Thursday 8 December 2011

The Consequence of Attributing Lineages to a Man who had No Lineage

Attrributing Lineages

The uniqueness
of Jesus (Peace be upon him) as the Muslims see it is his miraculous
birth, being born of the Virgin Mary. This was a greater miracle
than arising out of Royal descent. But Mathew and Luke for some
reason couldn't just see it that way, they were hell bent on fulfilling
Old Testament prophecies, so what did they do; they manufactured
one for him. The story begins at the annunciation.

Luke 1:34-35

Then said Mary
to the angel,

"How shall
this be, since I don't know any men?"

And the angel
said,

"The Holy
Spirit shall come on you,

and the potency
of the Highest shall cover you..."

Jesus's followers
claimed that he was GOD's illegitimate son, conceived out of wedlock
and without a biological father. But, regardless, they say Jesus's
mother's husband, Joseph, adopted him, so he had a real father after
that.

BLUNDER:
GUESS WHO ENTERS INTO THE DIVINE LINEAGE OF JESUS

The book of
Genesis records in chapter 38 a story in which Judas (the father
of the Jewish race) commits incest. He is tricked into sleeping
with a harlot; who turns out to be his daughter-in-law. And word
went around that she had a child by whoredom. Tamar, the prostitute
was to give birth to twins whom would be named Pharez and Zarah.
This clear act of illegitimacy and incest conception was in blatant
violation of the Law. So when we read at Mathew 1:3

And Judas begat
Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat
Aram;

A prostitute
and the product of incest becomes honoured in the lineage of Jesus.
Despite the many injunctions in Bible ostracising sinners from the
house of God for generations.

A bastard shall
not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation
shall he not enter into the

congregation of the LORD.

Deuteronomy 23:2

ANOTHER BLUNDER,
THE MESSIAH IS GIVEN A CURSED LINEAGE

But, St. Matthew
felt that if the Messiah was to come, he had to be specifically
descended through the bloodlines of kings David, Solomon, and Asa
(see below), just to prove to the Jews that he was the specific
Messiah mentioned in several prophecies. Being so eager to present
Jesus as fulfilling this requirement, St. Matthew presents his readers
with a lineage for Jesus going through his adopted father, Joseph,
and through kings Asa and Solomon, all the way back to king David
(Matt 1:1).

But, this presents
him with a Trilemma, a Trinity of problems:

According to
early Christian-Paulian doctrine regarding his birth to a virgin
mother, Jesus is not really related to Joseph's (and therefore king
David's) lineage, even todays Bible we read in Luke 3:23 "As
was supposed".

The lineage
Matthew presents conflicts flatly with the lineage that St. Luke
came up with decades later (Luke 3:23). Luke's version has many
more generations than Matthew's.

In trying to
adopt Jesus into David's lineage (Matt 1:12), Matthew presents a
family line that goes straight through the Cursed Branch of kings
Jehoiakim and his son, Jeconiah (who is also known as Coniah/Jehoiachin).
Matthew either intentionally or unintentionally omits king Jehoiakim
in the list, which may confuse some Christians. But Jehoiakim (not
Jeconiah) is undeniably the son of Josiah, and Jeconiah is the son
of Jehoiakim.

Jehoiachin/Jeconiah/Coniah
are all names for the same king, son of Jehoiakim, who was carried
away into captivity/exile in Babylon, and succeeded by his uncle,
king Zedekiah (who was the brother of Jehoiakim). See

1st Chronicles 3:15-19,

2nd Kings 24:6-17,

Esther 2:6,

Jer 22:24-30, 24:1, 27:20, 37:1.

Jeconiah is the father of Shealtiel, and the grandfather of Zerubbabel,
etc.

In Jeremiah
22, both kings Jehoiakim and Jeconiah are damned and their descendents
forbidden to succeed on the throne of David. (see also Isaiah 14:18
for references to the Abominable Branch)

Jeremiah 22:24,28-30

"As I live,
saith the LORD, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah
were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence;"

Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein
is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his

seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?

O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.

Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall
not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting
upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.

In modern translations
of the Bible such as the NIV, we read

"Surely as I live," says GOD, "You, Jeconiah, the
son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, even if you were a signet ring
upon my right hand, I would cast you off!"

Is this man
Jeconiah a broken, abominable idol, an object for which no one cares?...

Write this man
off as if childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days, because
no one descended from him shall find success in sitting in the Kingship
of David or ruling any more in Judah.

The Branch of
Jeconiah is damned forever. Jeconiah was carried away into exile
and died there. His grandson, Zerub'babel, returned, but, true to
the curse, never returned to the throne. And, none from their lineage
has ever since.

In a confused
attempt to graft Jesus into a messianic line, the overeager Matthew
ended up grafting Jesus into the cursed lineage branch. Ironically,
for all their discrepancies, this is one of the few points at which
Matthew's version of the genealogy and Luke's actually agree. Both
gospel tales list Jesus's lineage as running through Zerub'babel
and Sheal'tiel, two of the cursed descendents of Jeconiah. Also
see Isaiah 14:18 for more Abominable Branch references.

Suspiciously,
Matthew has omitted the name of King Jehoiakim in his list. He left
Jeconiah in, though.

The Genealogy:
Matthew and Luke Contradict

The fact of
Jeconiah being in Jesus's adopted genealogy has caused an enormous
headache for Christian-Paulian theologians over the past centuries,
and still does till this day. Although the average person never
learns of this because they rarely address this topic. This and
the fact that Luke and Matthew contradict one another in the names
of Joseph's ancestors has caused some frantic apologisers, in desperation,
to claim that Luke's version of the lineage was "really"
Mary's side of the family despite the fact that Luke states flatly
that it is Joseph's, and that there is no evidence to support their
suggestion (Luke 3:23):

And Jesus himself
began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the
son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

There is no support for the notion that it is Mary's line. It is
merely wishful thinking. But, deceptively, some bibles add a bit
of misleading editorial commentary at the top of Luke 3:23 saying
the genealogy is the "line of Mary". That's quite an assertion
to make considering it has no scriptural support. The casual reader
may accept this charade as if it's really part of the Bible, and
moves on without question.

Still, pretending
that the lineage that Luke gives is Mary's makes no difference.
As we have already pointed out, it is part of the Cursed Branch
of Jeconiah (remember, it runs through Jeconiah's son and grandson,
Shealtiel and Zerubbabel), and thus makes Jesus an invalid candidate
for being the messiah.

Others have
tried to explain the contradictions between Luke's version of the
line and Matthew's by speculating that perhaps the two men listed
as Jesus' paternal grandfathers might have been brothers, and that
a levirate marriage (a custom of having engaging in sexual intercourse
with your dead brother's wife when he dies childless; the child
was then considered to be the legal offspring of the dead man) may
have been what gave us Joseph, the supposed father of Jesus. There
is no biblical support for this speculation in this case, and this
combined with the fact that it cuts Jesus off from the lineage from
kings Solomon and Asa, has led most Christian theologians to abandon
it.

But, there are
other problems with the lineage Luke gives Jesus.

The Messiah's
Throne Line: David, Solomon, Asa

Besides contradicting
Matthew's version, and besides running through the Cursed Branch,
the lineage that St. Luke gives for Jesus is problematic because
it does not go through kings Solomon and Asa. The messiah's lineage
must run through these kings too, as we see in GOD's throne promise:

For your servant
David's sake, turn not away the face of your messiah.

The Lord has
sworn in truth to David, and he will not change his mind: "I
will set the offspring of your body upon your throne.

"If your
descendents keep my covenant and my law that I shall teach them,
their descendents shall also sit upon your throne forever".

Psalms 132:10-12

Here, GOD is
granting the same promise he made to David to David's descendents.
The promise states that if David's descendents follow GOD, then
the descendents of their line will have the right to David's throne.
King Asa qualified because he was wholly true to GOD.

King Asa: A
Man after King David's Heart

 

And Asa did
that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as did David
his father...

Although the
high places were not removed, Asa's heart was perfect with the LORD
all his days.

1st Kings 15:11-14

King Solomon
wasn't as good, but for the sake of the promise GOD had made to
David, his descendents were assured too:

And when your
days are done, and you lie with your fathers, I will set up your
offspring after you, who shall come directly from your own body,
and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build
a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of HIS kingdom
FOREVER.

I will be his
father, and he shall be my son. WHEN HE SINS, I will spank him with
the whips of men, and with the wounds of the children of men.

But I shall
not withdraw my favour from him, in the way I took it from Saul,
whom I cut off from you.

Therefore your
house and your kingdom shall be established forever your throne
shall be established forever.

2nd Samuel 7:12-16

Here, "offspring"
is the Hebrew word, ZERA', which is always used in a physical sense,
and often has a collective sense. However, the appended qualifier,
"zaraka ... aser yese mimiika", or "who shall come
directly from your own body", specifies that the offspring
is one of the immediate sons of David (this is the same use of the
word as in Genesis 15:4, and 2nd Samuel 16:11). And we see confirmation
of this in 1 Chron 22:9-10. And, as it turns out, this son whose
kingdom shall be eternal is Solomon:

Solomon Builds
the House of GOD

Who is this
house-building son, this immediate son of David? See 1st Chronicles
17:11 and 22:9-10, which both say this son will be David's own son,
Solomon:

Behold, a son
shall be born to you,

who shall be
a man of peace,

for I will give
him peace from all his enemies,

for his name
shall be Solomon...

He shall build
the HOUSE for my name,

and he shall
be my son, and I will be his father,

and I WILL establish
the throne of

HIS kingdom
over Israel FOREVER.

1 Chron 22:9-10

In this instance,
GOD unconditionally declares that Solomon's throne will be established
forever. It is a statement of fact. Later, he also makes similar
promises as a reward for Solomon's good behaviour. However, he has
already promised David that when Solomon (his house-building, directly-from-your-body
son) sins, GOD will punish him but not revoke his right to the Throne
line (2nd Sam 7:12, above), and Solomon's Throne will indeed be
established forever.

Whatever may
be said of Solomon (he did not live up to the role model of his
father, David), king Asa's throne lineage is undeniably eternal
too, just as David's is. So, simply said, the lineage of the messiah
must go through kings David, Solomon, and Asa, undeniably. The genealogy
that Luke gives in his tale does not. And, both his version and
Matthew's list Jesus as being part of the Cursed Branch of Jeconiah.
All of this presents serious problems for those wishing to attach
Jesus to the royal Davidic Throne. It would have been better for
them to have left the lineages out of the Gospels. Not because it
would hide the discrepancies and confusion. But because the lineage
is irrelevant to Jesus; as he was born miraculously. And attempting
to foster a lineage upon him has only created more problems that
it solved.

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