Jesus - the Lineage

Odd that after laying out his genealogy in detail, a quick birth and trip to Egypt, a brief mention at the temple, Joseph has served his purpose and gets the flick. No mention of whether he died, deserted his virgin bride, or minded the ranch while Mum tripped to weddings and checked up on her son.
Of course, you can`t trust a church to leave well enough alone, so the dogma accretions started. Ready for the mental gymnastics?
You can take the Epiphanian view that all those bros and sisters of Jesus were from a previous marriage of Joseph. Or---
the Hieronymian view of Jerome, not content with regarding Mary as an on-going virgin, developed the idea that Joseph had virgo intacta and the family were actually 'cousins' of Jesus. Either way, the genealogy had no bearing on the heritage of Jesus, but you can`t keep a good apologist down.http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/jamesbrother.html#jeromeEdited for clarityThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 08-31-2005 08:40 AM

Chris Weimer(of Ebla fame) does a nice job of explaining variations in the Matthew genealogyPage not foundIf the translators/assemblers of the Qumran Scrolls have it right, the Community was anticipating 2-3 Messiahs.
A. The lay or kingly Davidic Messiah
B. The priestly Aaronic Messiah
C. (possibly) a Mosaic prophetic MessiahRefs-Allegro-Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls p167
Vermes-Complete Dead Sea Scrolls-p86Edited for spellingThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 09-04-2005 03:01 AM