# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S33
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

of the Ev. Luth. Synodical Conference of North America. 1902. 33

[Mary from Nathan ... ] both, then, are true children and descendants of David. Joseph descends from the line of the house of David in which the royal rule had remained for centuries, which also at the time of the New Testament still owned its landed property in Bethlehem; thither Joseph also went, to be enrolled, with Mary, his betrothed wife. Mary descends from the lineage of David, but from a less distinguished collateral or side line. It can then also not be surprising that the one genealogical list counts more generations between David and the Babylonian captivity than the other; for first, Matthew has left out some intermediate links that were no doubt known to him as well, and second, it is very possible that the heirs in the side line were accustomed to marry earlier than in the royal main line. Let us take a quite simple sum to help. In a period of 660 years two families continue their line side by side; if in the one family the sons are always accustomed to marry at 22, in the other always at 33, then the former family would have 30 generations within the 660 years, the latter only 20. That is a difference of ten generations, not merely of five, as with the 500 years between David and the Babylonian captivity.

But now someone might object: That may fit as nicely as it likes; I will concede that all difficulties disappear with it; but it nevertheless stands in Luke too: "Joseph was a son of Heli"; that sounds quite as if Heli had been his natural father, and if he was that, it cannot have been Jacob who, according to the report of Matthew, begot him; so there is a contradiction here. — But look elsewhere in Scripture and observe its manner of expression. It is something very common there that sons-in-law are called sons, daughters-in-law daughters, as indeed still happens in ordinary life. Thus we hear, for example, how in the book of Ruth Naomi says to her daughters-in-law: "Turn again, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have an husband." She thus calls her daughters-in-law daughters. David again calls out from afar to his father-in-law Saul, whose daughter Michal he had married: "My father, see, yea, see the skirt of thy robe in my hand." In the same way Joseph, Mary's betrothed, can be called the son of Heli. So there is nothing at all in the way, neither grammar nor lexicon, that could prevent us from recognizing in the list in Luke the genealogy of Mary.

Accordingly, even in early times the defenders of the Church, against the attacks of unbelievers, of Jews or of heretics, called attention to the fact that in this way every appearance of a contradiction falls away. Augustine already writes in his fine book "Von der Uebereinſtimmung der Evangeliſten" [On the Harmony of the Evangelists]: "Joseph had two fathers, one by whom