# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S32
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

32 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

[There] shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse.' Here the prophet states clearly that the stem of Jesse must remain until Christ should be born from it. Since now this child has no father on earth but only a mother, this mother must be of the stem and blood of David; otherwise her child could not be called a son or descendant and heir of David." (Erlangen edition, vol. 6, p. 176 f.)

Yet many a one will perhaps now think: Far more valuable it would be if one had in Scripture a genealogy that showed that Mary came from the house of David, rather than that one has two that show that Joseph was a descendant of David; for Joseph, after all, was not the natural father of Jesus. Indeed, even if Joseph had been of the tribe of Dan or Naphtali, that would have made no difference. If only it is certain that the virgin Mary was of the house and lineage of David, from whom alone the Son of God has flesh and blood, his human nature, then by that alone it is completely certain that Jesus descends from the house of David. This last conclusion is quite correct; it also gives us the key to the two genealogies. For whereas in Matthew we have before us, without any dispute, the genealogy of Joseph (for the words that stand there, "Jacob begat Joseph," allow absolutely no other interpretation), in Luke we find actually the genealogy of Mary, his betrothed, and not the genealogy of Joseph. To be sure, Mary's name is not mentioned at all in the register in Luke, as it is in Matthew (Luther too points to this in the passage above); but that does not forbid the assumption that in Luke we have the genealogy of Mary.

Luther too later shared this assumption. In his writing "Vom Schemhamphoras und vom Geſchlecht JEſu Chriſti" [On the Shem Hamphoras and on the Lineage of Jesus Christ] (written in the year 1543) he says: "That Jerome writes that Jacob was Joseph's father according to St. Matthew's line (register), but Heli was his father according to Luke's line, that is, a father-in-law, in the way in which the daughter's husband is also called son, and the son's wife also daughter, that pleases me well and better than Eusebius with Lyra, who holds that Jacob took the widow of his brother Heli and begot Joseph with her."

So it also says already in Luther's notes on some chapters of Matthew (St. Louis edition, VII): "Christ had the line of his lineage run not through Solomon but through his brother Nathan." That means in other words: The genealogy in Luke is the genealogy of the natural mother of Jesus, is Mary's genealogy.

On this assumption every difficulty disappears that may arise from comparing the two genealogies. The result then is the following: Joseph descends from Solomon, the son of David, Mary from Nathan, another son of David by another wife;