How may we reconcile Jesus Davidic lineage with His birth from the Virgin Mary?
Although we have no extant genealogy of Mary, Luke 1:32 alludes to her being in the line of David. Since Jesus had no human father, Mary’s lineage puts Him in the family of David. However, Matthew’s Gospel shows the difficulty in this. He lists Joseph’s lineage only, as Jewish custom dictates. Matthew traces Joseph back to David, but then states that Joseph is not Jesus’ father. For Matthew, when Joseph named Jesus, he became His legal father and so assured Jesus’ place in the Davidic line. In either case, the evangelists saw no contradiction between Jesus’ Davidic lineage and His birth from a Virgin. Return to Your Questions Return to The Mary Page This page, maintained by The Marian Library/International Marian Research Institute, Dayton, Ohio 45469-1390 and created by J. C. Tierney, was last modified Monday, 10/20/2008 15:01:23 EDT by Michael P. Duricy. Please send any comments to Johann.Roten@udayton.edu. URL for this page is http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/questions/yq/yq07.html.
Related Questions
- What do we mean when we say that Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and became incarnate from the Virgin Mary?
- What is the History of Christian art showing the Virgin Mary suckling the Infant Jesus?
- Why do some Christians criticize Catholics praying to Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus?
