Bible Synapse
How can Jesus be descended from David according to the flesh if Joseph was not his father?
Hard question · Genealogies · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
God swore to David that from the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne.
Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
Jesus was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh;
Before Mary and Joseph come together, she is found with child of the Holy Ghost, and an angel tells Joseph, son of David, to take her as his wife.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Mary will conceive by the Holy Ghost, and God will give her son the throne of his father David.
And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
The objection
Peter and Paul say Jesus was descended from David “according to the flesh”, “of the fruit of his loins”. But Matthew and Luke say Joseph was not his father, since Mary conceived by the Holy Spirit, and the genealogies trace David’s line to Joseph. If Joseph was not his father, how is Jesus David’s physical descendant?
The answer
Through his mother. “According to the flesh” means by human birth, and Jesus had a human birth, “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4); descent through a mother is still descent. Luke points to Mary’s Davidic line: Gabriel tells her that her son, conceived without a man, will receive “the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32), which most naturally means that David is his ancestor through her, and on the view that Luke 3 gives Mary’s genealogy her line runs back to David through Nathan. The earliest Christian writers after the apostles say plainly that Mary was of David’s family: Ignatius around AD 110 and Justin Martyr around AD 155.
Joseph’s part was legal: by naming the child and taking Mary as his wife (Matthew 1:21–25), he made Jesus his heir, so Jesus also held David’s royal title through Joseph’s line. Matthew is careful here: after a long chain of ‘begat’ he does not say that Joseph begat Jesus but that Joseph was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus” (Matthew 1:16), where ‘whom’ (Greek hēs) is feminine and points to Mary alone.
Other answers Christians give
Legal descent alone
Some hold that Joseph’s adoption alone made Jesus David’s ‘seed’, since an adopted heir carried on the family line; on this view Mary’s ancestry is not needed. Most, however, take “according to the flesh” to mean physical descent, which points to Mary.
Still open
No verse says in so many words that Mary was descended from David. It rests on Luke 1:32, on reading Luke’s genealogy as hers, and on early Christian tradition; Luke 1:27 can be read as calling either Joseph or Mary ‘of the house of David’.
From the classic commentators
He said then that He was the Son of man, either because of His birth by the Virgin, who was, as I said, of the family of David and Jacob, and Isaac, and Abraham … For we know that the fathers of women are the fathers likewise of those children whom their daughters bear.Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 100 (c. 155), tr. M. Dods and G. Reith (1885)
For our God, Jesus Christ, was, according to the appointment of God, conceived in the womb by Mary, of the seed of David, but by the Holy Ghost.Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 18 (c. 110)
Sources
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapters 89–108, at New Advent
- Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians, at New Advent
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary on Luke 3, at Bible Hub