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From: dkl@usl.UUCP (Dwayne K. Lanclos)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: About Literalism: in what sense is Jesus son of David
Message-ID: <616@usl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 18:50:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: usl.616
Posted: Wed Aug  7 18:50:50 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 07:10:29 EDT
References: <1278@uwmacc.UUCP> <615@cybvax0.UUCP>
Organization: USL, Lafayette, LA
Lines: 27

In article <1390@pyuxd.UUCP> Rich Rosen asks:

>Which leads me to ask the question:  if in all this time we haven't been
>bothering to discuss Mary's lineage (just apparently contradictory lineages
>for Joseph), what the heck does that matter in determining Jesus' lineage!!!!!
>After all, *Joseph* wasn't Jesus' father, GOD was!!!!!  Remember????
>Or did you forget all about the "virgin birth", "son of God", and all that? 
>*MY* lineage back to David would have as much bearing on Jesus being a
>descendant of David as Joseph's lineage would!!!!  Or did I miss something?
>
The Babylonian Talmud states:  "The family of the father is regarded as 
the proper family, but the family of the mother is not regarded as proper
family."  The reason both Matthew and Luke take pains to show that Jesus
is descended of the House of David is to give legitimacy to the claim for
Jesus being the Messiah.

Since Jesus is taken as the adopted son of Joseph, this is equivalent to
being the natural son of Joseph.  Examples of "legal"=="natural" are to
be found frequently in the Hebrew Bible.  Perhaps the most obvious example
would be that of Levirate marriages in which a surviving brother marries
his widowed sister-in-law should she be childless.  A child born of this
union is considered to be the child of the deceased man.
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Come to the shell for answers.

dwayne
{akgua, ut-sally}!usl!dkl