From: Carlton Winbery (winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net)
Date: Mon Dec 22 1997 - 00:15:00 EST
>Could Luke 3:23 be translated as:
>
>"Now Jesus Himself began His ministry..... (as was supposed the son of Joseph)
>being of Heli..."
>
>Is it clear in Luke 3:23 that Luke intends to convey the information that
>Joseph was not the father of Jesus so that Jesus was not the physical son of
>Joseph and that Jesus was the physical grandson (at the least) of Heli? Or is
>such a conclusion subject to one's interpretation of the Greek?
This passage has troubled interpreters since the early church. Two aspects
of the problem have been problematic. The easiest part has to do with the
parenthetical statement (hWS ENOMIZETO). The more difficult has to do with
the variance from the genealogy in Matthew. The scribe of Beza (D) rewrites
the whole passage to take care of both problems. He changes the order,
putting hUIOS after the parenthesis (and probably making it part of the
parenthesis) and adds the verb EINAI before hUIOS. Thus hWS ENOMIZETO
EINAI hUIOS IWSHF. There is no doubt that this is intended by the scribe
to indicate that the writer did not think that Jesus was the actual son of
Joseph. This scribe also changed all the names back through David to
conform to Matthew's genealogy.
>From this rewriting until the work of A.T. Robertson (Appendix of his
Harmony of the Gospels) most commentators have done some work on the text.
Robertson extends the parenthetical statement to enclude both the words Son
and Joseph and interprets it to say that HLI is the father of Mary, thus
the genealogy is that of Mary not Joseph. All such interpretations are
motivated by a desire to harmonize. I once had a prof who said, "I have a
Ph.D. in Biblical studies; that gives me the right to twist this verse a
little bit!" Would that we all were so honest!
Carlton L. Winbery
Fogleman Professor of Religion
Louisiana College
Pineville, LA 71359
winberyc@popalex1.linknet.net
winbery@andria.lacollege.edu
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