LIST OF BOOKS MADE USE OF IN PREPARING THIS WORK. Van der Hooght's Hebrew Bible. Kennicott's ditto. Walton's Polyglott and Prolego mena. Septuagint. Greek Testament. Ulfilas' Gothic Bible. Vulgate. English Bible. Evangelia Apocrypha (Tischendorf). Critici Sacri. Poole's Synopsis. Maldonati Commentarium. Kennicott's Dissertations on the D'Oyly and Mant's Bible. Simonis Onomasticon. Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia. Horne's Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures. Hug's Introduction to the New Testament. Ceillier's Auteurs Ecclesiastiques. Wolf's Bibliotheca Hebræa. Origenis Opera. (Delarue). Irenæi Opera. (Bened. Edit.) Eusebii Pamphili Ecclesiast. Historia. (Edit. Valesii). Eusebii Præparatio Evangelica. (Cologne Edit.). Eusebii Chronici Canones. (Edit. Mediol.). Epiphanii Opera. (Petavius). Hieronymi Opera. (Bened. Edit.). Augustini Hippon. Opera. (Bened. Edit.). Gregorii Nazianz.Opera. (Morell). Chrysostom's Homilies. (Oxford Translation). Procopii Gazai Opera. (Latine). Annii Viterbensis Opera. Scaliger (Joseph) de Emendatione Scaligeri Thesaurus Temporum. Jackson's Chronological Antiquities. Hale's Analysis of Chronology. Clayton's Chronology of the Hebrew Bible. Dr Brett's Chronological Essay Bosanquet's Chronology of the Hottinger's Pentas Dissertatio num. Hottinger's Dissertationes duæ de rum. Seldeni Opera. Bunsen's Egypt's Place in Universal History. Wilkinson's Manners and Cus toms of the Egyptians. Lepsius's Letters on Egypt and Æthiopia, &c. (Bohn). Layard's Nineveh and Babylon. Benjamin of Tudela's Itinerary. (Asher). Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. Jost's Geschichte der Israeliten. South's Sermon on the Lineal Descent of Christ. Yardley on the Genealogies of Jesus Christ. Benham's Reflections on the Genealogy. Beeston on the Genealogies. Dr Mill's Vindication of the Genealogies. Burrington's Genealogical Tables. Two beautiful MS. Genealogical charts by Mr Bailey of Thetford. British Magazine, July 1831, 'The Genealogies, &c.' An article by F. Delitzsch, Über die beiden Geschlechtsregister J. Ch.' in the Zeitschrift für die gesammte Lutherische Theologie, &c. Viertes Quartalheft, 1850. Sermon by Rev. W. Fremantle: The Crucifixion a proof that THE GENEALOGY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, JESUS CHRIST. CHAPTER I. Difficulty and importance of the subject. The three main questions to be solved. THE genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ, as given by the evangelists St Matthew and St Luke, has been a subject of acknowledged difficulty and perplexity to commentators from the earliest days of Christianity. Nor are the difficulties of one kind only, or confined to one gospel. They are, on the contrary, manifold and multiform. They attach to the principle as well as to the details of the statements. They comprise questions of history, of chronology, of law, of grammar, of criticism, of agreement between inspired writers, of harmony between the Old and New Testament; in short, they are difficulties of every kind which can beset a passage of Scripture. But though the most learned and able of the fathers and doctors of the Church in all ages have laboured to the utmost to disentangle these perplexities, and have in some points laboured successfully, still the subject continues to be involved in very considerable obscurity, and there is, consequently, still a great diversity of opinion about it. And yet it must be confessed that it is one of great interest and importance: not only because it is always important to vindicate the accuracy of the inspired writers, and their agreement with each other, but because the truth of the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be the Christ, and the heir of David's throne, rests in great measure upon the genealogies, upon their accuracy and their truth. If He had not been of the seed of David according to the flesh He could not have been entitled to the throne of His father David,' (Luke i. 32), nor could He have been what Pilate described Him to be in that trilingual inscription which he affixed to the cross, THE KING OF THE JEWS. It seems evident too that the genealogies were inserted in the Gospels in order to establish, on indisputable ground, the truth of His descent from David, and His right to David's throne, within the provisions of the promise made to David by God (Ps. cxxxii. 11). It must therefore be our duty, as far as we are able, to make the genealogies intelligible to ourselves and others, that they may answer the purpose for which we believe them to have been inscribed in the Book of Truth. Especially with reference to the conversion of the Jews to the faith of Christ, does it seem to be a matter of vital importance to exhibit the genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament as in accordance with those of the house of David in the Old, as in harmony with each other, and as in agreement with the laws and customs of the Jewish people. It is the object of the following pages to discover a solution of the chief difficulties. And the author is not without hope that under God's blessing, partly by availing himself of the most sound and judicious explanations of former writers, and partly by some new matter which has been the result of his own investigations, he may be enabled to lead his readers to some degree of satisfaction on this hitherto perplexing subject. May the Name of Jesus Christ be glorified! The most important questions which have to be solved in the first instance, by those who desire to understand the genealogy of Christ, are the following: I. Are the genealogies in St Matthew's and in St Luke's gospels both genealogies of Joseph, or is one the genealogy of Joseph, and the other that of Mary; and if so, which is the genealogy of which? II. If these genealogies are both Joseph's, upon what principle are they composed, and whence does it happen that one is traced through Solomon, and the other through Nathan, and yet that both are traced through Zerubbabel and Salathiel? |