This blog post is not meant to disprove any god. Not even the Christian one (in fact nothing I ever write can disprove god)
So, if you read it, and then come at me and say it doesn’t disprove your god, well… your correct, I literally just told you that. I expect someone will do it anyway.
What it is meant to do is refute one really bad apologetics talking point.
We all know there are contradictions in the bible. Some Christians accept this fact, saying that while the bible is divinely inspired it was written by men and they make mistake (which in my mind means you can’t trust any of it without just picking and choosing which parts you believe).
Others though will cling to a belief that they are just “apparent” contradictions. Any contradiction in the bible can and have been explained. In my humble opinion, a lot of these reconciliations seem like something they just pulled out of there asses, but maybe they prayed earnestly and God gave them the answer (which he pulled out of his infinite ass).
One of these apparent contradictions is the genealogies given in Matthew and Luke for Jesus. Both trace Jesus’ lineage all the way back to the line of David (Luke’s even goes all the way back to Adam).
Thing is, after a certain point (After the lists split off from King David) there are a lot fewer names in Matthews’s lineage than in Luke’s and apparently, they both give Joseph (Masry’s husband) a different father. Matthew calls his dad Jocob and Luke calls his dad Heli. It seems like a pretty cut and dry example of a contradiction right?
“Wrong! You are wrong. Stop being a stupid atheist in your stupid atheist’s lack of understanding ways! Matthew was a Jew and they were Patriarchal… you dumbass atheist,” I imagine them saying, “and Luke was written for Gentiles and for some reason I’m going to claim the Gentiles were a matriarchal society and that therefore the genealogy in Luke is for Mary and they just said it was for Joeseph because. That’s why!”
And then, boy will I feel really fucking stupid! I might cry, I might stop writing…
Or I might think about it.
First I’d challenge them to find any other genealogy that terminates at a father when it actually meant the mother. I’d ask them to prove to me it was actually done that way. There must be historical examples in order for them to make that kind of claim right? I’ll assume so… you can assume it too because then we get to the fun part. Let’s do math! (Actually, I hate math, but.. yet it’s still the fun part)
Okay, so if you look at the graphic above (you know the one that fixes everything) then you will notice that they had to use a really small font on one side and add a space between lines on the other. In other words, the maternal line for Jesus (Luke’s genealogy) has a shit ton (actual measurement term) more names than the one for Joseph (Matthew’s).
In fact, after the supposed intermarriage that both genealogies agreed on Luke has 18 names before it gets to Joseph (Mary in the graphic above) while Matthew’s Gospel only has 9.
So let’s assume that all the wives of the men represented in Matthews lineage had these children at the average age of 20 (They might have had others when younger, this would be pretty old for a first child at the time). There are 9 men on the list from Zerubbabel to Joseph.
If their wives had the children listed at the ripe old age of 20 and there are 9 names to account for we get 180 years. Maybe these were all second or third children, so it’s possible. They could have had these kids at the average age of 20.
So… 180 years, maybe a few more or less.
So 180 divided by 18 (that can’t be right, hold on… let me count it again. yep 18) that gives us… U’hm 10. So the average age that each woman represented in Luke’s genealogy would be 10.
That’s not Mary’s age, that’s the average age everyone in her line had to give birth in order for one of the lineages to belong to Joseph and the other to belong to Mary.
I would think Jesus rising from the dead may be more probable then this apologetic explanation.
“Okay Atheist, look, the one in Matthew is just missing a bunch of names you dick!”, my completely fictitious apologetic spouting friend might say. Okay, so then it’s not very fucking useful as a genealogy then is it? (Actually, one really did say this to me today, but just without calling me a dick. That’s called embellishment for effect and I’m very immature for adding it)
Think about that for a while… then remember it that apologists will say just about anything to make the bible say what they want it to say.
Then if you want to open a whole other can of worms check out the apocryphal Gospel of James and you find out Mary’s dad’s name was Joachim. He’s a Catholic Saint. (In case you don’t know apocryphal books are ones that almost made it into the bible, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, which is where we get most of our ideas of Hell)