Go for it. We should cover it, especially for the holiday season, since it is supposedly the birth of Jesus-time.

Nonsense.  Christians have held from the beginning that the two are one of Joseph (the legal lineage) and one of Mary (the genetic lineage).  The complaints only began with the form critics in 1850 or so.  Before that Jewish traditions were understood and recognized and the lineages made perfect sense.

The Roman Church 400 years later had already departed from and was largely ignorant of Jewish tradition.  I speak of the early Jewish Christians who were familiar with Jewish tradition.

The fact that one can find differences of opinion within a group is an expected human characteristic so I wouldn't be tempted to read too much into the occasional divergence particularly from people who were required to look to the Pope for doctrine rather than read it themselves.  This was largely a non-issue until the form critics came along in the 1800's deconstructing every passage and interpreting it according to their atheistic prior commitments.

Here is a fairly complete treatment of this issue.

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/fabprof4.html

If one could produce evidence that demonstrates the words are wrong then we would say they are wrong. What  conditions do we use to favor one explanation over another?  Matthew's narrative could be wrong or it could be incomplete in keeping with the tradition of forming narratives that lend themselves to memory.  which do we choose and how?

You choose to believe it is wrong because of your prior commitment.  The writer of the explanations I provide leaves it as an open question and calls it "surprising" or "perplexing".  I too leave it open.  Why don't you?  Do you have evidence that allows you to conclude it is wrong?  No you don't.

Since barney is unwilling to read the material I linked, I provide it here so he can see how Jewish law and traditions supports the Christian tradition that these two genealogies are one of Mary (Joseph being legally named in Mary's family to continue Mary's line since Mary had no brother), and one of Joseph.


barney's claim:
Both of these trace Jesus' lineage through his father, Joseph. If the virgin birth story is taken seriously, then Jesus lacks the proper ancestry.

Response:

What Jim is arguing here is simple and worth making explicit:

The genealogies show that JOSEPH is the descendent of David;
Jesus, by virtue of the virgin birth, is NOT a gene-carrying descendent of Joseph;
Therefore, Jesus is NOT a gene-carrying descendent of David.
However, notice the main assumption in this argument:
Only gene-carrying descendants are considered as legal descendants.
This assumption is demonstrably false. Let's look at the situation and background closely.
Matthew and Luke present different genealogies of Jesus--one through David's son Solomon (the royal line) and the other through David's son Nathan (the non-royal line). The royal line is traced in Matthew; the "natural" line in Luke. Matthew's genealogy goes only back to Abraham (to show the Jewish character of the King); Luke's goes back to Adam (to show the universal aspect of the Savior). Matthew's emphasizes Jesus' royalty; Luke, his humanity.

It is generally accepted (but not unanimously) that the genealogy in Matthew belongs to Joseph's family, and the one in Luke applies to Mary's line. (The historical evidence is fairly strong that both Mary and Joseph were of the house of David.)

Both genealogies are 'aware' of the virgin birth: Luke adds the phrase "He was the son, SO IT WAS THOUGHT, of Joseph" (3:23) and Matthew switches verbs from "X begat Y" to "Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom (feminine pronoun) was born Jesus".

Joseph is already a legal heir of David, but he seems also to 'pick up' Mary's legal heritage, too. How?

Probably through the law of levirate marriage.

The Jewish folk had numerous provisions for cases of inheritance-transfer in extreme cases. One of the more frequent situations that had to be covered (in a land-based, clan-ownership system) was that of childless marriages, or in some cases, of son-less marriages.
One of the more concise statements of how this would apply here, is by J. Stafford Wright in Dict. of New Test. Theol., III. 662:

"Mary's father (Heli?) had two daughters, Mary and the unnamed wife of Zebedee (John 19:25; Matt 27:56). If there were no sons, Joseph would become son of Heli on his marriage, to preserve the family name and inheritance (cf. Num 27:1-11; 36:1-12, esp. v. 8, which accounts for Mary marrying a man of the family of David.)"
[The main passages in the OT that refer to these various laws are Num 7:1-11; Num 36:1-12; Lev 25:25; Dt 25:5-10. These practices were widespread in the Ancient Near East, and a good discussion of the details in Israel and differences from the ANE can be found in Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Vol 1--Social Institutions. Two famous cases, for good or ill, of these practices are in the story of Ruth (Book of Ruth) and in the story of Tamar (Gen 38:6ff).]
What this 'nets out to' is that Joseph 'married into' Mary's gene-pool...and hence, the virgin birth doesn't stop the lineage "transfer".

In other words, that the physical-gene did NOT come FROM JOSEPH was IRRELEVANT in this case. Legal and kinship standing was related to EITHER 'genes' OR to 'marriage'. (Although it should be pointed out that levirate arrangements like this required close kinship already, and hence, quite a number of overlapping genes.).


So, strictly speaking, Jesus got his genes from Mary and his legal standing (in the royal heir line) from Joseph (thru the marriage of M+J).

Now, as a practical matter, I consider the gene-issue to be only somewhat important, simply because there were other indications that the Messiah WOULD BE from the 'stock of Jesse' etc--images and phrases that DO put more emphasis on the blood-line than does simply 'legal lineage'--but I am persuaded that these requirements were adequately satisfied from Mary's side. The bloodline of David was literally satisfied by the lineage of Mary (from Nathan), and the dynastic line of David-through-Solomon was legally satisfied through Joseph's line. [Their are passages that suggest that the Messiah-as-Davidic-king would be descended from Solomon (1 Chron 17; 2 Sam 7), but it should be noted that (a) God provided an 'escape clause' in 1 Chron 28.5-7 and 2 Chron 7.17ff) and more importantly, (b) the dynasty is always referred to as "of David" and never "of Solomon" in the prophetic books. David (in some form) returns to rule Israel someday--NOT Shlomo.]
Thus, the geneaology in Matthew traces Jesus back to Solomon and then to David. Full legal, dynastic lineage of Jesus is affirmed thereby.

Since you have moved off of the two lineages and onto another issue of Joseph's relationship to David can we conclude that this one has run its course?  The article I provided addresses all of the issues yours has raised and provides solutions to each.

You are discussing multiple points at once barney.  One was the two different lineages but now you are objecting to the relationship of Joseph and Mary to David through a family that you say is cursed.

I simply asked if you are done arguing specifically about the fact two different lineages are offered. 

I will repeat that, in any case, these other complaints are also discussed in detail in the link I provided.  Since barney will not read it, and because he won't he doesn't realize these issues also have solutions, I simply suggest that the interested reader have a look at the link.