In Mathew 1:16 Mathew records Jacob as Joseph’s father, but opponents of the New Testament often point out that in Luke 3:23 Luke gives Joseph’s father as Heli(Eli in English). So is this a contradiction? Well, lets look at something called culture. Mind you the gospels are written to specific people, different audiences, focusing on this quote on quote “contradiction” specifically, Mathew was written to a Jewish audience while Luke was written for a general gentile audience. Now Jacob is Joseph’s father, but why does Luke say Heli is his father? It’s simple, first and foremost for Jesus to be eligible to be the Messiah Jesus has to come from the line of David Jeremiah 23:5–6 and 2 Samuel 7:12–16 Mathew and Luke both provide the genealogy back to David but, they were written to different audiences, Luke traces Jesus’ lineage back to David through Mary’s genealogy tree, while Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage back to David through Joseph’s genealogy tree, why? Luke – who is speaking to the gentile (which are peoples by which many of them don’t know Jewish people)– traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary (the woman who had the virgin birth by thus everyone knows her) back to David so that the Gentile audience clearly understands that Jesus is a descendant of David. While Mathew who is writing to a Jewish audience goes through Joseph- a fellow Jew by which virtually all the Jews know him- so that the Jewish audience clearly understands that Jesus is a descendant of David. Presuppose Luke went through Joseph’s bloodline instead of Mary’s, then the gentile audience wouldn’t have understood because they don’t know Joseph, and even if some of them did the overwhelming majority didn’t, just like if someone claimed to be your second cousin but your mother nor any of your aunts or uncles ever confirmed that they were, you wouldn’t believe them, in the same respect Luke speaking to the gentiles is claiming that Jesus is from David but if he goes through someone the gentiles don’t know, they aren’t going to believe him. Stark contrast to Mary which they know vividly because of the virgin birth, the gentile audience is going to understand. Regardless, tracing Jesus’ lineage back through Joseph or Mary gets you to David, and God fulfills His Promise and Prophecy. Also something to mention, the Jewish were extremely meticulous record/genealogy keepers, this is studiable throughout all Jewish history, not just the early Church (for a database click here!)
Finally, skeptics like to say that Luke didn’t mean Mary’s bloodline because he says Joseph the son of Heli Luke 3:23, so are we in the wrong here is there a contradiction in the Bible? No, this is a case of not understanding Jewish Law and Greek. First and foremost, Heli, is Marry’s father, Jesus’ Grandfather, and for Heli, Joseph is his son in law, but there is no Greek word for ‘son in law’ Which is why Joseph is called “Joseph the son of Heli” by marriage to Marry. Luke doesn’t just say ‘Joseph’ and start going back, no, he says Joseph the son of Heli as in once you get married you have two sets of parents and Luke was referencing Joseph’s second parents. For an atheist who claims to be a “historical scholar” this is basic stuff, or to put it in my generations lingo, “my guy it’s not that hard”. Second of all, genealogies in the east always go through the male, that law was set because if some people go through the woman and some go through the man and some go through both it causes extreme confusion so whenever referencing genealogies you’d have to go through the man to avoid confusion, that’s why Luke said Joseph the son of Heli, Heli, Mary’s father, again for an atheist or muslim or whomever that claims to be a historical scholar this is basic stuff.
So all in all, Luke is tracing Jesus back to David through Mary’s bloodline while Matthew is tracing Jesus back to David through Joseph’s bloodline and Heli is Mary’s father. And to you skeptics, this is not a “contradiction” this is a you don’t understand history or The Greek language, and I would like to leave you with this, don’t speak about the Bible if you don’t know what your talking about, thanks.
All media is written by Kevin Duku. August 2020
Recommended article: How do we know the Bible is and what it says is True?
Bible Answers by Bra Kwabena 