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When we trace a male lineage, we have to take into account that because of extramarital relations, it can be real or supposed. A woman’s husband is not necessarily her children’s father. The Bible recognizes this. Whereas some are always based on the ‘father begot son’ principle (like Seth’s genealogy in Genesis and Jesus’ genealogy in Saint Matthew), others are supposed because they use formulas like ‘Cain knew his wife and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch” (Cain’s genealogy in Genesis) or “being the son, as it was thought, of Joseph, son of Heli…” (Jesus’ genealogy in Saint Luke).
The formula used by Saint Luke not only tells us that people believed that Jesus was the son of Joseph, but also that Joseph was the son of Heli, etc. That explains why we find in Saint Matthew that Joseph’s father is Jacob while in Saint Luke it is Heli.
Saint Luke offers an additional generation between Adam and Noah. Whereas Genesis says: “Arpachshad begat Shelah”, Saint Luke indicates: “son of Shelah, son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad”. We can assume that Saint Luke was familiar with the genealogies in Genesis. Therefore, we must wonder what he is trying to tell us by including this additional generation between Noah and Abraham. And what can this mean if not that Arpachshad (Saint Matthew and Saint Luke often offer different spellings for the same name) first had his son Cainan and later, when he became an adult, had Shelah from his daughter-in-law, Cainan’s wife? We have thus discovered another ancestor of Jesus who had a child from his daughter-in-law.
It is because the Bible recognizes the difference between real and supposed lineages, and religious authorities don’t, that this book holds secrets. I referred to these secrets on another topic (Does a 'sacred' book hold 'secrets'?) when I pointed out that calling a book ‘sacred’ originally meant to recognize that it holds secrets.

Some thought jesus was produced by mary and Roam soldier having relations!

main point here in all of this is that the Holy sprit had inspired the authors to record exactly what had happened, and Jesus was Virgin Born, by the Holy spriit conceiving Him in a Virgin womb, and that god was/is His father!

I know some people don't believe in Mary's perpetual virginity after she had Jesus (this point is debated a lot about between different denominations) but what about this bible verse?

Ezekiel 44:2 The LORD said to me, "This gate is to remain shut. It must not be opened; no one may enter through it. It is to remain shut because the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered through it.

And just so there is no confusion I agree that on the cross when Jesus said "it was finished" that it was and that the apparitions of Mary afterwards were something else... this doesn't mean that Mary couldn't have been a virgin throughout her life though.... anyway, just a curiosity...

The word used to describe jesus as having brothers in its usual meaning does refer to brothers/family in a physical sense, and not as being "cousins!"

Think catholic Church forces her to remain a Virgin due to their doctrines, NOT from the Bible itself!

When Saint Matthew says: “The sum of generations is therefore: 14 from Abraham to David; 14 from David to the Babylonian deportation; and 14 from the Babylonian deportation to Christ”, he seems to suggest that every 14 generations this special lineage, always from father to son, produces someone very important. By starting his genealogy only with Abraham (Saint Luke covers the generations between Adam and Jesus), Saint Matthew encourages us to find out who is separated 14 generations from him going back in time. As Saint Matthew’s genealogy for Jesus is based on the ‘father begat son’ principle, we can complete his list with the information that we find in Genesis since it offers us genealogies that are based on the same idea. Whereas some go from Adam to Noah (Gn5:3-32), others go from Noah to Abraham (Gn11:10-26).
Enoch is the person who is separated 14 generations from Abraham going back in time. Enoch, Abraham, David, Josiah and Jesus are all very important figures: Enoch walked with God and God took him with Him when he was 365 years old; God offered Abraham a covenant; David founded a kingdom and God said that the Messiah would be a descendant of him; Josiah imposed an important religious reformation; and Jesus did something similar.
When we now look at the four columns of 14 generations we see that the fourteenth generation of each column has to be counted again in the following column and, therefore, that Saint Matthew indeed tells us that Joseph and Jesus form part of the same generation. And if Joseph and Jesus were brothers, their father had Jesus from Mary, Joseph's wife ... edited.

Jesus was born of the Virgin mary, conceived by the Holy ghost, his father was/is God!

Ristenk

it is always dangerous to take Bible verses out of context to prove a doctrine that we have come to by other means.
There is nothing said in the New Testament about Mary remaining a virgin, and the inference is the exact opposite - i.e. that the brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels were in fact the children of Mary and Joseph.

For me this verse is important

"When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him .... But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son ..." (Matt.1:24-25 NIV emphasis mine)

the wording clearly infers that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had normal marital relations, and that is how anyone who has not been exposed to the RC teaching would interpret it.

But of course the most important thing is that Jesus, the Son of God, became flesh and was born as a human being .... Hallelujah!

in Christ

Dinah

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You have NO credible historical evidence to support your notion, in fact , the opposite is true!

IF Jesus was NOt Born to the Virgin, if His father was either Joseph or someone else, would have had a sin nature, and NONE of us would get saved!

have you received by faith the Son of God, Jesus Christ?

Autodidact - do you have any proof or evidence that there is a cryptic message and if so why has it been hidden for hundreds of years?

I have never heard of a cryptic message in the genealogies of Jesus. If someone translates something allegorically they may come up with anything. I believe in the literal, historical, and grammatical interpretation of Scripture. There are times when people ignore scripture because they are so committed to their ideas or agendas and they will interpret scripture accordingly.

-- autodidact, since you seek truth i'll let you in on something that should be readily apparent but appears to have eluded you: those that claim to have special knowledge possess a view that is especially wrong -- jus sayin'

Jesus Claimed to be God, not merely "enlightened" -- i suggest you focus you attention there

[One thing that we know for certain, that ANY revealtion so called that contridicts the word of god does NOT come from the Holy spirit, but from the same spirit as spoke to BOTH Joseph Smith and the prophet Mohhamud!

Hi Dinah! I love all of your responses and really look up to you as a woman of faith I agree that in the end, it really doesn't matter if Mary was a perpetual virgin or not since it is thru Jesus that we are all saved. I did find some interesting articles on Mary though that I found interesting. The first had to do with the UNTIL issue in scripture:

"And, in order for you to be so sure that Mary had children based on the use of the word UNTIL in Mathew 1:25; all scriptural uses of until would have to align with this hermenutic interpretation and none could align with another interpretation.

The interpretation of the UNTIL in:

‘And knew her not until she had brought forth her son and He called His name Jesus.’

would then mean we HAVE to interpret the following verses like this:

As to Michal daughter of Saul, she had no child until the day of her death. 2 Samuel 6:23

Interpretation: Using the hermenutic interpretation this would have to mean that Michal DID HAVE A CHILD AFTER HER DEATH.

In His days shall shine forth righteousness and an abundance of peace, until the moon be taken away. Psalm 71:7

Interpretation: At the end of the world, the moon will be taken away and righteousness and peace will no longer shine forth.

For He must reign, until He has put all enemies under his feet. I Corinthians 15:25

Interpretation: Once Christ has defeated His enemies, He will no longer reign supreme.

Lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the world. Matthew 28:20

Interpretation: God is with us always, but at the end of the world He will no longer be with us."

Anyway, just thought it was another interesting thing to ponder. I love coming across new things to think about... God is so big there just seems to be an overflow of information to wrap my mind around! Here is the source I got it from: http://bfhu.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/ma ... -was-born/

I actually came across the site because I kept coming across all these crazy websites when doing google searches saying that Catholics are not christians, which is really crazy. I think there are people that are both saved and unsaved in all denominations... but anyway, that's besides the point.

it is crazy & i agree with your last pt

i always call myself a Christian as denominations (of which i consider the RCC to be 1) can divide -- they don't always but the denominational distinction remains secondary to my salvation -- Catholic doctrine has much i disagree with but they get the basics right so hey

fwiw - Mary is an interesting figure -- the Catholics give her too much credit (e.g., she cannot intercede to God any more than i can, actually less since she's dead) but the Protestants don't give her enough (e.g., she was Blessed more than any woman, even Eve) -- so in between the 2 is the truth -- am personally curious if she's the the "elect lady" of 2 John as i've heard some propose but that's for another thread

Ristenk

thank you for your kind words

but again, you have illustrated beautifully what I mean by not taking verses out of context e.g.



not so, the context makes it quite clear that what is meant is that Michal never had any children


it is important not to read Scripture 'woodenly' ... that is word for word literally .... but to take notice of genre i.e. read narrative as narrative, read poetry as poetry, read descriptive pictures as just that. e.g. when you say "the sun rose this morning" do you mean literally that the sun moves around the earth? ... no! it is a descriptive term .... as is the term in the verse above.



again, this must be read in context .... in which the meaning becomes clear .... using Scripture like these quotes can be called eisegesis, which simply means reading into the Bible what we already believe to be true from other sources.

The other important thing is to understand is that our English Bibles are translations of Greek and Hebrew texts. In these languages it is most important to use context to give the correct meaning to words which sometimes have several meanings. ... Perhaps some of our Greek experts could help us with this.

I do agree that sometimes we don't give enough honor to Mary, she is an amazing woman, and yes, greatly blessed ... but it is surely a mistake to worship her and to make her an intermediary between us and God - which is what Catholic doctrine does.

in Christ

Dinah

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