07-21-2015, 07:32 PM
(04-14-2015, 04:32 PM)johnkw Wrote: Perhaps the Joseph listed in Luke 3 isn't Mary's husband, but her uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. There are traditions which have him related to Mary. An uncle would be a natural guardian, if, for example, Mary's father had died.
The genealogy in Luke gives me no problem. Luke plainly identifies Joseph as the "supposed" father of Jesus, which strongly suggests Mary's husband. And Luke had a reason for writing this seemingly contradictory genealogy. It is clear to me that Luke had seen Matthew's Gospel account, and as he says in the first four verse of his own Gospel, determined to confirm the truth of what early Believers had been told. Just like Eisenhower insisted that movies and pictures of Hitler's death camps in 1945 because "50 years from now some will deny they existed". Luke wrote his COMPLEMENTARY account of husband Joseph to prove to Believers that Joseph could not have been Jesus' father because his lineage was through Nathan who was never King. On the other hand, Matthew's genealogy, he wrote it to prove that Jesus was the blood descendant of King David, fulfilling prophecy that David's Kingdom would be eternal. It became eternal when Jesus was born: The last King of Israel was, and is, Jesus; King of kings.
TB