When Paul started preaching about Jesus as the Messiah and son of God,
he never realized that he had created a huge paradox.

You see, for Jesus to be the Messiah, he had to be a biological son of Joseph's, who was the one from the Tribe of Judah. Mary was from the Tribe of Levi. She was of the family of Elizabeth, a descendant of Aaron the Levite. (Luke 1:5,36) Since Jesus is also claimed to be the son of God, obviously, he could not be the Messiah because God is not subject to human genealogy.

On the other hand, if Christians decided to grab the chance of at least make Jesus the Messiah by agreeing that he was Joseph's biological son,
he could not be son of God, and here the situation gets worse because
even the doctrine of the Trinity will collapse.

That's a paradox indeed, that can be accepted only by faith, which requires no explanation. But then again, where faith begins knowledge ends. And for lack of knowledge "My People perish." (Hosea 4:6)

Now, if there is anyone out there with enough wisdom to unriddle this paradox, I'll be happy to take my hat off to him or her. Good luck!

Ben

This has been addressed on this forum!

It is a shame you never bothered searching through the threads.

I would answer the question and would locate the posts for you  personally if I discerned that you had sincere intentions.

I wonder if you care enough to locate the posts and continue the conversation with reason and understanding.

Pro 10:18 NIV  He who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool.

Ben Mesada

I am not an expert on this so I will just answer you off the top of my head since no one else has tried that much.

If you came up with this on your own NT study and not from an antimissionary book I want to commend you on aptitude for spiritual subjects.

This is actually one that bugs me, the geneology of Jesus.  I have heard answers put foreward, such as Mary counts as a descendant of David.  


I don't know, off the top of my head I would say an adopted son is more important than a bio son because you treat them better.

There is something mysterious about this no matter how much scripture or explaination on it we had as man aprehends things about God in scripture that cannot be comprehened, to use a Bible answer man phrase.

There is no biblical precedent for tracing genealogy through one's adopted parents.  But even if there were, it wouldn't help.

Let's say Jesus is, Biblically, Joseph's son.  There are consequences to that.  Matthew traces Joseph's lineage through Jeconiah, about whom it is written that none of his descendants will ever be king (Jeremiah 22:30).  Luke, apparently aware of the problem. cleverly skips that generation, but he includes Shealtiel, who is Jeconiah's son (1 Chronicles 3:17).

The popular theory that Luke's genealogy is that of Mary, not Joseph - proposed to reconcile the contradictions between Matthew 1 and Luke 3 - compounds the problem by making Jesus a direct blood descendant of Jeconiah.

To Ben Masada

All I can say is to maybe look at the big picture.  If you study more about Messianic Judaism and see how it works not just for your people but also for the world you might actually want Yeshua to be Messiah.

Sorry if this is a wierd answer, but there are some emotional issues here.

I forget the exact scriptures, but here is a kind of a flow chart of thinking as to why it makes sence for Yeshua to be messiah.

1) All the world believes in HIm.

2) He has to be from tribe of Judah, (IF your Father is God is it like a wild card, sorry if this sounds crass to apply to scripture, but that is the best example I can think of).

3)  Yeshua horizoned as the Son of God in the ROmans 1 verse you start with.  Arabs call a traveler the "sone of the road" that doesn't mean they came out of the pavement.  See the greek here means Jesus is eterally in relation to the father.  This is why it was a big deal for the sun to go dark and Him be separated from the father for the only time in all eternity.

4) I think it is Daniel 9:25 where it says that the Messiah has to come before the temple is destroyed.  Really, the only person who qualifies for this is Yeshua.

I know I didn't solve your Luke problem.  Who knows maybe there is some special thing he we haven't figured out yet that will be a blessing to us.

To use an American analogy, maybe this ugly duckling is a swan in disquise.

Chad: I will respond in a new thread, lest this one get thrown off its topic...