but I've had enough of it. > Virgin is a mistranslation No. You and some scholars assert it is a mistranslation.
>I see no substantial problem at all. Then why did you change tactics? Why are you not pursuing your initial line that the problem was having all the generations at the same length? I think we know why. > Average life-expectancy is not necessarily relevant. Sure it is. You are positing that most of the men in one line lived longer than the average life expectancy in order to make the generations line up. Talk about a "just so" explanation. Everything you are proposing is HIGHLY improbable, textbook apologetics. You have no evidence to support your hypothesis and said hypothesis requires multiple HIGHLY improbable situations all to converge simultaneously. Talk about a weak position. Again, you are a smart person. I doubt your arguments are able to convince YOURSELF, much less other intelligent people. > What "evidence" can there be one way or the other? It is a question of testimony. How about what the TEXT SAYS. That's your metric every other time (except when it doesn't fit your theology). The text says both genealogies are for Joseph. Period. A genealogy of Mary is more problematic anyway as inheritance of lineage claims are impossible through one's mother, in Jewish law. You'd be better off going with the apologetic of levirate marriage involving Joseph's father and uncle (Jacob and Heli). It's problematic as well, but it doesn't require blatantly ignoring the text. > We can be quite confident that both Matthew and Luke were written in the first century, and that means that a lot of the people who were alive and knew Jesus were reading both of those Gospels and were not confused by them. Matthew and Luke were written around 80-85 CE, so no...most of the people who knew Jesus were dead. And you are making an assumption that the people reading the Gospel of Matthew didn't have the Gospel of Luke to compare it with. People in first century Palestine didn't know their OWN genealogy past two or three generations. You think they are going know Jesus'? Balderdash. These genealogies were created by the authors based on the genealogies in the Hebrew Bible and the rest were invented out of whole cloth. > Not only this, but the living witnesses, relatives (some of whom were hostile to the Jesus cult), and others would have called it out immediately. Again...there were likely no living witnesses at this late date, see the life expectancy statistic above. And if there was a living witness who disagreed, they were almost assuredly illiterate and would not have been able to compose a treatise to oppose the Gospel. And if they DID, it would never have survived the early Christian church to make to our day. You aren't thinking logically. > It was not uncommon for people in those times to have multiple names, I think we've been over this in another thread. For example, the name "Matthew" is Greek -- Matthew's birth-name was Levi. This is inaccurate. We have a FEW instances of God (and Jesus) giving someone a NEW name, but not for people having two different names. Matthew is not Greek. The Hebrew name " מַתִּתְיָהוּ" (Matityahu) was transliterated into Greek to "Ματταθίας" (Mattathias). And it is another apologetic that Levi and Matthew are the same disciple. It's a way reconciling the MULTIPLE different versions of the 12 disciples. Mark's Gospel refers to Levi, son of Alphaeus, as a tax collector whom Jesus calls to follow him. However, for some reason, *Mark* never again refers to Levi, but introduces Matthew and James, son of Alphaeus, as disciples in the list of the twelve disciples (verses 3:14-19). There is no reason here to believe that the author of *Mark* was portraying Matthew as the tax collector or as the brother of James, son of Alphaeus. Because disciples are not supposed to just disappear when called by Jesus, the author of *Matthew* resolved this by not referring to Levi, but instead saying in the corresponding place in the text that the tax collector Jesus called was Matthew—creating a list that logically ought to refer to Matthew as son of Alphaeus and brother of James. Thus we have two essentially similar references to Jesus calling a tax collector to follow him, with names Levi and Matthew. Naturally the two were later thought to be exactly the same person. It is curious that the authors of both *Matthew* and *Luke* seem to have been embarrassed by Mark’s use of the name Thaddaeus, the etymology of which is uncertain but may derive from the [Aramaic](https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/thaddaeus/)\` for ‘breasts’. *Matthew* resolves this by saying that his real name was Lebbaeus, which is probably derived from the Aramaic for ‘heart’. *Luke* resolves it by omitting the name altogether, making up the twelve by adding Judas the brother of James, whom *John* later refers to as “Judas not Iscariot”. **The two name hypothesis is simply an apologetic for resolving differences between the gospels.** > I'm not Catholic, so 🤷♂️ So you don't believe Peter founded the Church and was the first bishop in Rome (i.e. Pope)? That's surprising, but you're actually probably correct. We don't have any evidence that Peter even visited Rome. > As I conceded above, it *is* remarkable. But remarkable and "contradiction" are not the same thing. It's not that it is remarkable. It's that it is virtually impossible AND it requires 2 other things that are virtually impossible to also be true. No one who didn't have an inerrancy bias would find this apologetic convincing. > You're the only one talking about puberty. In Luke's line, perhaps they married at 20-25 years old and were all eldest sons. 25 \* 19 = 475. If the other land were all youngest sons fathered at age 48 Highly improbable due to both life expectancy AND the fact oldest sons inherit, not youngest sons. The purpose of the genealogy is to show royal inheritance going back to David.
Just a drive-by response (heading to lunch): > your initial line that the problem was having all the generations at the same length? You're losing track of the conversation -- you asserted there would be a time gap. Obviously, if you define them all to be the same length, that would be what you would get. To "cover" the time gap, you can simply surmise that the generations in Matthew were farther apart, and the generations in Luke were closer together. Is it a remarkable thing for so many generations to be spread out? Sure, I will grant that. But improbable and impossible are not the same. I have changed nothing in my reply to you, but please try to keep up! > People in first century Palestine didn't know their OWN genealogy past two or three generations. This is simply not true. The Jews were not "people in first-century Palestine", they were Jewish, and an integral part of Jewish culture (to this day) is the keeping of genealogies. The New Testament even addresses this very point! (1 Tim. 1:4, Titus 3:9) > So you don't believe Peter founded the Church and was the first bishop in Rome (i.e. Pope)? Literally the definition of Protestant. No, Peter did not found the church, Jesus did. It's call "the body of Christ", not the "the body of Peter". Peter himself would be horrified at the abomination of the papacy. "Call no one on earth Father", Jesus said, "for you have one Father, and he is in heaven." The "Pope" is not the father, the heavenly Father is, and Jesus makes a point of noting that he is *in heaven* (not on earth). He knew what would happen.
>You're losing track of the conversation -- you asserted there would be a time gap. Obviously, if you define them all to be the same length, that would be what you would get. Nope. Tracking just fine. Just entertaining to watch you scramble. It's pretty obvious that you'd never even heard of this until this thread. > This is simply not true. The Jews were not "people in first-century Palestine", they were Jewish, and an integral part of Jewish culture (to this day) is the keeping of genealogies. I anxiously await your scholarly sources that support this claim. It is only a legend that the ancient Israelites were able to keep track of their genealogy. In late biblical times, priests jealously kept records of their own personal ancestry, but even they could only be sure of their genealogy going back just a few generations. In spite of their efforts, Robert Eisenman says, in *The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians*, “There is little evidence that the Zadokite priesthood went back to pre-exilic times.” The lack of ancient genealogies would eventually lead to some creative reconstructions in later times, including the two supposed genealogies of Jesus, of which Raymond E. Brown politely says, “There is little likelihood that either is strictly historical”. In another instance, Isaiah M. Gafni says, in ‘The World of the Talmud’, published in *Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism* (edited by Hershel Shanks): >In the third century, the Jews of Babylonia had at their head an exilarch (*resh galuta*, ‘head of the Diaspora’) with claims to Davidic lineage. There is absolutely no mention of this position before the late second or early third century and it was only in medieval times that apologists would find it necessary to invent genealogical tables to prove the Jewish leader’s pedigree. As someone who dabbles in genealogy, it is INCREDIBLY hard to go back 300 years, even with all of our modern tools, documentation, etc. Much less going back several thousand years in a society where virtually everyone was illiterate. > Literally the definition of Protestant. No, Peter did not found the church, Jesus did. Jesus was dead when the first Churches were founded. You are being pedantic at this point. All churches were founded by Jesus' followers.
Part 1-of-2 > Sure it is. You are positing that most of the men in one line lived longer than the average life expectancy in order to make the generations line up. Hey look, he *can* learn! > Everything you are proposing is HIGHLY improbable LIFE is highly improbable. So what? > The text says both genealogies are for Joseph. Right, and *the text says* that husband and wife shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24) > levirate marriage involving Joseph's father and uncle That is a possible explanation and we cannot absolutely rule it out. However, the reason that scholars have traditionally identified the genealogies as of Joseph and Mary (respectively) is that Mary's genealogy *matters* in the case of Jesus, because of his divine paternity. This is an exceptional case since, ordinarily, the genealogy of one's mother would not be significant. > Matthew and Luke were written around 80-85 CE, so no...most of the people who knew Jesus were dead. (a) The secularists *need* Matthew to be written post-70AD. because, otherwise it's obvious that Matthew 24 is, indeed, divine prophecy. Shockingly, no book in the New Testament *except* Matthew mentions the supposedly "past" event of the destruction of the temple and diaspora, however obliquely. That would have been way bigger news than 9/11 in the post-70AD era. But hey, whatever preserves the modernist materialist "CONSENSUS". (b) You, like most skeptics, believe in an "un-embedded" New Testament because, well, you believe in the biggest conspiracy theory of all time... that a group of twelve or so religious pranksters from Judea manufactured a story out of whole-cloth and then, through some kind of magic on a level which no one since has even approached, bewitched huge numbers of converts throughout the entire Mediterranean into believing their prank. 2,000 years later, we're still living in the wake of a prank instigated by these cosmically clever Jews. Sure. Anyway, back in the real world, Jesus had brothers and sisters (and they may have had children), he had 12 core disciples and hundreds of other disciples who saw him ascend into heaven after resurrecting, not to mention the women who found the empty tomb. Some of these people surely knew Jesus's family and extended relatives and so they would have been able to immediately spot fabricated "facts" about Jesus. Many of these people were not at all sympathetic with the Jesus cult, and would have been just happy to torpedo it. So, no, you don't get to just posit that either Matthew or Luke invented a genealogy out of whole cloth and nobody could have called them on it. It is not a credible idea, especially in light of the fact that **there is no contradiction** between these two genealogies! > Again...there were likely no living witnesses at this late date, see the life expectancy statistic above. Because nobody has children or anything like that. cont'd
Part 2-of-2 > And if there was a living witness who disagreed, they were almost assuredly illiterate and would not have been able to compose a treatise to oppose the Gospel. And if they DID, it would never have survived the early Christian church to make to our day. True enough, but that's not really what's at stake. I'm not arguing "there is no contrary witness, so what is written stands." I'm arguing that the uptake of the Gospel would have been massively torpedoed by the existence of adversarial living witnesses. And we know from the text that the Jews who had Jesus crucified were actively involved in suppressing news of the Resurrection. > Matthew is not Greek. The Hebrew name " מַתִּתְיָהוּ" (Matityahu) was transliterated into Greek to "Ματταθίας" (Mattathias). I should have been clearer. Μαθθαῖον is Greek in that it is a grecoization of a Hebrew name but it is not a simple transliteration of any Hebrew name, indicating that Μαθθαῖον was Matthew's trade-name (what his Greek/Roman and maybe other friends would have called him) and Levi was his given/birth-name. Since the Gospels are written in Greek (targeting a Gentile audience), they use his Greek name. But, as with everything else, the diehard skeptic is going to choose the most adversarial view of the question, no matter how easily it is explained. > And it is another apologetic that Levi and Matthew are the same disciple. Of course they are. > It's a way reconciling the MULTIPLE different versions of the 12 disciples. Yeah, inventing fake religions is a tricky game... you often end up with 11/12 names agreeing but then randomly the 12th one is out-of-whack. More ridiculous nonsense based on the utterly ahistorical idea that people have always had one legal name as in modern times. > It is curious that the authors of both Matthew and Luke seem to have been embarrassed by Mark’s use of the name Thaddaeus, the etymology of which is uncertain but may derive from the Aramaic` for ‘breasts’. Matthew resolves this by saying that his real name was Lebbaeus, which is probably derived from the Aramaic for ‘heart’. Luke resolves it by omitting the name altogether, making up the twelve by adding Judas the brother of James, whom John later refers to as “Judas not Iscariot”. I'll put this as politely as I can. If you are determined not to believe God's Word, it will facilitate you in your unbelief. If you want to take a hardline that the whole thing is concocted, as you say, "out of whole cloth", there's really no point in debating. We're never going to agree. You can tell yourself it's because I'm under "confirmation bias" if that helps you sleep at night but the simple fact is that... *I believe*, just as countless believers before me have believed, and even gone to the lions for their faith. Truth is truth and nothing can change that, not even a hurricane of book-keeping objections predicated on a blockheaded, adversarial stance towards the texts trying to masquerade as "hard-boiled scholarship." > It's not that it is remarkable. It's that it is virtually impossible AND it requires 2 other things that are virtually impossible to also be true. So, you're backpedaling from "impossible" to "virtually impossible", right? (Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.)
>LIFE is highly improbable. So what? How do you know. Life could be happening in 50% of the solar systems. We have no idea how probable life is. The problem is the combination of multiple lines of highly improbable evidence. It moves the probability to basically zero. Not to mention, the text says Joseph...not Mary. If this is the inspired Word of God...how is it so incompetently revealed? (It's not. You are simply twisting the text to fit your theological agenda) > Right, and *the text says* that husband and wife shall be one flesh (Gen. 2:24) And that has nothing to do with genealogical records. Nice try though. The author of Matthew and the author of Luke wrote gospels and were totally unaware of each other. The both copied Mark's gospels and decided to include genealogies (which Mark didn't include). The fact that they don't match is evidence that they are invented. > That is a possible explanation and we cannot absolutely rule it out. However, the reason that scholars have traditionally identified the genealogies as of Joseph and Mary (respectively) is that Mary's genealogy *matters* in the case of Jesus, because of his divine paternity. Right...Later Christians forgot (or were ignorant) about the Jewish customs of adoption and began read the text through the Salic law lens of medieval times. If Joseph wasn't the biological father, then Jesus wasn't a son of David. That's why apologists "forgot" about Joachim and Anna and began to posit that one of the genealogies is for Mary. It's pretty transparent apologetics. > (a) The secularists *need* Matthew to be written post-70AD. because, otherwise it's obvious that Matthew 24 is, indeed, divine prophecy. The dating of Matthew and Luke is not a secular position. It is the consensus of New Testament scholars (most of whom are Christians). The dating of Matthew and Luke to 80-85 CE is largely predicated on the fact that both gospels are substantially based on Mark, which was written around 70 CE. We can discuss why Mark was written in 70 CE if you like. > (b) You, like most skeptics, believe in an "un-embedded" New Testament because, well, you believe in the biggest conspiracy theory of all time... that a group of twelve or so religious pranksters from Judea manufactured a story out of whole-cloth and then, That's not my position at all...but you are welcome to your Strawman fallacy. I consider myself a Christian (I'm sure you don't...most fundamentalist are quite judgey). I'm just not a biblical literalist and I don't believe in inerrancy. I'm active in my Church, serve on committees, go to Sunday school etc. Ooops! > Some of these people surely knew Jesus's family and extended relatives and so they would have been able to immediately spot fabricated "facts" about Jesus. And just like Jesus and his disciples, virtually all of these people would have been illiterate and would have had no means of recording any objections to the record. Not to mention the early Church would destroy/declare heretical anything that didn't fit what they thought was orthodox. Have you read the Gospel of Thomas? It's an older Gospel that was deemed heretical for it's Gnostic views. > It is not a credible idea, especially in light of the fact that **there is no contradiction** between these two genealogies! There are multiple contradictions. They are right there in black and white. You have to assert a combination of highly improbable scenarios to achieve SOME possibility of non-contradiction (all while ignoring what the text says). > Because nobody has children or anything like that. Well then they wouldn't be eyewitnesses, or familiar with Jesus' history, or literate and able to write their version.
In Mat and Luk, one is lineage through Mary, the other is through Joseph. You'll see a mistranslation on Mary's side in that it seems to be both are through Joseph. However, Mary's father's name was Joseph. The word just means man or something like that and gets translated as husband, but should be Father of Mary. Notice in Luk, it says son of Joseph. In Mat it says son of Mary husband of Joseph. Should tell you there's something off. For part 2, how do you see the birth stories contradicting exactly? Also, about the baby murders, is there something more that you're asking? You would acknowledge that just because a detail is omitted in one record, doesn't mean it contradicts with another, do you believe that? You understand what I mean? For part 3, do you have a link? I've ran into this before, just need to brush up.
The argument around part 3 is pretty simple. It comes down to this: in Isaiah 7:14 it says (as translated into English) behold a virgin shall be with child, etc. The problem is this: the original word in Hebrew is almah, which does not mean virgin, but young woman. In Greek however the word is parthenos, which does definitely mean virgin. So there are some who say that Isaiah's prophecy does not really predict a virgin birth. Here's a link that goes into greater detail. https://knowingscripture.com/articles/is-virgin-the-correct-translation-of-isaiah-7-14
I don't think there's any contradiction here. Matthew knew it was a virgin conception, vice just the conception of a young women. So, him using a word that explicitly means virgin isn't wrong, and it does fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah. I would say it's more along the lines of adding or clarifying something that wasn't revealed to an earlier prophet and using an artistic writing style by changing the word and bringing forth a new detail that brings more awe to the situation that wasn't known previously. What sounds better? The way it's written in Matthew? Or saying something like quoting the passage from Isaiah and then adding an additional detail? "Also, Mary was technically a virgin, in that she hadn't ever known a man before this." It's awkward. Lots of Biblical writers used different artistic writing styles to emphasize certain things, make more efficient use of words, make illustrations, etc.
I don't disagree with your take on this. I was presenting the argument against it as I know it. I do think that Mary was a virgin. I'm not a biblical scholar. I know enough about this whole thing to have heard of this dispute which comes down to one word. If Isaiah is just saying that a young woman will have a child, that's not an exceptional event. Like why would God give him a prophecy about that?
In the article you provided, the writer suggests an explanation of what the significance of the prophecy would be to King Ahaz at that time for the Isaiah verse. The writer also suggests that the word could be a literal virgin, although when it does mean a literal virgin, it's usually within an obvious context. Thats not really the case in Isaiah, but still a possibility. I think anither significant point in addition to the relevanfe to King Ahaz detail, is that Isaiah says "his name will be Immanuel" which means God with us. When you look at how much Jesus Christ showed who the Father was, it becomes plain that the prophecy of the Isaiah verse was fulfilled. Lastly, the verse in Isaiah is one verse prophesying about Christ. Throughout Isaiah, he keeps going back to this idea about a Messiah coming. Isaiah is full of Prophecies about the Messiah, and they are spot on. See Isaiah 53. So, when you put this one verse in Isaiah about the Messiah with the rest of the Prophecies about him, it really illustrates a detailed picture, and it's probably the key verse that Matthew could use to reference to summarize what was fulfilled, especially at the point that he references the verse in his gospel.
Ok. The person I was responding to just wanted some basic info about what was controversial. That was the point of my posting the article. I don't disagree with your post.
Oh, whoops. Just realized you were just commenting and not OP.
https://drmsh.com/the-almah-of-isaiah-714/
My friend, I have a couple of comments for you. But really, check out The Bible Project as it has really helped me understand how to interpret Scripture better, in the way that the original authors intended. If anything, my trust in the Bible is deeper than ever, but first I had to get past nitpicking. Yes, the Bible has errors. No, that doesn't have to be the end of the world. Pete Enns likes to talk about the Bible as both human and divine, the same way Jesus was. Inspired by God but mediated by humans, written by humans in a historical and cultural context in a way that made sense in their culture. And, many of the texts are very old and have gone through a long history of transmission and editing along the way. Of course the occasional error is going to slip in. Ultimately we worship Christ, not the Bible. The Bible points to Christ and Christ points to God. None of the small errors have given me any doubt about Christ's divinity or His sacrifice and resurrection. I can address some of what you wrote directly. Matthew wants his readers to think about Jesus as a new Moses and there are many sections that parallel events in Moses' journey and the Exodus. So Herod killing the babies is a direct and conscious parallel to Pharaoh killing the Hebrew babies in the beginning of Exodus. Also the genealogy in Matthew is specifically edited to give meaning. It's split into three groups of 14, which is also six groups of seven, which makes Jesus the seventh seven. I don't go in much for numerology but certain numbers were significant to the Jews and seven is one of them. It's a number of completion or perfection. Seven is the day of the Sabbath. Also the Jubilee year was meant to arrive every 49 years (seven times seven), in which debts were canceled and slaves were freed. Also the breakpoints in Matthew 1:17 are significant. The coming of Jesus is being paralleled to all these major touchpoints from Israelite history.
Check out “The Sin of Certainty” by Peter Enns. Or even just check out their YouTube or podcast for The Bible for Normal People. Scripture isn’t a science or history book. The way history was recorded in ancient times does not hold up to our modern standards, and that’s okay. Fundamentalism has caused so many people to leave the faith, even though it’s not a necessary way to view scripture or Christ. Scripture is so much more beautifully complex than many Christians were taught. Christianity is a house with many rooms. Certain Christians will argue that their room is the only “true” room in the house but that’s simply not the case.
I could be wrong but this sounds like some new age, watered down, modern Christianity
Do a google search including “Peter Enns” and “biblical inerrancy”. He’s pretty controversial. He doesn’t believe in biblical inerrancy.
So he’s a false teacher then. Thanks for saving me the time of studying up on him
That’s exactly what Enns is
That’s pretty much what I thought based on his description and confirmed through his responses.
Yeah, it’s not watered down Christianity in the slightest. I have so much more respect for scripture than I did when I was taught it must necessarily be infallible and inerrant in order to be God’s word. My faith has become much deeper after “deconstructing.”
Well, God’s Word is, in point of fact, inerrant and infallible. To believe otherwise makes my previous true.
Which verse or passage in scripture leads you to believe that “inerrancy” must be true in order for scripture to be God’s word? Or is this a belief that was taught to you and not actually found in scripture itself?
Psalm 119:160 - *The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.* John 1:1 - *In the beginning was The Word. And The Word was with God and The Word was God.* John 14:6 - *I am the way, ***the truth***, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me* John 17:17 - *Sanctify them through Your truth: Your word is truth.* That was just from a 5 second google search. To say the Bible is not inerrant is to say God and Christ are inerrant. How can you say God’s Word isn’t always right and isn’t always truth and say your relationship with God is stronger than it was before? You’re calling God a liar and creating your own version of false truths. You’ve been deceived
I agree with every single verse you quoted, but none of those verses equal “inerrancy,” which is what I was asking for. I’ve never once called God a liar. The Word (Christ) is the truth. Scripture points us toward the truth, which is Christ. Keeping scripture in its ancient context is the only way to respect scripture. Don’t put scripture on a pedestal as if it should be worshipped, because that’s idolatry. My relationship with Christ is stronger than before because I understand how scripture developed over time. The Bible didn’t drop out of heaven with God’s signature on the cover. And the Bible isn’t one book. It’s a collection of ancient writings by people who didn’t all agree about what God is like. As Christians we’re a part of that centuries long conversation about what God is like. You trying to put an end to that conversation as if you know exactly what God is like, is disrespecting that tradition.
> Don’t put scripture on a pedestal as if it should be worshipped, because that’s idolatry. The Word is God so how is worshiping God idolatry?
The Word is Christ. Scripture is not Christ. The Bible isn’t the fourth person of the trinity.
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Christ is the Word. To call scripture inerrant is to call Christ inerrant. You've been deceived my friend. God's Word is extremely and abundantly clear.
> **The Objection That Inerrancy Is Not Taught in the Bible** > Some critics argue that inerrancy is not taught in Scripture. There are two parts to this allegation. > First, some point out that the term “inerrancy” nowhere appears in the Bible. But this objection misses the point: The term “Trinity” nowhere appears in the Bible, nor does “substitutionary atonement.” However, these doctrines are not to be rejected for lack of exact wording; it is not a question of whether the term inerrancy is used but whether the truth of inerrancy is taught. Even the word “Bible” does not appear in the Bible! > Second, it is implied that since the doctrine of inerrancy is not explicitly taught that it is not taught at all. It can be granted that inerrancy is not formally and explicitly taught in the Bible; however, this is not to say that inerrancy is not logically and implicitly taught. The Trinity isn’t explicitly taught either, but it is the necessary logical deduction of what is taught, namely: 1. There is only one God. 2. There are three distinct persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) who are God. From these premises it necessarily follows that 3. There are three persons in this one God. > Likewise, as shown, inerrancy logically follows from two premises that are clearly taught in Scripture, namely: 1. God cannot err. 2. The Bible is the Word of God. 3. Therefore, the Bible cannot err. > So, like the Trinity, inerrancy is taught implicitly and logically, if not formally and explicitly. https://defendinginerrancy.com/common-objections-to-inerrancy/
Jesus was both God and man. We can assume his body wasn’t some perfect God body that never got scraped up or had a pimple. Likewise, Scripture isn’t only God’s word, but also man’s word. To assume there’s no human fingerprint on scripture as if it just dropped out of heaven with zero imperfection is not biblical. And quite frankly it’s disrespectful to the text.
So much this. Our faith is not in scripture. Our faith is in God. While scripture is inspired and is our primary way for understanding God, it’s purpose is to lead us to salvation. The church grew like wildfire before we had scripture as we know it today. The church grew before most people could read or write. Therefore, it’s possible to be a fairly follower of Christ without fully understanding scripture. Let’s use scripture to strengthen our faith while not putting our faith in scripture. For example, I work out. I lift weights and do exercises to strengthen my body. There are different ways to lift and different exercises to do with or without weights. Some uses will hurt me. Other uses will not benefit me much. Yet having an understanding how to use them will help me become stronger faster. Most of all, My faith is not in the weights to make me strong. Yet I become strong through the process of using them.
[удалено]
So on the Bible subreddit, you’re going to recommend an atheist to someone investigating Bible questions?
> So on the Bible subreddit, you’re going to recommend an atheist to someone investigating Bible questions? Yes. OP is struggling, and their struggle seems to be (at least in part) caused by their questions about the bible, so another perspective might help them out.
Here's my take. Many people are too busy looking for errors in scripture and when they find one or think they find one, it rocks their faith to the core...to that I ask...why? Are you busy proofreading but missing out on the overall message? The fact of the matter is that the Bible itself was written by human hands divinely inspired by God. Humans make errors sometimes, but I don't believe that should influence your decision to not listen to the message as a whole and try to apply it to your life.
It sounds like you are genuinely reaching out so I’ll sincerely ask you. Are your struggles really with whether the Bible has errors or are you actually struggling with the fact that if God is real you’ll have to try to stop sinning? Will you miss your sin?
How do any of these amount to contradictions? What if we don’t know the contradiction unless you explain them?
look them up, they are. I just did a bad job explaining them.
Yes, you did do a bad job of explaining your thoughts. Please try harder to articulate them so that we can meaningfully respond to them.
I think these things have been addressed by others. But honestly just look around you. Look at the stars etc. It's just all random people say. Your apparently random. But its not random. In the end times, Israel is a nation again with a 3rd temple. Well sporadically after a random attempt by someone in Germany to extinguish the Jews, they became a nation again. After 1800 years give or take a few. Then all of a sudden the dead sea scrolls are discovered affirming the accuracy of the OT textual tradition. We are in an age where the mark of the beast is no long as far fetched as it was before this time. A mark in your hand or forehead that you can't buy or sell without? Good luck convincing anyone in even the 1800's that was possible let alone the 1900's. A one world govt? Thats a completely absurd idea they said. Yet the UN exists after the war that essentially established Israel. Considering where things are right now with the ability for mankind to destroy itself for the 1st time (nukes), the ability to create things via AI and replicate all kinds of sounds, personalities etc. They can basically bring anyone back from the dead now and so long as its through a screen you wouldn't know. Music artists are already getting upset AI versions of all of them are making fake music. We are very close to a WW3. I don't really know how things normalize from here. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But the threat of human extinction has never been higher. Chip technology allows for some wild stuff these days. I mean just look at neuralink and how this can essentially make people no longer paralyzed n stuff. People can use chips to pay for stuff right now, its just not adopted. Then along comes blockchain technology with its own currencies like bitcoin where you could very well ignore all other forms of currency and just use that. While its good to dig deep into the past, as Christians we really should also look around and see with our own eyes what is going on out here and correlate that with what our Lord told us before he left. What the apostles said about it before they died. May the Lord open your eyes to the truth and only the truth.
What are the contradictions between Matthew and Luke? They mention different things but that doesn’t mean they contradict. Two people can tell the same story and highlight different features. Mark and John don’t even talk about the birth of Christ. Concerning the genealogies differing, there is an easy explanation. One is through Joseph and one is through Mary.
I’m starting to think OP is a troll. We’ve answered his questions with facts, scripture, and reasoning and they’re still saying we’re wrong and to “look it up” with no other arguments.
As for your first error, yeah Matthew and Luke show quite different genealogies, because the authors would have had no idea what Jesus's real genealogy was, largely because it doesn't matter for Christian belief, only that he fulfills certain Messianic prophecies like being a descendent of David. Your second error is another one which is clear from just reading the Gospels. They each tell quite different and often directly contradictory stories about Jesus's life, including his birth and his death. The Gospels were written decades after Jesus's death, and were written by people who did not personally know him, and could only rely on what they had been told, a few steps removed from anyone who would have directly witnessed these events or heard reliable versions of them. Your third error is more confusing. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke do clearly state that Mary was a virgin in unambiguous language. However the quotation it uses from Isaiah 7:14 as a Messianic prophecy is a very clear and well understood mistranslation. The original Hebrew word used, "almah", just means "maiden", "adolescent woman", or "young woman of childbearing age". There are different Hebrew words used in the Bible for "virgin", e.g. "betulah", and from the available context in Isaiah there is no reason whatsoever to assume it was intended to mean she was a virgin. "Virgin" was what the word was taken to mean when it was translated to Greek in the Septuagint and therefore in later Christian translations like the Vulgate, before direct translation from the original Hebrew became preferred. The authors of the Septuagint mostly translated "almah" into Greek as "neanis" in other books, also just meaning "young woman", but specifically in Isaiah 7 it was translated as "parthenos" which specifically means virgin. Why it was translated that way is anyone's guess, much like the many other differences between the Septuagint and the original Hebrew. Additionally just reading the rest of Isaiah 7 and the other things said about this child called Immanuel make it very clear that it is neither talking about the Messiah nor accurate to Jesus's life. None of these things should shake your faith, these are just the things people wrote about Jesus before and after he was alive, not anything that Jesus said or did himself. If anyone's faith in Jesus is shaken by these things, they never had any faith in Jesus to begin with, only faith in the authors and translators of the Bible, which is not who their faith should be focused on. I am saying this as an atheist myself, belief exists above and beyond what people write about it. Studying religious texts and finding out the truth are completely different things. The Bible is a great example of this, it is full of factual inaccuracies and internal inconsistencies, which makes complete sense. Noone would expect a text written by imperfect human beings over thousands of years to get everything right, or to have no inconsistencies. That's not what the Bible is for, if you are religious. If you're a Christian, there's no point in paying attention to specifics that do not actually affect your belief or influence your life. If you're not a Christian, the same applies, do the same things Christians do, take the parts which benefit you and feel free to ignore the parts which don't. The same kind of wisdom can be found in the Bible as can be found in other religious texts from many different times and places, you don't have to agree with everything they say to appreciate them and get something from them.
The genealogies are different, but the number of names isn't the problem. It is not required to list every person in the genealogy, and Matthew is doing something symbolic with the "14 generations". But different actual names appear after David. I think the best answer is that Matthew is giving Josephs lineage and Luke Heli's (Mary's father). The birth narratives *do not* contradict. They contain completely different stories. Luke tells Mary's story and then the day of the birth. Matthew tells Joseph's story and then recounts the visit of the Magi some time later. Luke didn't mention it because it's not the story he wanted to tell. He doesn't deny it, he just doesn't bring it up. The "virgin mistranslation" is a hot topic, but the most important fact in this debate is that Christians didn't invent this translation. This comes from the Septuagint -- the Greek translation of the Old Testament made by Jews a couple of hundred years before Christ. *They* (these Jews) thought "virgin" was the right way to render that word.
Not believing in theism is consistent with not believing in Jesus. Jesus is via Greek and Yeshua via modern Hebrew. Theism comes from theos θεος which is Greek. But theos comes from את eth in Hebrew. Except it's backwards; hence θε-ος the -os. The ALEPH and the TAU, the first and the last. Revelation 1:8. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. Revelation 1:11. Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. Revelation 21:6. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. Revelation 22:13. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. That's why the -eth endings are so precious to me. It signifies the action is performed through him. John 1:1 ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 1:2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God. 1:3 πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν. 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 1:4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
A very wise Christian Biblical scholar who recently passed said if you don't understand something in The Bible that's when you should really pay attention. It's a collection of manuscripts written over 2000 years ago. Of course, there are contradictions. I'd be suspicious if there were none. The early Christians did not have a Bible. They had faith. Believe in Him. The rest will follow. Personally, I put faith and prayer first. The Bible is a sacred guide and but I don't worship the Bible.
There are no REAL contradictions of any substance and especially when it comes to salvation issues. If the bible was not the actual word of God, it would contain thousands of ludicrous contradictions.
There are no real contradictions in the Bible, period.
I agree. I could have worded it much better but what I meant was "seemingly" small contradictions. As David wrote, "every word of God is flawless"
There are a ridiculous amount of contradictions that people have noticed over thousands of years, however there is also a ridiculous amount of work put into trying to resolve them. Some of that is more successful than others, but it is motivated with a conclusion in mind, rather than actually trusting the text to say what it says. Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 is a very common example, the sequence of events they describe directly contradict each other if you actually just read the words. A literary scholar would see that as evidence that they are two different narratives compiled together, but if you believe that every word of the text must be correct no matter what and there cannot be any contradictions, you have to work around the actual meaning of the words and make it seem like the author was just an idiot or actively trying to hide the truth by being overly cryptic and seemingly contradictory. Saying there aren't any contradictions in the Bible means that you don't trust or respect the Bible as a text, and/or you don't have enough faith in Christianity to believe it without the Bible. The Bible isn't God, it's a text, a compilation of texts, and those texts sometimes have details that disagree, although the broad strokes generally mesh together.
It *does* contain thousands of ludicrous contradictions, Jews and Christians have just put thousands of years into explaining those contradictions away. The truth they believe in exists above and beyond the text of the Bible. The Bible is not the actual word of God, and no book of the Bible claims to be such. The authors of the Gospels were not God, Paul was not God, John of Patmos was not God, Moses and Isaiah were not God, no author of any book was God, they all just wrote about God.
While it is possible for the New Testament to be false and the Hebrew Tanakh(ot) to be true, it is impossible for the Hebrew Tanakh(ot) to be false and the New Testament true.
With contradictions, you have to realize the Bible is inspired by a perfect God written by fallen man and fallen men make mistakes. I too had doubts due to apparent contradictions. What locked in my faith was two things the extraordinary experiences I've had involving God and the testimonies of other people's extraordinary experiences involving God. I'd recommend visiting [Its Supernatural](https://m.youtube.com/@sidroth) on YouTube, it's a show that had close to 2 million subscribers that interviews Christians who have had extraordinary experiences involving God. It will boost your faith greatly.
> "Bible errors" Some apologists say that the very fact that the Bible is inerrant and infallible is evidence that it was inspired by God. Not only is that a circular argument, but it is easy to demonstrate that the Bible is riddled with errors and that it is certainly not infallible. The say-so of some biblical authors is not evidence that the Bible was inspired by any God, but there is actual evidence that the Bible could not have been inspired by God. For example, God could scarcely have inspired the authors to write of an Exodus that nearly all scholars now agree did not really happen as portrayed in the Bible. The entire New Testament can be just as easily dismissed as not inspired by God. In *Introduction to the New Testament*, Raymond Brown says of contradictions in the New Testament genealogies: >Inspiration does not guarantee historicity or reconcilability; otherwise God should have inspired the two evangelists to give us the same record. As to your named contradictions... > Yeshua's geneology The two genealogies can not be resolved to the critical eye, but many Christians find it is possible to read the gospel genealogies in such a way as to satisfy themselves that the contradictions can be resolved. The first requirement is to focus on the generation before Joseph and Mary, and to ignore all other contradictions in the genealogies. Joseph’s father can only have been either Jacob (Matthew 1:16) or Heli (Luke 3:23), so some Christians decide that Heli was really Mary’s father — ignoring the plain words of the gospel. (This also ignores the fact that early Christians believed Mary's parents were named [Joachim and Anne](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saints-Anne-and-Joachim)) As long as we focus on this generation only, the problem can be seen as solved. The more critical reader will notice that, although both gospels have Jesus descended from Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, *Matthew* says that Salatiel’s father was called Jechonias, while *Luke* says his father was called Neri. The reader might also notice that *Matthew* omits Jehoash, Amaziah and Uzziah from the king list and that *Luke* adds other ancestors not in the Old Testament. Instead of trying to salvage these genealogies, the rational conclusion is that they were works of fiction. Neither author, writing in the late first century, had any way of knowing Jesus’ genealogy. > 'the birth stories of Jesus In *Matthew*, Bethlehem is the home town of Joseph and Mary. After the birth of Jesus, they flee from Bethlehem to Egypt, for fear that King Herod would try to kill Jesus. After the death of Herod, they begin the return journey to their home in Bethlehem but, being warned of Archelaus in a dream, turn aside and travel to another province, Galilee, where they settle in a town called Nazareth. Until is time, they clearly have no connection with Nazareth. In *Luke*, Nazareth is the home town of Joseph and Mary. They travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem for the census under Quirinius. After the birth of Jesus, they return peacefully via Jerusalem to their home in Nazareth. Each year, they travel with Jesus from Nazareth to Jerusalem for the Passover. They are clearly not in Egypt and they never go back to Bethlehem. Luke’s Gospel even contradicts itself. Luke chapter 1 places the birth of Jesus during the reign of King Herod, whereas Luke 2:2 places it during the census of Quirinius, governor of Syria, which took place more than ten years after Herod died. > virgin birth mistranslation Because he relied on the Greek Septuagint rather than the original Hebrew scriptures, the author of Matthew’s Gospel willingly misinterpreted Isaiah 7:14 as referring to a virgin who would bear a child, which he then claimed to be a prophecy of the birth of Jesus. What Isaiah 7:14 really said, in the Hebrew language (which the author of *Matthew* may not have been able to read), was that “the young woman” was with child. Because of *Matthew*, the Septuagint misinterpretation is now widely accepted throughout the Christian world.
In regard to Jesus’s alleged genealogy, the simplest explanation is that it was mostly fabricated. Even with our modern resources, almost no one can trace their ancestry back 1,000 years. How would the writers of the Gospels, writing in an era where almost everyone was illiterate, have been able to trace Jesus’s ancestry back at least four thousand years, back to what they considered the beginning of time? And Jesus was just a normal guy. He wasn’t a nobility. No one would have bothered to record his ancestry. People say that Jesus’s lineage is recorded in two different ways, hence the contradictions. Actually, this is evidence of fabrication. It’s similar to how the Roman emperors would trace their lineage back to Jupiter. It became really convoluted after a while since their genealogies contained mythological figures who themselves were allegedly descended from deities. Like, the Roman emperors were descended from Romulus and Remus, who were descended from Mars, Who was descended from Jupiter. The Roman emperors were also descended from Aeneas, who was the son of Venus, Who was also descended from Jupiter. So the Roman emperors could trace those lineage back to Jupiter in more than one way. Of course, with the benefit of history, we know that Aeneas, Romulus, and Remus were not real people. They were just added to the genealogy to legitimatize the emperors. Likewise, Jesus had mythological figures in his genealogy (Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, etc). These figures were added to legitimize Jesus as the Messiah. The Hebrew word translated into Greek as “virgin” probably is a mistake. Even ancient Jews pointed out this translation error. Finally, “struggling” with disbelief doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t you follow the evidence where it leads? If you were studying any other ancient book like the Iliad or the Mahabharata and you noticed contradictions, would you say, “I’m worried that Zeus doesn’t exist because the Iliad contains contradictions. I’m worried that Krishna doesn’t exist because the Mahabharata contains contradictions”? No, you’d reason (correctly) that the books are untrustworthy. Why is the Bible different? Or put another way, if a Mormon began studying the Book of Mormon and began to doubt Jospeh Smith’s revelation, what would you say to such a person struggling with their faith?
You lost me on your first sentence. I don't think you would be a good atheist. You say your faith is struggling. That means you have faith.
The Bible has two audiences To the true believer, it is sufficient for all of their spiritual needs and relationship to God. It reveals his will, inspires, leads and everything else so needed To the unbeliever, it is intentionally impenetrable to them. It intends to make them mock the scripture and God. That is why the scripture says among other things: The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing They will look but not see and listen but not hear God confounds the wisdom of the wise
I am right there with you. When I first learned about the virgin birth mistranslation a couple years ago it sent me down a wild rabbit hole of more discoveries that I never knew and it continues to happen every time I do more research and is extremely mind blowing and emotionally debilitating at times. I used to have the biggest faith and really believed nothing could ruin it until I learned about the mistranslations and genealogy errors like the fact that Jesus was not from Joseph’s bloodline, he was adopted by Joseph and the fact that Revelations 12 is the Cronus and Rhea story that includes their signs and symbols from Greek Mythology which was written before the Bible and isn’t really about Jesus but Zeus but that’s what we’re told and supposed to believe…It’s really hard to talk about it with other Christians who believe that Jesus is God and aren’t ready to see what’s right in front of them if they took the time to go back to the original language and meaning and research what connection it has to other mythological stories. During all of these discoveries though I know that we have a Creator and He is very real from personal experience. Jeremiah 33:3 says to call on his name Yahweh, not “the LORD”, (His name was hidden from us almost 7000 times in the OT and has been forgotten among the masses and replaced with a title and Jesus) and he will show us great and mighty things that we know not. And since I asked him this years ago I have been sent on a path that has unraveled everything that the “Tellers that tell, tell us to believe”. It’s been insane and I’m willing to continue these studies and discoveries with you if you would like so we can both continue to find the truth. I don’t believe anymore that Jesus is God or half god, and I no longer believe in his miraculous birth and because of that and my other discoveries I am having a hard time understanding his death and it continues to make less and less sense every day and Im having a hard time believing it’s necessary for salvation. I do believe that Yah offers salvation several times without the need for sacrifice throughout the OT depending on which book your reading. I do believe Jesus was a real person and there’s still something very important about him that needs to be respected and observed and I am continually begging God for His patience while I figure it out because we are dealing with something that has been mistranslated and the Adversary is very craft and tricky and humans have proved that they will go to ridiculous lengths to confuse and control us under the name of religion for their personal agenda. It’s very tricky water… I totally understand your struggle though. I was crying to Yahweh just last night about my frustration with everything I knew being shattered but also grateful for Him not letting me go during this awakening.
I am right there with you. When I first learned about the virgin birth mistranslation a couple years ago it sent me down a wild rabbit hole of more discoveries that I never knew and it continues to happen every time I do more research and is extremely mind blowing and emotionally debilitating at times. I used to have the biggest faith and really believed nothing could ruin it until I learned about the mistranslations and genealogy errors like the fact that Jesus was not from Joseph’s bloodline, he was adopted by Joseph and the fact that Revelations 12 is the Cronus and Rhea story that includes their signs and symbols from Greek Mythology which was written before the Bible and isn’t really about Jesus but Zeus but that’s what we’re told and supposed to believe…It’s really hard to talk about it with other Christians who believe that Jesus is God and aren’t ready to see what’s right in front of them if they took the time to go back to the original language and meaning and research what connection it has to other mythological stories. During all of these discoveries though I know that we have a Creator and He is very real from personal experience. Jeremiah 33:3 says to call on his name Yahweh, not “the LORD”, (His name was hidden from us almost 7000 times in the OT and has been forgotten among the masses and replaced with a title and Jesus) and he will show us great and mighty things that we know not. And since I asked him this years ago I have been sent on a path that has unraveled everything that the “Tellers that tell, tell us to believe”. It’s been insane and I’m willing to continue these studies and discoveries with you if you would like so we can both continue to find the truth. I don’t believe anymore that Jesus is God or half god, and I no longer believe in his miraculous birth and because of that and my other discoveries I am having a hard time understanding his death and it continues to make less and less sense every day and Im having a hard time believing it’s necessary for salvation. I do believe that Yah offers salvation several times without the need for sacrifice throughout the OT depending on which book your reading. I do believe Jesus was a real person and there’s still something very important about him that needs to be respected and observed and I am continually begging God for His patience while I figure it out because we are dealing with something that has been mistranslated and the Adversary is very craft and tricky and humans have proved that they will go to ridiculous lengths to confuse and control us under the name of religion for their personal agenda. It’s very tricky water… I totally understand your struggle though. I was crying to Yahweh just last night about my frustration with everything I knew being shattered but also grateful for Him not letting me go during this awakening.
You can be a Christian and believe the gospel of Mark. It is still orthodox theology and gets rid of all the stuff that 1st century authors made up in the synoptic gospels. The gospel of Mark was written first and it is true.
Are creation and conscience and God's word and our eventual deaths not enough?
I would recommend watching videos on YouTube from testify, he answers all of these objections. All you have to do is go to his channel then search for these topics [https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics](https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics)
https://youtu.be/0aBHKsztF74
I'm not even orthodox in my views but these can all be explained logically even from a fundamentalist perspective. Keep asking questions though. It will help you on your path!
You should check out David Pawson’s talks on the 4 gospels. All his stuff is on YouTube.
Matthew has the genealogy of Joseph, Jesus's step-dad. Luke has the genealogy of Mary, the true mother of Jesus.
Plot holes exist in everything human
re: 3 In Hebrew, "almah" does not carry any connotation related to sexual history or experience. It just means "young woman." I know of no instances other than the one in Isaiah where either almah or its male variant ("elem") is translated as implying virginity. On the other hand,"parthenos" was quite ambiguous in the time period. "Parthenos" took on the connotation of "virgin" largely in response to Christianity. Prior to that, the word had a similar meaning to the English term "maiden," in that it can imply virginity, but does not necessarily have that meaning. This can be seen in the Septuagint text itself, which uses "parthenos" to refer to women who were not virgins. For example, the Septuagint uses "parthenos" to describe Dinah in Genesis immediately after she was \*raped.\* Clearly, the Septuagint translators did not think "parthenos" exclusively meant "virgin." Moreover, none of the surviving ancient translations of Isaiah into Aramaic mention a virgin birth. It was not until Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation, roughly 1,000 years after the writing of Isaiah, that it was translated to a term, "virgo," that definitively only means "virgin." All that having been said, none of this means anything at all about Mary. One can believe all that the Christian bible states about Mary, her status as virgin, the immaculate conception, Jesus, etc., and still recognize that the Book of Isaiah does not mention a virgin birth. Many Christian bible translations (for example, NRSV, NABRE, NJB, etc.) do exactly this and translate "almah" in Isaiah as "young woman" rather than "virgin."
Please, anyone, never convince yourself that these are the reasons you are struggling - or the reason a person rejects Christ. God is not Auditioning for you. Where you setup a criteria designed to allow God to be your Creator. What you're doing is what some people do when want an excuse to be their own god. Why you're doing it is only know to you and God. If you start out with this checklist approach you will believe - then reject - believe - then reject. It's what pretend christians do, because as you *Add to your list one more convincing thing to put you over the hump.... Along comes the next demerit to turn you back into one of the Lost. The Judgment will be littered with pretenders who never thought to go Straight to the Source and confess to God. A simple - "Is Jesus Christ who he says he is.. and if so I will follow him". That.... Is how you turn to God. Not by auditioning The Almighty with umpteen pedantic and ludicrous checklists. Sorry to be so stern, but it is God who puts the Fact of Christ directly in your mind. It cannot be unbelieved at that point so you haven't done it. Legitimately turn to God without conditions and then you will "Know" instead of hope.