# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S30
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

30 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

The material, however, that could be discussed here is so immensely great that a selection must necessarily be made. I have therefore left the Old Testament wholly unconsidered, have also not examined the question whether there may be Old Testament passages that are contradicted by the New Testament, and have thus confined myself to the New Testament and here too have taken only the four Gospels into view, so that, more narrowly bounded, the question really before us is only: Do the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John contradict one another? Now it would be quite an impossibility to discuss all the passages which, even within this limited framework, have been set against one another; otherwise we should have to stay together not six days but six weeks. But that is also not necessary. I have therefore here too made a selection, namely of those passages which are most often contradicted.

The Genealogies of Jesus.
(Matt. 1:1-17. Luke 3:23-38.)

The New Testament begins with the Gospel of Matthew, and this with the words: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." That Jesus is a son of David, the son of Abraham, Matthew begins at once to prove, by starting from Abraham and saying: "Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren" — and so he counts to King David, fourteen generations in all. Then it says: "David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias. And Solomon begat Roboam" — and then again on in the same way, fourteen generations in all, to the Babylonian captivity. After the Babylonian captivity to Christ Matthew likewise counts fourteen generations. We see, then, that in this genealogy the proof is to be set before us that Joseph, the husband of Mary, whom we know as the foster father of Jesus, was of the house and royal lineage of David.

Now there is found in the Gospel of Luke (chap. 3:23-38) a similar register of names. It is told there in Luke shortly before that at Jesus' baptism the heaven opened, and that a voice from heaven said: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased." Then it goes on: "And Jesus began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli, which was the son of Matthat," etc. Then the list is carried further back; there occurs in it also a Zerubbabel and a Salathiel; later Nathan is named, not the prophet of that name but a son of David. From David it then goes backward to Abraham, and from Abraham on to the very beginning of the human race, until it says: "Which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." With this