Jesus - the Lineage

1) What is this "fairly strong historical evidence" that Mary and Joseph (especially Mary) were of the House of David ?2) How does levirate marriage apply ?3) The genealogy in Luke is presented as Joseph's not Mary's. Is there any known example of a genealogy where the genealogy of the wife is presented as that of the husband in any relevant culture ? If not, then why assume that Luke did exactly that ?4) Have you checked the references given, and do they support the idea that Mary's husband would be considered her father's son and listed as such in a genealogy ? What did you find ? (I'll give you a pass on de Vaux, but you should be able to look up the Bible verses easily).

Well that's the question isn't it ? It could only apply to Mary and Joseph if Mary married Jospeh and Jospeh died or Mary married Joseph's brother and the brother died. Neither of which is mentioned at all.It might be appealed to, to explain a difference in an earlier generation but at best a single levirate marriage could only affect a single entry in the genealogy(it's the job of the husband's brother, so the precedign generations should be unchanged).

How about an answer to Message 16 ?

I'm not asking you to trust my credentials. I'm asking you to make basic checks on your source rather than relying on your personal bias.Personally I find Christian apologists to be highly unreliable - a case in point being this very question. You'd be better off trusting an atheist scholar who has less of an axe to grind.

Since Phatboy won't critically examine the answers he quotes I'm going to do some chewing on one of them myself. This one: From the listed verses these represent laws on levirate marriageDeuteronomy 25:5-6 (NASB)So the offspring of a levirate marriage could be seen as having two fathers (his legal father and his biological father). But he wouldn't take his wife's lineage. The dead husband's lineage wouldn't change - the whole point of the marriage is to continue it, not replace it. The brother's lineage wouldn't change either - the only way it is relevant is that he must be brother of the deceased (and therefore has the same ancestry).So Jewish a levirate marriage doesn't involve anyone adopting the lineage of their wife. It isn't a "probably" the case - it isn't even POSSIBLY the case.

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I have no axe to grind so my conclusion that there was no Exodus is more reliable than some evangelical 'scholar's' claims that there is evidence.

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And I think that is precisely WHY Phatboy doesn't "trust" your views. He doesn't trust you to say what he wants to hear. If you look back on the thread you'll see that he refuses to check his apologetic sources at all. He won't even look up the Bible verses they refer to. It looks to me as if he at least suspects his sources are lying and doesn't want to know the truth.

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Who would I check with?

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The Bible.To see if it says what your sources claim it says.I asked. You refused.