1st Page of the New Testament Proves That Jesus Can't Possibly be the Jewish Messiah

In many places the Hebrew Bible prophecies a future situation where the world will be perfected. A central role in this theme is assigned to a future king of Israel, who amongst other things, will be a continuation of the Davidic monarchy. In addition to describing the achievements of this future king- whom we refer to as the messiah- the Bible is clear that this future king must be a descendent of King David.

Accordingly, in championing the candidacy of Jesus of Nazareth, the New Testament’s opening 17 verses describe the genealogy of Jesus. Leaving for one moment the 30+ internal contradictions between the genealogy found in the gospel of Matthew and that found in Luke’s gospel. It seems that rather than confirming Jesus as a suitable candidate for the post of Jewish messiah, one need read only the opening 17 verses of the New Testament to conclude that Jesus is simply ineligible as a candidate. Rather than proving the case that Jesus is the messiah, the New Testament begins by informing us that Jesus is not even eligible for the role. How does that work?

What's Wrong with Matthew's Genealogy?

Matthew begins his gospel by telling us “these are the genealogies of Jesus Christ”. Bear in mind that Christ is simply the Greek for messiah. The New Testament begins by explicitly laying out the case for Jesus being the Jewish messiah and does so by attempting to link Jesus back to King David by detailing the ancestry of Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Before we investigate the genealogy itself its worth noting that immediately following Matthew’s account of the genealogical record we are told quite plainly that Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus, but rather that he was born of a virgin, impregnated by the holy spirit.

Clearly King David is not the great, great (and so on) grandfather of G-d and no Christian makes such a foolish claim but this in itself creates a problem; Jesus cannot be descended from King David regardless of the heritage of his adopted father. According to the Hebrew Bible, tribal affiliation is passed through the paternal line and according to the Hebrew Bible, all rightful kings of Israel must be from the tribe of Judah.

It would seem that if the New Testament is a truthful document then Jesus, having no human father, does not belong to the tribe of Judah (or any other). For this reason alone Jesus cannot be a king of Israel; a pre-requisite for candidacy as Jewish messiah. An argument given against this last point is that Joseph formally adopted Jesus, however, adoption does not in Judaism confer tribal affiliation and whatever else he may have been Jesus was a Jew. 

Unfortunately, even were adoption to allow for the passing of tribal affiliation, it gets slightly more complex when we return to the genealogy itself. To cut a long story short Matthew has Joseph descended from King David but lists one of his ancestors as Yechoyachin (Jaconius in Latin) whose wickedness led G-d to place a curse on him; none of his descendants would sit on the throne of Israel. Indeed when Yechoyachin died, the kingship passed to his brother and not one of his sons. If Jesus genuinely descended from Yechoyachin then he was ineligible to be king and therefore ineligible to be the messiah.

Is Luke's Genealogy Any Better?

What then of the genealogy handed down by Luke? Unfortunately for Christians this also leads to the conclusion that Jesus is ineligible for the role of messiah. Notwithstanding the 30+ contradictions between Luke’s genealogy and Matthew’s, or the standard attempt to reconcile these contradictions by claiming that Luke is giving the genealogy of Jesus through Mary, Luke’s genealogy also makes Jesus ineligible. 

First, if Luke’s genealogy is indeed documenting the maternal line (Mary is mentioned nowhere in the text), then in terms of tribal affiliation it is worthless. The Hebrew Bible is clear that the tribe you belong to is the preserve of the paternal line. Thus the problem of Jesus not having a human father and therefore not belonging to any tribe is unresolved. More importantly, the Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that the messiah must be descended from David, through his son Solomon and Luke’s genealogy has Jesus descended from David through Nathan. Which ever way you examine the question; Jesus is ineligible to be the Jewish messiah and consequently Jesus cannot possibly be who the various churches claim him to be.  

Those that claim the New Testament to be a reliable document insist that the New Testament lays out the evidence in favour of the conclusion that Jesus of Nazareth was the Jewish messiah, rejected in his time and scheduled to return to complete the job. This claim is problematic for numerous reasons (in addition to those documented here), yet perhaps the most convincing of these is that to uphold any notion of Jesus as Jewish messiah; one must first discard the New Testament because according to the very text Jesus is simply ineligible to be the Jewish messiah.

Either the New Testament genealogies of Jesus are false (and at least one of them must be), in which case one wonders what they are doing in a book supposedly inspired by G-d, or one of them is correct and Jesus is not eligible to be the messiah. One cannot have cake and eat it too, a position seemingly not lost on the previous Pope who when pressed on this very subject was unable to come up with any answer.

Conclusive Proof That Jesus Cannot be the Jewish Messiah

Faced with the evidence; contradictory genealogies both of which exclude Jesus from candidacy, coupled with the problem of tribal affiliation, an honest person must conclude that Jesus cannot possibly be the Jewish messiah. Thus either the New Testament contains unreliable information about Jesus in which case we have no reason to accept any of the other claims about him or the information may all be true but regardless of the miracles, and so on, Jesus is simply not eligible to be the Jewish messiah and thus we have no reason to accept any of the other claims made about him.

In one of the greatest ironies of history, far from confirming that Jesus is the Jewish messiah- the starting point of Christian claims about the world- one need read only the first page of the New Testament to rule him out of contention altogether.

Is it really any wonder why Jews, those most intimately knowledgeable with the Hebrew Bible, have consistently rejected Christianity? Or why Christendom has spent the best part of its history trying to wipe the Jewish people from the face of the earth? 

גמר חטימה טובה