Evgeniy Terekhin - Answers for a Jew

Translator Evgeniy Terekhin

Translator Valeriy Sterkh

Compiler Valeriy Sterkh

© Evgeniy Terekhin, translation, 2021

© Valeriy Sterkh, translation, 2021

ISBN 978-5-4490-3638-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Some time ago I watched a Youtube video featuring a debate between Judaism and Christianity. It was a conversation between a local rabbi and a visiting Christian professor from a Bible school in New-York (most likely Protestant) that happened in Bet Gabriel. Last time I checked, this video was at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_ryO65eVQY

You can watch it if you like. Here’s the gist of it. The Rabbi was trying to explain why contemporary Jews reject Jesus Christ, and asked challenging questions about the New Testament and the Christian faith. The Christian opponent tried his best to answer the questions. He succeeded in part. However, some questions were left unanswered or the answers were not specific enough.

The reasons why this happened are not so important. To put it in a nutshell, the Christian may not have been properly prepared. Getting involved in a debate without first acquiring sufficient knowledge of the subject was a brave but reckless thing to do. I do not know whether this discussion was continued or whether the rabbi got his answers, but I decided to answer him.

The questions of Yosef Mizrachi during the debate (I am giving a short version of them with a few slight modifications in wording which do not in the least affect the meaning) as well as my answers are given below.

Question: How can Jesus be a descendant of David if he is not the son of Joseph by birth?

Answer: This question has to do with the prophecy about the Messiah coming from the tribe of Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh [Peacemaker] come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be” (Gen 49:10; compare 1 Kings 2:4; Ps 132:11).

According to the Gospels, Jesus was conceived by Mary through the Holy Spirit, and Joseph (from the tribe of Judah – David’s line) was not his father according to the flesh. Concerning Mary’s genealogy, the Holy Tradition teaches: her parents, Joachim and Anna, were from the tribes of Judah and Levi, respectively. The Gospel of Luke mentions Mary’s relative Elizabeth, who was “from the line of Aaron” (Lk 1:5, 36), that is from the tribe of Levi.

Mary’s relation to the tribe of Judah is further substantiated by the following considerations. When Ceasar Augustus announced a census “all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:) To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child” (Lk 2:3—5).

Mary, as the only daughter, was required by the Law to get married: “And every daughter, that possesseth an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel, shall be wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance of his fathers. Neither shall the inheritance remove from one tribe to another tribe; but every one of the tribes of the children of Israel shall keep himself to his own inheritance” (Num 36:8—9). That is why Mary was engaged to Joseph who was also from the tribe of Judah.

At the time of the census, Mary wasn’t Joseph’s wife; they were “pledged to be married” [ἐμνηστευμένῃ αὐτῷ] (Lk 2:5). That’s why she had to show up for the census as the only heiress to her parents’ property.

So, Jesus, the son of Mary, was “from the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3; see Rev 5:5; 22:16).

Question: If Jesus was not the son of Joseph by birth, why do the Gospels mention his genealogy? And why are Joseph’s genealogies in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke different?

Answer: In his comments on the genealogy according to the Gospel of Matthew, Blessed Theophilact of Bulgaria writes: “Why does it give us the genealogy of Joseph, but not of the Blessed Virgin? What part did Joseph play in the Virgin Birth? Since Joseph was not Jesus’ birth father, we cannot trace the genealogy of Jesus from Joseph. But listen: It is true that Joseph played no part in the birth of Jesus; therefore, it was necessary to give the genealogy of Virgin Mary. However, since the Law did not allow for a person’s lineage to be traced through the mother [Num 36:6], Matthew did not mention the genealogy of the Holy Virgin. But after giving the genealogy of Joseph, he gives Mary’s genealogy also, and for the following reason: the Law forbade taking a wife from a different tribe, clan, or family – only from your own tribe and clan. Since such was the prescription of the Law, in giving the genealogy of Joseph it was fitting to give also the genealogy of the Holy Virgin. For she was from the same tribe and clan as he was. For if it was not so, how could she have been engaged to him? So, the Gospel writer, in recording Mary’s genealogy after Joseph’s, obeyed the Law which forbade tracing one’s lineage through the mother. He referred to him as the husband of Mary according to the common usage, for we have a tradition of calling a man engaged to be married as “husband” even before the actual marriage” (Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Mt 1:16).

Eusebius of Cesarea wrote the following on the differences in the genealogies: “Because of inconsistencies in the genealogies of Jesus found in Matthew and Luke, there are many Christians who erroneously think of them as contradictory. Many are trying to come up with their own explanations without knowing the truth. Here is what we have learned about them from Aristid’s letter in which [Sextus Julius] Africanus, to whom we recently referred, writes about a way to reconcile the Gospel genealogies. Rejecting the opinions of the rest as erroneous and contrived, he tells a story of what he had heard in the following words:

“In Israel, the names of generations were reckoned either according to the flesh or according to the Law – according to the flesh, when there was a succession of lawful sons, and according to the Law, when a brother of a deceased man, who had died with no sons of his own, would give his child the name of his deceased brother [Deut 25:5—10]. There was no clear hope of resurrection at that time, and so the fulfilment of the future promise was connected to “fleshly” resurrection – so the name of the deceased man would never be blotted out from Israel. That is why some of the ancestors listed in the genealogy were lawful or “natural” descendants of their fathers while others were sons according to the Law, that is, they were born by one father but named after another. And it was customary to mention both – the actual fathers and those whose names were thus restored. So, the Gospels make no mistake in recording their names according to the natural birth and according to the Law. Descendants of Solomon and Nathan were thus intertwined due to the age-long process of “bringing from the dead” those who had no sons, remarrying of the mothers and “restoration of the seed”, that one and the same person could be legitimately regarded as a son of his actual father as well as the son of his “sort of” father. Both narratives, therefore, are correct, and they both come to Joseph the right way, though it may seem like a meandering.

To clarify this seeming confusion, I will try to explain what caused it in the first place.