Two
passages claim that Jesus was a descendant of David
"according to the flesh". (Acts 2:30, Romans 1:3),
and there are references to Jesus as the son of David (for
example, Matthew 1:1, Matthew 21:9). Two genealogies trace
the lineage of Joseph back to David (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke
3:23-38) and Mary refers to Joseph as Jesus' father. (Luke
2:48).
However,
the two genealogies are not only hopelessly at variance with
each other, but there are inconsistencies between both of
them and genealogies given in the Old Testament (Luke 3:35-36
versus Genesis 11:12, Matthew 1:7-9, and 17 versus 1
Chronicles 3:10-13).
The
virgin shall conceive idea (Matthew 1:23) comes from the
Septuagint, the Ancient Greek translation of the Old
Testament. The Hebrew original is now translated as
"young woman" (Isaiah 7:14, Revised Standard
Version, New English Bible, Good News Bible). Isaiah 7:10 -
8:4, the passage it comes from, is about Isaiah conceiving a
child by the young woman, apparently in front of witnesses.
Little
wonder that there is scepticism about the idea of the virgin
birth of Jesus.
