The Christians are coming to defend Christmas!
“Happy Holidays” is no longer an acceptable salutation. It’s “Merry Christmas” or nothing! They’ll boycott you! They’ll condemn you!!! They’ll unlike you on Facebook!
Join the ranks – arm yourselves with my latest FREE CHAPTER – “Doubting Christmas!” from the controversial and provacative book Doubt after Doubt: Doubting the Christian Faith. Please visit http://www.doubtafterdoubt.com to request your FREE GIFT. This chapter will arm you with the tools, logic and arguments you need to win any War on Christmas debate – not that I encourage anyone to take this silly “war” seriously.
The season of the Winter Solstice is for everyone and not to be monopolized by any faith, creed or religion! Happy Holidays to you and yours no matter how you choose to celebrate (or not)!
Here is an excerpt:
As Matthew documents the lineage of Jesus he is bringing forth his first set of evidence to support his claim that Jesus is indeed the messiah as prophesied by the Hebrew prophets. Lineage held substantial importance for the Jews, a fact that is clear from the great number of Old Testament verses where the lineage of individuals is documented. The listing of Jesus’ genealogy links him to the royal bloodline of King David.
Any student of Judaism, as the author of Matthew clearly was, understands that the prophesied messiah was to be born from King David’s royal line. This is supported by the Old Testament verse Micah 5:2, but further scrutiny of Matthew’s work reveals some controversial points.
The first question I ask is how anyone can declare Jesus descended from the royal line of King David through his father, Joseph, if the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus? If the conception of Jesus was truly divine, then Joseph was in essence a stepfather and we must trace Jesus’ lineage through the bloodline of his mother, Mary.
Next, it is clear by comparing the texts that Matthew drew from the genealogy listed in 1 Chronicles 3:10-12 to compile his list of generations. Curiously he omits a few generations in his account and changes some of the names. The theory behind why Matthew may have intentionally omitted a couple of generations is found in verse 3:11:
Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.
Matthew was attempting to demonstrate the power of God’s divine plan by showing the precise way in which God intervened in the history of Israel through three successive groups comprised of fourteen generations each. Unfortunately, it appears that Matthew is manipulating the numbers. Another curious discrepancy in Matthew’s account is that the last group of fourteen generations contains only thirteen, from the end of the exile in Babylon to the birth of Jesus.
Luke also lists Jesus’ genealogy and makes a similar case that Jesus, through the line of his stepfather, is descended from King David. Curiously, he adds a disclaimer: “He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph.” Early literary support in favor of the theory that Matthew and Luke wrote independently and were unaware of the other’s work is revealed in the genealogy accounts, for Luke’s is remarkably different from Matthew’s.
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