I have before me a batch of questions belonging to that class which is as old as our Gospels, and yet is new to every rising generation. The time perhaps will never come when they will cease to be raised and to demand answers from the teachers in Zion. Here they are:

      Will you please answer the following queries in your column in the Standard and oblige a number of your readers?

      1. How was Jesus the son of David if he was not the real son of Joseph?

      2. If Mary was a descendant of David, where is the Scripture that says so?

      3. How do you account for the apparent contradictions in the genealogy of Christ, as given by Matthew and Luke?

      These questions are asked in good earnest.

"SEEKER."      

      1. There are five senses in Jewish usage in which a man can be called the son of another: first, the son in our sense of the word: second, the grandson, or a descendant of any degree, however remote; third, the levirate son, or one born to a woman whose first husband died childless, and who was taken to wife by his brother. This child was called son of the deceased husband, and was his heir. Fourth, son-in-law. The Hebrews, having no word for son-in-law, called him son. So King Saul constantly addressed David. Fifth, one born in wedlock, [344] but not the son of the husband. In such an instance the laws of our own country hold him to be the son of his mother's husband, and he inherits the husband's estate, unless by legal proceedings against the wife his claim is set aside. In this last sense Jesus was the son of Joseph, and Joseph's heir. As Joseph was in the direct line of the inheritance of David's throne, the inheritance passed to Jesus after Joseph's death. It is this fact that gives value to Matthew's genealogy. It proves that Jesus was of the right genealogy to inherit the throne of David, as he must have been in order to be the promised Messiah. By this line, however, Jesus did not inherit the blood of David, which was also a necessary condition.

      2. That Mary was a descendant of David is proved by the words of the angel Gabriel, who, after telling Mary that she should bear a son without a human father, said of him, "The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David." Now, Mary could understand these words only on the supposition that she was herself a daughter of David, making her son a son of David. Through his mother, then, Jesus inherited the blood of David; but this line of inheritance did not bring him the throne of David; for inheritance under the law of Moses was through the paternal line of descent, and not through the maternal. But through Joseph, his legal but not his real father, though he received not the blood of David, he inherited the throne. The evidence of both lines was necessary to the proof of his Messiahship.

      3. The two lilies given respectively by Matthew and Luke differ as far back as David, because the paternal line descends from Solomon, and the maternal from Solomon's brother, Nathan. The two unite by intermarriage in Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, and then separate again in two sons of Zerubbabel, Abiud and Rhesa. They again [345] unite by marriage when Joseph, the last of the paternal line, is married to Mary, the daughter of Heli, the last of the maternal line. Joseph is here called the son of Heli, because he was his son-in-law.

      If I am asked how I know that Luke's is the maternal line, I answer that only on this supposition has it any value at all. It certainly does trace the blood of David through his son Nathan, down to Heli, and also to Joseph, if Joseph was the natural son of Heli; but as this blood line did not go down to Jesus, it could not prove that Jesus was a descendant of David; and as Nathan was not the heir to David's throne, it could not prove Jesus to be the heir of David. but it is wholly incredible that Luke would take so much space to give a genealogy which could prove nothing for Jesus, and, therefore, we are forced to the conclusion that Luke's is the line, without which the evidence that Jesus is the promised seed of David would be incomplete.

      In my volume on "The Credibility and Inspiration of the New Testament Books," the details of these two lines of genealogy are traced out with great care, and the criticisms of skeptics are refuted. For further information I refer to that volume.

[SEBC 344-346]