THE

BRITISH MAGAZINE.

JULY 1, 1834.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

THE GENEALOGIES IN ST. MATTHEW AND ST. LUKE.

IN the year 1833, the writer, being in Paris, purchased a small volume, entitled Analyse de Dissertations sur Differens Sujets (12mo. Bruxelles, 1759). The principal dissertation, relating to the genealogy of our Saviour, attracted his attention, and he read it with interest and satisfaction. The view taken by the author appears to be quite unknown in this country; and the little work itself seems to have been hastily condemned, if not suppressed, by the author's ecclesiastical superior. The admission of its hypothesis would, indeed, have invalidated the claim of the Romish church to be the keeper of true tradition. It is proper to state that only the leading ideas of the work mentioned have been used, and that they appear here in a different and very abridged form, with some new and important suggestions.*

THE genealogies in St. Matthew's and St. Luke's Gospels have been a difficulty in the church for above sixteen hundred years. Julius Africanus, A.D. 230, wrote a letter to explain and reconcile the two accounts. His solution has long since given place to others more recent, and proceeding on different conjectures, adopted to meet the several difficulties of the two accounts. Yet these latter appear to many persons far from satisfactory. A new conjecture does not, at all events, disturb a settled and generally satisfactory opinion.

It seems to be generally agreed by critics, that several generations are left out of the table in St. Matthew. (See Elsley.) What, then, did that evangelist intend in his 17th verse? Doubtless, a bare summary of the descents enumerated. From

The Editor is happy to lay this paper before his readers, without giving any opinion of his own on the merit of the hypothesis which it contains.

VOL. VI.-July, 1834.

B

Abraham to David, fourteen generations; from David to the carrying away to Babylon, fourteen generations; from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ, fourteen generations.

But on setting out the descents in St. Matthew, we find them not three series of fourteen each, but two series of fourteen, and a third series containing only thirteen descents.

It is in vain to endeavour to remove the difficulty by alleging the fuct, that there were, in truth, more generations than appear in the table; for we have already seen reason to conclude that Matthew, in making three series of fourteen each, intended no more than the summing up of the descents he had himself enumerated; and our difficulty is limited to one generation, which the actual deficiency in the table is not. We are reasonably averse from allowing that anything has been lost or dropt out of the text in transcribing; therefore, the only satisfaction offered to us is, that we are told that it was a custom of the Jews to reduce any things or numbers to the same which were nearly alike; and instances from Rabbinical writers are quoted by Lightfoot. I am not able to appreciate the similarity of such examples; but, considering the importance of the record Matthew was transcribing, I am of opinion that this account of the matter is not admissible.

And yet, if it is not admitted, and if we maintain that in the autograph of Matthew there were indeed forty-two generations we must either again take up the former supposition that one generation has been dropt by transcribers,

OR, we must be led to suspect that we ourselves miscount the descents enumerated.

Now, the first supposition (viz., that one generation has been dropt in transcribing) appears highly improbable from the peculiar fact, that the several descents are, to borrow a mechanical expression, dovetailed together, and, therefore, little likely to drop out unobserved; and, secondly, because supposing an early transcriber from any accident to have omitted one descent, he would, in the 17th verse, find Matthew's own summary of the descents serving to correct such omission, and, without doubt, intended by the evangelist for that very purpose.

We seem, therefore, reduced to take up with the last suggestion, however unpromising it may at first appear-namely, that we do not count correctly the descents appearing in Matthew's table.

We have seen that it is in the third of Matthew's three series that the deficient link is wanting-(and here observe, that the conjectures of Elsley and others, if allowable, would supply an additional name, not to the third, but to the second series, where it is not wanted).

We have put from us all conjectural restoration of omitted descents, and we are about to offer a conjecture which, without

necessitating the smallest change of the true original text, will clear the subject from all difficulty.

It is generally admitted that Matthew wrote the first Gospel; and it will not be controverted, that much strong and early testimony exists that it was written in Hebrew or Syro-Chaldaic. Masclef has the following remark on Hebrew writings:-Longum esset recensere nomina omnia quæ in sermone Hebraico subintelligenda veniunt; ipsa loci constructio aut exigentia sæpissime indicant quodnam vocabulum sit subintelligendum; and Girardeau, in his Hebrew Grammar, specifies as follows:- Vir, filius, frater, soror, gener, &c., as apparently in these texts-Maria Cleopa, Maria Jacobi, Jacobus Alphei, Jacobus Zebedæi, Levi Alphei, &c. &c. Hence there have been discussions whether Mary, wife of Cleopas, should not rather be understood as the daughter of Cleopas; reasons have been urged on that side, and the question is considered an open one. See Diss. in the Bible de Vence. Now, I suppose that in the Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel-or, if that be not acknowledged, the Hebrew record which Matthew was transcribing in his 16th verse-there was an ellipsis of the word father, which his Greek translator erroneously supplied by the word husband;-an error to which he might be led by the recurrence of the same name a few verses after. In substance, I suppose that Mary was the daughter of the Joseph in the table of descents closed by Matthew in the 17th verse, and was espoused to another Joseph-that name being very common-who is first introduced at ver. 18, where the narrative really begins.

We will now see the result of this supposition being adopted: and

1. It makes the genealogy really what the evangelist has declared it to be in the very opening-namely, The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ; all other schemes of interpretation representing it as the pedigree of Joseph, who was only his adoptive father.

2. Without any change of the original text, it makes exactly fourteen descents in St. Matthew's third series; thus reconciling it with the evangelist's summary in ver. 17.

3. While the common interpretation represents Matthew introducing Jesus as "Son of David;" then enumerating the descents from Abraham and David to Joseph; then narrating the miraculous conception, by which we learn that Joseph was not Christ's father in any common sense; this makes the evangelist deduce the virgin's descent from David, and then relate her miraculous conception of our Saviour.

4. This portion of Scripture is hereby rendered consistent with the tradition concerning it derived to Irenæus, A.D. 178, and Tertullian, A.D. 200; the former of whom tells us "Matthew designed