There are still many
people today who make the claim that Jesus
never existed, that He was only a mythical
character.
Bertrand Russell puts it
this way, "I may say that one is not
concerned with the historical question.
Historically, it is quite doubtful whether
Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we
do not know anything about Him, so I am not
concerned with the historical question,
which is a very difficult one. I am
concerned with Christ as He appears in the
Gospels" (Why I Am Not a Christian,
p. 11, note 8).
However, those who make such
an accusation are certainly not historians,
but are surprisingly ignorant of the facts.
The New Testament contains
twenty-seven separate documents which were
written in the first century a.d. These
writings contain the story of the life of
Jesus and the beginnings of the Christian
church from about 4 b.c. until the decade of
the a.d. nineties.
The facts were recorded by
eyewitnesses, who gave firsthand testimony
to what they had seen and heard. "What
was from the beginning, what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes, what we
beheld and our hands handled, concerning the
Word of Life" (I John 1:1, NASB).
Moreover, the existence of
Jesus is recorded by the Jewish historian,
Flavius Josephus, who was born in a.d. 37,
"Now there was about this time, Jesus,
a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a
man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a
teacher of such men as receive the truth
with pleasure. He drew over to him both many
of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.
"He was (the) Christ;
and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the
principal men amongst us, had condemned him
to the cross, those who loved him at the
firs did not forsake him, for he appeared to
them alive again the third day, as the
divine prophets had foretold these and ten
thousand other wonderful things concerning
him; and the tribe of Christians, so named
from him, are not extinct at this day"
(Antiquities, XVIII, III).
Although this passage has
been contested because of the reference to
Jesus being the Christ and rising from the
dead, the fact of His existence is not in
question.
Cornelius Tacitus (a.d.
112), a Roman historian, writing about the
reign of Nero, refers to Jesus Christ and
the existence of Christians in Rome (Annals,
XV, 44). Tacitus, elsewhere in his Histories,
refers to Christianity when alluding to the
burning of the temple of Jerusalem in a.d.
70. This has been preserved by Sulpicius
Severus (Chronicles 30:6).
There are other references
to Jesus or His followers, such as the Roman
historian, Seutonius (a.d. 120) in Life
of Claudius, 25.4, and Lives of the
Caesars, 26.2, and Pliny the younger (a.d.
112) in his Epistles, X. 96.
This testimony, both
Christian and non-Christian, is more than
sufficient to lay to rest any idea that
Jesus, in fact, never existed. In light of
the evidence, it is absurd to hold such a
view. We know more about the life of Jesus
than just about any other figure in the
ancient world. His birth, life, and death
are revealed in much more detail than most
ancient figures whose existence is taken for
granted by historians.
After examining the evidence
about the life of Christ from contemporary
sources apart from the New Testament,
Roderic Dunkerley concluded, "In none
of these various testimonies to the fact of
Christ is there any slightest hint or idea
that he was not a real historical person.
"Indeed it has been
argued—and I think very rightly—that
myth theories of the beginnings of
Christianity are modern speculative
hypotheses motivated by unreasoning
prejudice and dislike. ‘It would never
enter anyone’s head,’ says Merezhovsky,
‘to ask whether Jesus had lived, unless
before asking the question the mind had been
darkened by the wish that he had not lived’"
(Roderic Dunkerley, Beyond
the Gospels, pp. 29, 30).
One of the so-called
contradictions that we hear brought up
concerns the disagreement between the Gospel
of Mark and the Gospel of John as to the
time of the crucifixion of Jesus.
Mark 15:25 (KJV) states,
"and it was the third hour, and they
crucified him," while in John 19:14 (KJV)
we read, "And it was the preparation of
the passover, and about the sixth hour: and
he saith unto the Jews, Behold your
King!"
This does indeed present a
difficulty, since Mark has Jesus being
crucified at the third hour, or nine o’clock
in the morning, according to Jewish
reckoning, while John places Jesus before
Pontius Pilate at about the sixth hour, or
noon.
Many say this discrepancy is
impossible to reconcile, while others say
the difference between the two is a result
of a mistake early in the copying process.
Neither of these two views is plausible or
acceptable.
There are two possible
solutions which carry reasonable weight. One
solution centers on the word
"about" in John’s statement of
the time. He reveals that it was not exactly
the sixth hour, but only about this
time.
Also, Mark’s account does
not force us to believe that it was at
exactly 9 a.m. when Jesus was put on the
cross. This can be observed by understanding
the way the New Testament calculates time.
The night was divided into
four watches, each consisting of three hours
(see Mark 13:35), and the day was to some
extent likewise divided into periods. In
light of this, we can imagine that Mark’s
statement about the "third hour"
simply meant that Jesus was crucified
sometime during the third hour (between nine
o’clock and noon), while John’s
statement that the trial ended about
noon can mean before noon.
Thus, if the crucifixion
took place between nine o’clock and noon,
Mark could have placed it at the earlier
period (nine o’clock) and John at the
later period (noon) without there being any
discrepancy.
"If the crucifixion
took place midway between nine and twelve o’clock,
it was quite natural that one observer
should refer it to the former, while another
referred it to the latter hour.
"The height of the sun
in the sky was the index of the time of the
day; while it was easy to know whether it
was before or after midday, or whether the
sun was more or less than halfway between
the zenith and the horizon, finer
distinctions of time were not recognized
without consulting the sun dials, which were
not everywhere at hand" (The
Expositor’s Greek New Testament,
commenting on John 19:14).
Another possibility is that
John is using a different method of
reckoning time than Mark. We know for a
fact, from Plutarch, Pliny, Aulus Gellius,
and Macrobius, that the Romans calculated
the civil day from midnight to midnight,
just as we do today.
Thus John’s "sixth
hour" would be six o’clock in the
morning. This would make 6 a.m. the time of
the last of the trials of Jesus, and of His
sentencing, giving adequate time for the
events leading up to the crucifixion which,
in Mark, was at 9 a.m. or afterward.
There is good evidence that
John used this method of computing time.
This is not unusual in Scripture to have
different authors use different methods of
measuring time and determining dates.
In the Old Testament, the
writers often would state their important
dates by the calendar system of the country
they were serving under at that time. For
instance, in Jeremiah 25:1 and 46:2, the
time was by Palestinian reckoning, and
Daniel 1:1 was Babylonian reckoning, the
same year.
A New Testament example is
John 20:19. The evening of the day Jesus
rose from the dead is considered part of
that same day. Apparently John is not
reckoning by Jewish time. According to the
Jewish system of reckoning time, the evening
in question would be part of Monday, the
first day of the week, since the Jewish day
began at sunset.
This possible factor, along
with the one previously mentioned, shows
that the difficulty in these two passages is
not at all impossible to solve, nor does it
pose any difficulty that is without a
reasonable explanation.
Did Jesus actually
rise from the dead? Does it really matter
whether He did or didn’t?
Ronald Gregor Smith gives a
typical reply, "So far as historicity
is concerned… it is necessary to explain:
We may freely say that the bones of Jesus
lie somewhere in Palestine. Christian faith
is not destroyed by this admission.
"On the contrary, only
now, when this has been said, are we in a
position to ask about the meaning of the
resurrection as an integral part of the
message concerning Jesus" (Secular
Christianity, London, Collins, 1966, p.
103).
Contrary to this point of
view, it does matter to Christianity whether
or not it is true that Christ came back from
the dead, because Christianity stands or
falls on the resurrection of Jesus Christ (I
Corinthians 15:12–19). If Jesus did not
come back from the dead, then the Christian
faith crumbles.
Fortunately, one of the most
well-attested events in the ancient world is
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead. When confronted by the religious
leaders of His day, Jesus was asked for a
sign to demonstrate that He was the promised
Messiah.
He answered, "An evil
and adulterous generation craves for a sign;
and yet no sign shall be given to it but the
sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah
was three days and three nights in the belly
of the sea monster, so shall the Son of Man
be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth" (Matthew 12:39, 40, NASB).
The sign of the resurrection
was meant to set Jesus apart from anyone
else who ever lived, and it would designate
Him the Son of God (Romans 1:4).
The accounts of His
appearances are recorded for us by
eyewitnesses to whom Jesus appeared alive
over a forty-day period after His public
crucifixion. As the scriptural account sets
forth, to these "he shewed himself
alive after his passion by many infallible
proofs, being seen of them forty days, and
speaking of the things pertaining to the
kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3, KJV).
Writing about a.d. 56, the
apostle Paul mentions the fact that more
than 500 people had witnessed the
resurrected Christ at one time and most of
them were still living when he wrote (I
Corinthians 15:6). This statement is
somewhat of a challenge to those who might
not have believed, since Paul is saying that
there are many people yet living who could
be interviewed to find out if Christ had
indeed risen.
The historical evidence is
more than sufficient to satisfy the
curiosity of the honest inquirer. This can
be seen not only by the positive defense
that can be made for the case for the
resurrection, but also by the lack of any
evidence for an alternative explanation. The
theories attempting to give an alternative
explanation to the resurrection take more
faith to believe than the resurrection
itself.
Frank Morrison, who was an
agnostic journalist, attempted to write a
book refuting the resurrection of Christ.
After much investigation, his opinion
changed and he became a believer in Jesus
Christ. This is how Morrison described what
happened to him:
"This study is in some
ways so unusual and provocative that the
writer thinks it desirable to state here
very briefly how the book came to take its
present form. In one sense it could have
taken no other, for it is essentially a
confession, the inner story of a man who
originally set out to write one kind of book
and found himself compelled by the sheer
force of circumstances to write another.
"It is not that the
facts altered, for they are recorded
imperishably in the monuments and in the
pages of human history. But the
interpretation to be put on the facts
underwent a change" (Who Moved the
Stone? Preface, Zondervan, 1971).
Morrison discovered that
Christ was publicly put in the tomb on
Friday, but on Sunday morning the body was
missing. If He did not rise from the dead,
then someone took the body. There are three
interest groups that could possibly have
taken the body: the Romans, the Jews, or the
disciples.
The Romans would have had no
reason to steal the body, since they wanted
to keep the peace in Palestine. The idea was
to keep the provinces as quiet as possible,
and stealing the body of Christ would not
accomplish this objective.
The Jews would not have
taken the body, because the last thing they
wanted was a proclamation of the
resurrection. They are the ones who asked
for the guard, according to Matthew 27.
The disciples of Jesus had
no reason to steal the body, and if they
did, they later died for something they knew
to be untrue. Moreover, the religion which
they proclaimed emphasized telling the truth
and not lying. Their actions would have been
inconsistent with that which they knew to be
true and commanded others to follow.
The other reasonable
explanation is that Christ has risen, and
the eyewitnesses make it plain this is the
case. The disciples of Jesus may not have
been as sophisticated as twentieth century
man in the realm of scientific knowledge,
but they surely knew the difference between
someone who was dead and someone who wasn’t.
As Simon Peter said,
"For we did not follow cleverly devised
tales when we made known to you the power
and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we
were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (II
Peter 1:16, NASB).
Jesus prophesied in
Matthew 12:40 (NASB) that "just as
Jonah was three days and three nights in the
belly of the sea monster, so shall the Son
of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth."
The accounts of His death
and resurrection as given in the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John indicate that
Jesus was crucified and buried on Friday,
before sundown, which is the beginning of
the next day for the Jews, and resurrected
on the first day of the week, which is our
Sunday, before sunrise.
This puts Jesus in the grave
for part of Friday, the entire Sabbath, and
part of Sunday. In other words, two full
nights, one full day and part of two days,
He was in the tomb. Since this is clearly
not three full, twenty-four-hour days, do we
have a problem of conflict with the prophecy
of Jesus in Matthew 12:40?
In Mark 8:31 and Matthew
16:21, Jesus is recorded as saying,
"The Son of man will rise again after
three days," and "He will be
raised again on the third day"—expressions
that are used interchangeably. This can be
seen from the fact that the most references
to the resurrection state that it occurred on
the third day.
Also, Jesus, in addition to
the Matthew 12:40 passage, spoke of His
resurrection in John 2:19–22, stating that
He would be raised up in three days
(not the fourth day).
Matthew 27:63 (KJV) gives
weight to this idiomatic usage. After the
Pharisees tell Pilate of the prediction of
Jesus, "After three days I will rise
again," they ask for a guard to secure
the tomb until the third day.
If the phrase, "after
three days," was not interchangeable
with the "third day," the
Pharisees would have asked for a guard for
the fourth day.
That the expression
"one day and one night" was an
idiom employed by the Jews for indicating a
day, even when only a part of a day was
indicated, can be seen also in the Old
Testament.
For example, I Samuel 30:12,
13 (KJV), "For he had not eaten bread
or drunk water for three days and three
nights," and in the next verse,
"My master left me behind… three days
ago."
Just as clearly, Genesis
42:17 shows this idiomatic usage. Joseph
imprisoned his brothers for three days; in
verse 18, he speaks to them and releases
them, all on the third day.
The phrases, "after
three days" and "on the third
day," are not contradictory, either to
each other or with Matthew 12:40, but simply
idiomatic, interchangeable terms, clearly a
common mode of Jewish expression.
The New Testament
makes the assertion that the truth of
Christianity stands or falls on the
resurrection of Jesus.
The apostle Paul stated,
"If Christ be not risen, then is our
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
Yea, and we are found false witnesses of
God; because we have testified of God that
he raised up Christ.… And if Christ be not
raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in
your sins… . If in this life only we have
hope in Christ, we are of all men most
miserable" (I Corinthians 15:14, 15,
17, 19, KJV).
A common objection to the
fact of the resurrection is that the four
Gospel narratives contain hopeless
contradictions. If the four accounts were
placed in parallel columns, a number of
apparent differences would be highlighted.
However, these apparent differences
ultimately confirm the truthfulness of these
accounts, rather than refute them.
If all four Gospels gave
exactly the same story, in exactly the same
order, with exactly the same details, we
would immediately become suspicious. We
could also wonder why all four writers did
not simply attach their names as co-authors
of one account. Obviously, this is
not the case. None of the four Gospels gives
all the details of what transpired.
Matthew is the only writer
who records the first appearance to the
women, while only in Luke do we find the
account of the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus. The appearance of Mary Magdalene is
omitted by both Matthew and Luke. Only John
records the appearance of our Lord in the
upper room, when Thomas was absent and the
appearance on the sea of Galilee.
It is quite clear that all
of the Gospels relate their portraits of
Jesus differently. This is what we should
expect. No four witnesses (or news
reporters), all of whom witness a series of
events, will write them up in exactly the
same way, detail for detail. If they did,
there would be obvious collusion.
If the differences concerned
the main points of the story, then there
would be justification for doubt, but when
the salient points are agreed upon by every
witness, insignificant differences add to,
rather than subtract from, the validity.
It should be noted, too,
that none of the details necessarily flatly
contradicts any others, but in some
plausible way they correlate together to
supply the larger picture. The variations in
detail the different writers chose to
include in the resurrection narratives
consist of incidental things which in no way
jeopardize the main plot of the story.
One of the seeming
contradictions that bothers people concerns
the time the women came to the tomb, related
differently by John and Mark. Mark’s
account has the women coming to the tomb at
the rising of the sun, while John states
that Mary Magdalene came to the tomb when it
was dark.
This difficulty is solved
when it is realized that the women had to
walk quite some distance to reach the grave,
since they stayed in Jerusalem or Bethany.
It was dark when they left the place in
which they were staying, but when they
arrived at the tomb the sun was beginning to
shine. Therefore, Mark is speaking of their
arrival, while John refers to their
departure.
The area which has generated
the most discussion concerns the angels who
were at the tomb of Jesus. Matthew and Mark
relate that one angel addressed the women,
while Luke and John say that two angels were
at the tomb.
This seems to be a
discrepancy, with Matthew and Mark knowing
of only one angel while Luke and John speak
of two. However, Matthew and Mark do not say
that there was only one angel at the
tomb, but that one angel spoke to the women.
This does not contradict
Luke and John, for Matthew and Mark specify
that one angel spoke, but they do not say
there was only one angel present or only one
angel spoke. Quite possibly one of the
angels served as the spokesman for the two,
thus he was emphasized. There is no need to
assume a discrepancy.
Though they report some of
the details differently, the Gospels agree
in all important points. The accounts are in
harmony on the fact that Jesus was dead and
buried; that the disciples were not prepared
for His death, but were totally confused;
that the tomb was empty on Easter morning;
that the empty tomb did not convince them
that Jesus had risen; that Mary thought the
body had been stolen.
The Gospel writers also
concur that the disciples had certain
experiences which they believed to be
appearances of the resurrected Christ. That
normative first century Judaism had no
concept of a dying and rising Messiah is a
historical fact.
The disciples proclaimed the
resurrection story in Jerusalem, in the
place where Jesus had been killed and
buried. All these facts considered together
constitute a powerful argument for the
validity of the resurrection story.
The venerable scholar,
Wilbur Smith, had this to say about the
differences in the resurrection accounts and
the areas in which the Gospels agree:
"In these fundamental
truths, there are absolutely no
contradictions. The so-called variations in
the narratives are only the details which
were mostly vividly impressed on one mind or
another of the witnesses of our Lord’s
resurrection, or on the mind of the writers
of these four respective Gospels.
"The closest, most
critical, examination of these narratives
throughout the ages never has destroyed and
can never destroy their powerful testimony
to the truth that Christ did rise from the
dead on the third day, and was seen of
many" (The Supernaturalness of
Christ, W.A. Wilde Company, 1954, p.
205).
The miracle of the
virgin birth of Jesus Christ has perplexed
many people and has actually kept them from
accepting the truth of Christianity.
However, the Bible declares that God decided
that His Son would have a miraculous
entrance into humanity.
Seven hundred years before
the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah
said, "Therefore the Lord Himself will
give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be
with child and bear a son, and she will call
His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14, NASB).
The New Testament records
the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy:
"Now in the sixth month the angel
Gabriel was sent from God to a city of
Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin
engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of
the descendants of David; and the virgin’s
name was Mary.… And the angel said to her,
‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have
found favor with God.
"And behold, you will
conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and
you shall name Him Jesus.… ’ And Mary
said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since
I am a virgin?’
"And the angel answered
and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit, will
come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you; and for that
reason the holy offspring shall be called
the Son of God.… For nothing will be
impossible with God’" (Luke 1:27, 30,
31, 34, 35, 37, NASB).
The virgin birth is set down
in the Bible as a historical fact. The
writers who recorded the story were Matthew—an
eyewitness to the events in the life of
Jesus—and Luke, the doctor, who presents
many things in the life of Christ from the
viewpoint of His mother, Mary.
The passages in both Matthew
and Luke are authentic, with no evidence at
all that they were later additions to the
text. The doctrine of the virgin birth has
been believed by the church from its
beginning.
Ignatius, who lived at the
beginning of the second century, wrote to
the Ephesians and said, "For our God,
Jesus the Christ, was conceived in the womb
by Mary, according to a dispensation, of the
seed of David but also of the Holy
Ghost."
There are several reasons
why the virgin birth was a necessity. The
Bible teaches that the Word who became flesh
was with God from the very beginning (John
1:1). The fact of the pre-existence of
Christ is testified many times in the New
Testament (John 8:58; Philippians 2:5–11;
Colossians 1:15, 16).
When Jesus came into the
world, He was not a newly created individual
such as we are, but was rather the eternal
Son of God. To be born into this world of
the virgin Mary required divine
intervention, and this is exactly what the
Gospels record.
Another reason why Jesus
needed to be virgin-born was because of His
sinless nature. A basic New Testament
teaching is that from the day He was born
until the day He died, Jesus was without
sin. To be a perfect sacrifice, He must
Himself be perfect—without sin. Since our
race is contaminated with sin, a miraculous
entrance into the world would be required,
hence the virgin birth.
Moreover, if Jesus had been
sired by Joseph, He would not have been able
to assume the throne of David. According to
the prophecy of Jeremiah 22:28–30, there
could be no king in Israel who was a
descendant of King Jeconiah, and Matthew
1:12 relates that Joseph was from the line
of Jeconiah. If Jesus had been fathered by
Joseph, He could not rightly inherit the
throne of David, since he was a relative of
the cursed line.
The virgin birth of Christ is not only a
historical fact, but it was also a necessary
historical fact when one considers all the
data.
There are possibly
other ways which God could have chosen to
send His Son into the world, but the fact is
the way He chose to do it was through the
virgin birth.
The Gospels record that Mary
and Joseph did not have sexual relations
until after Christ was born, and he
"kept her a virgin until she gave birth
to a Son; and he called His name Jesus"
(Matthew 1:25, NASB).
The New Testament also
relates that Joseph was known not to have
fathered Jesus and that most people had
assumed Mary had an illicit relationship
with someone.
Even though the virgin birth
is given as a historical fact and certain
things made the virgin birth essential, many
still voice loud objections to its
occurrence.
The main problem that people
have with the virgin birth is that it is a
miracle. Scripture does not treat this event
as an ordinary occurrence but rather as a
supernatural act of God. The miracle of the
virgin birth should not pose any special
problem if one grants the possibility of
miracles.
Why, we may ask, is the
virgin birth any greater miracle than say
the feeding of the 5,000 or Jesus walking on
water? If an all-powerful God does exist,
who spoke all creation into existence, a
virgin birth would not be beyond His
capability.
A common objection to the
virgin birth is that it is a biological
impossibility, which was accepted by people
ignorant of these things. C. S. Lewis made
some pertinent observations in this view:
"Thus you will hear
people say, ‘The early Christians believed
that Christ was the son of a virgin, but we
know that this is a scientific
impossibility.’ Such people seem to have
an idea that belief in miracles arose at a
period when men were so ignorant of the
course of nature that they did not perceive
a miracle to be contrary to it.
"A moment’s thought
shows this to be foolish, with the story of
the virgin birth as a particularly striking
example. When Joseph discovered that his
fiancée was going to have a baby, he not
unnaturally decided to repudiate her. Why?
Because he knew just as well as any modern
gynecologist that in the ordinary course of
nature women do not have babies unless they
have lain with men.
"No doubt the modern
gynecologist knows several things about
birth and begetting which Joseph did not
know. But those things do not concern the
main point—that a virgin birth is contrary
to the course of nature. And Joseph
obviously knew that" (Miracles,
New York, Macmillan Pub. Co. Inc., p. 48).
Some have attempted to
account for the virgin birth by tracing it
to Greek or Babylonian mythology. They argue
that the Gospel writers borrowed this story
from the mythology of their day. This view
does not fit the facts, for there is not any
hero in pagan mythology for which a virgin
birth is claimed, and moreover it would be
unthinkable to the Jewish mind to construct
such a story from mythology.
Many deities among the
Greeks, Babylonians, and Egyptians were
reported born in an unusual manner, but for
the most part these beings never actually
existed. The accounts are filled with
obvious mythological elements which are
totally absent from the Gospel narratives.
They are reports of a god or goddess being
born into the world by sexual relations
between some heavenly being and an earthly
woman, or by some adulterous affair among
the gods and goddesses.
Dr. Thomas Thorburn comments
appropriately, "All these various
stories of supernatural conceptions and
births, which we meet with in folklore and
the history of mythology, have this one
point in common—they serve to point not so
much to the similarity as to the complete
contrast and dissimilarity which exists
between the Christian birth-story and the
tales which are current in various pagan
circles" (Thomas James Thorburn, A
Critical Examination of the Evidences for
the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth,
London, 1908, p. 158).
Thus when we closely
consider the objections to the virgin birth,
we become more convinced that it did indeed
occur just as the historical record in the
Gospel states.
A question that has
longed perplexed the readers of the New
Testament concerns the differing genealogies
of Jesus Christ recorded in Matthew 1 and
Luke 3.
At first glance, the
impression is created that both accounts are
tracing the family line of Jesus through His
earthly father Joseph in which case we would
be faced with an obvious contradiction,
because Matthew 1:16 indicates Jacob is
Joseph’s father, while Luke 3:23 tells us
that Heli is the father of Joseph.
A plausible solution to this
difficulty is to understand that Matthew is
indeed giving us Joseph’s family line, but
Luke is tracing the genealogy of Mary. The
reason that Mary is not mentioned in Luke 3
is because she has already been designated
the mother of Jesus in several instances.
The usual practice of a
Jewish genealogy is to give the name of the
father, grandfather, etc., of the person in
view. Luke follows this pattern, and does
not mention the name of Mary, but the name
of the legal father. However, Luke is quick
to add that Joseph is not, in reality, the
father of Jesus, since Jesus had been virgin
born (Luke 1:34, 35).
A literal translation of
Luke 3:23 would be, "Jesus, when He
began, was about thirty years old, being the
son of Joseph, as it was thought, of Heli.…
" This does not at all mean that Jesus
was the son of Heli, but that Jesus was a
descendant, on His mother’s side, of Heli.
The word "son" has this wider
meaning.
Thus Luke is tracing the
roots of Jesus through His mother, Mary, who
was a descendant of Heli, etc. Joseph’s
name is mentioned, according to the common
practice, but he is clearly portrayed as the
supposed father of Jesus, and God as
the actual father.
The purpose of the two
genealogies is to demonstrate that Jesus was
in the complete sense a descendant of David.
Through His foster father, Joseph, He
inherited—by law—the royal line, albeit
a deposed line according to Jeremiah 22:28–30.
More importantly through His mother He was a
flesh and blood descendant of King David
through David’s son Nathan. Thus, Jesus
had the proper credentials for the throne of
David.
