However, there are some complications with this passage. There are 42 generations listed (including Tamar, verse 3 and Genesis 38:6-30) but only 41 men's names listed, whereas one would expect 14 x 3 or 42. This certainly appears to leave one of the divisions a member short.
Abraham to David •
Abraham •
Isaac •
Jacob •
Judah •
Perez •
Hezron •
Aram •
Amminadab •
Nahshon •
Salmon •
Boaz •
Obed •
Jesse •
David David to Babylonian Exile •
David •
Solomon •
Rehoboam •
Abijam •
Asa •
Jehoshaphat •
Joram •
Uzziah •
Jotham •
Ahaz •
Hezekiah •
Manasseh •
Amon •
Josiah, birth of his son Jeconiah at the time of the Babylonian exile
Babylonian Exile to Jesus •
Jeconiah, died in Babylon •
Shealtiel •
Zerubbabel • Abiud • Eliakim • Azor • Zadok • Achim • Eliud • Eleazar • Matthan • Jacob •
Joseph •
Jesus A number of explanations have been advanced to explain this. Other than the straightforward reason of simple miscounting, the significant view, first advocated by
Krister Stendahl, which would preserve the
inerrancy of the Bible, is that David's name should appear twice just as it is mentioned twice in the verse. By this count he is both one of the fourteen from "Abraham to David" and also one of the fourteen from "David to the exile to Babylon." The main problem with this is that it would also suggest that since the exile to Babylon is mentioned twice the man at this time, Jeconiah, should also appear twice. Other theories that have been advanced include that
Mary counts as one of the 14 or that
Jeconiah legally counts as two separate people, one as king the other as dethroned civilian. An explanation that scholars today find more probable is that the problem lies in
Matthew 1:11. Almost all other sources report that a king named
Jehoiakim was between
Josiah and
Jeconiah. A biblical reference for this may be seen in I Chronicles 3:15-16. Many scholars feel it is likely that Jeconiah, whose name can be spelt Jehoiachin, was confused with his father and they were merged into one person. Thus the error was one by a later transcriber. However there are several other people who were left out of the genealogy.
Matthew 1:8 skips over
Ahaziah,
Athaliah,
Jehoash, and
Amaziah, two of whom were kings of Judah and all are well documented by other sources.
Begat can also mean
grandfather of and skipping unimportant generations is not uncommon in ancient genealogies. See
Matthew 1:8 for a full discussion on why these four may have been left out. It may appear duplicitous to claim that there were fourteen generations, when in fact there were eighteen. Fowler argues that this verse is not in error, as it is not a description of the actual genealogy, but simply of the list that was presented in the Gospel. Fowler believes that the author of Matthew had good reason to drop the names he did and to skip unnecessary ancestors. Fowler sees instructions in this verse are to aid in the memorization of Matthew's version of the genealogy, not the historical list of descendants. By tradition the first period from Abraham to David always had fourteen names, so the author of Matthew simply cut unneeded names from the other two sections to create an easily memorized triple structure. A transcriber skipping similar names in a list is a common error known as
homoioteleuton. One theory is that the original author of Matthew probably had the list correct, and that a later scribe erased the four. This implies that this verse must be a later addition to text, as the 14/14/14 structure only came into being after that error was made. An added problem is that, even with several extra names added, there are far too few names for the many centuries this genealogy is meant to cover, as Matthew focuses mainly on Jesus's royalty lineage, not the biological line (which is possibly used in
Luke 3) which he did not have access to. ==References==