The Birth of Jesus - Matthew vs Luke

Matthew Chapter 1

A great deal of the opening chapter of Matthew deals with the lineage of Jesus, which differs from the lineage given to us by Luke in chapter 3. They cannot even agree as to who the father of Joseph is as Luke says Heli and Matthew says Jacob. Both geneologies are provided to claim that Jesus was a descendant of King David. Of course, this is useless, as Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. To get around this, some will claim that the geneology in Luke belongs to Mary, thus creating a lineage from David to Jesus. The problem with this is that Jewish tradition kept track of the lineages of the males, not the women.

The next error we have in Matthew is that the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph, and to Joseph alone, to explain what is about to happen to Mary. We also learn that Joseph and Mary are indeed already married, they just have not have had sex yet.

¹⁸Now 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.

¹⁹Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily. ²⁰But 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.

²⁴Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: ²⁵And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

Next, we have the issue of the name of the child. Was his name to be Jesus or Emmanuel?

²¹And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

²³Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

Finally we have a non-existant prophecy in verse 23 (as seen above). Of course, Isaiah was speaking of events of his time, not of the future, as evidenced in Isaiah 9:6 with the use of, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…” Not withstanding, the verse presented is transcribed incorrectly anayway. It was translated from the Greek text, and there the word “parthenos” is used, which does mean a virgin. However, the word in the original Hebrew, from which the Greek was taken, did not mean “virgin.” The word there is “almah,” which means simply a young woman. In the later Greek translation, the error was corrected, the proper Greek equivalent “neanis” being substituted. But it suited the purpose of the Church to leave in its “virgin” Greek, and so it has come down to us.