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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: About Literalism: in what sense is God ...  (inerrancy)
Message-ID: <867@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 20:55:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.867
Posted: Mon Jul 15 20:55:44 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 16:04:36 EDT
References: <193@gymble.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 38

In article <193@gymble.UUCP> bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet) writes:

>First of all concerning the genealogies: We have in Luke 3:23:

>	"And when He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty
>	 years of age, being supposedly the son of Joseph, the son of Eli,
>	 ...[genealogy]" (NASV)

>Now, the question at hand is what does the phrase "the son of Eli" modify? If
>it modifies Joseph, then we have a genealogy going Jesus<-Joseph<-Eli...  On
>the other hand, if we take the phrase "being supposedly the son of Joseph" as
>parenthetical, being set off with commas like this one, then the phrase "the
>son of Eli" modifies "Jesus", giving a genealogy Jesus<-Eli... .

I'm sorry, but you can't analyze scripture this way.  For one thing, my JB
sets off only the "supposedly" ("as it was thought") parenthetically.  But
really, Luke was written in Greek first, not english (especially not the
NASV).  To really resolve that question, you need to look at the Greek.

>Obviously, the second interpretation would permit the genealogy given to be
>through Mary.  Is there any reason to prefer that interpretation?  Well, of
>all
>the Gospels, Luke spends the most space telling us how Mary had Jesus without
>any help from Joseph, so it would seem unlikely that Luke would proceed to
>list
>Joseph as Jesus' father.  Why is Mary not listed then?  Because the form of
>genealogies in Luke's culture generally omits listing the women.

This is quite groundless speculation.  One could just as well argue that
Joseph WAS included because Luke (in his culture) could not conceive of
running a lineage through a woman.  It seems to me that this stretching to
assert the literal truth of a passage whose literal truth isn't very
important suggests a willingness to sacrifice the literal word on the altar
of inerrancy.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

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