Lazy Christian Thinking - Biblical Refutation Part 2

As promised - I am continuing my look at common examples of poor bible understanding by many Christians, as well as just bad editorial in the Book itself. My aim, as previously stated is not to denegrate Christianity - but rather to refute scriptural literalism, and to show it for what it is - poor, lazy thinking.

Matthew 1:1 - 18

I am going to paraphrase this as it is a long Geneaology of Jesus of Nazareth, which has a primary purpose of showing that Jesus was descended of David. This is important, as God made an oath to David that his descendants would forever hold the rightful ownership of the throne of Israel. The three important bits I want to look at are:

Matthew 1:1

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew 1:6

Jesse the father of David the king. David became the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah

Matthew 1:11

Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian exile

Ok - so 1:1 and 1:6 fulfill an important task - namely to establish Jesus as a Davidian descendant, and further, as a descendant of Solomon. The first lineage (Davidian) is important as in Jeremiah 30:7-9 God makes a crucial promise regarding the Messiah (from the Hebrew "Moshiach" meaning anointed):

'Alas! for that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob's distress, But he will be saved from it. ' It shall come about on that day,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'that I will break his yoke from off their neck and will tear off their bonds; and strangers will no longer make them their slaves.'But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.

This is taken, by both Judaic and Christian tradition (which are of course the same in this matter) to mean that the annointed King of Israel, the Messiah, will be of David's line. It is to satisify this promise, or covenant, that Matthew goes to great lengths to show Jesus' lineage is Davidian.

Secondly, Matthew states that Jesus is descended from Solomon. This is extremely important because of 1 Chronicles 22:9-10, which states:

Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around; for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days: he shall build a house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever.

So, God's oath to Israel, and David is further explained to mean that David's line, through Solomon shall be the rightful holders of the throne of Israel. Now, we can begin to see why Matthew goes to such great lengths to establish a geneaology that descends from Solomon!

Now, having gone to such great lengths to establish the royal line, I want to draw your attention to Matthew 1:11:

Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the Babylonian exile

Jechoniah was the King of Judah at the time of the Babylonian exile. He was also, by Matthew's own admittal, an antecedant of Jesus. And so now comes the important linkage - Jeremiah 22:30:

Thus says Yahweh, Write you this man childless, a man who shall not prosper in his days; for no more shall a man of his seed prosper, sitting on the throne of David, and ruling in Judah.

This text is talking about the wicked Judahian King, whose line God curses to never more hold the Jewish throne. The name of this King - Jechoniah.His father - Josiah. His reign - the exile into Babylon.

So - if Jesus is indeed a descendant of Jechoniah, then he can never hold the throne of Israel. And if he can not hold the throne, he may never be anointed. In other words - he cannot, by Jewish tradition and law, and by fulfillment of prophecy, be the Messiah!

Matthew has proved quite succinctly, that Jesus is not the fulfillment of Toranic or Talmudic prophecy. Whatever else he is, by Matthews report, he is not the Anointed King. Therefore, scriptual literalism must, by definition, be based on a false premise. The Book cannot be 100% literal truth if it contains such glaring contradictions. It *must* require interpretation. Otherwise Christianity is based on some very shaky foundations; which - by the way - is the core Jewish objection to it - that it is interanlly inconsistent with jewish tradition, scripture and law.