Christmas is a very important holiday, both from a religious and secular perspective. This is the time of year that stores have their biggest sales, and consumers make the most purchases. If you are a Christian, then without a doubt, Jesus is the reason for the season. It seemed appropriate, in the days before Christmas, to take a look at the genealogy of Jesus.
Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God. The story of the Nativity describes the circumstances surrounding when Jesus was born. The primary resource for information about Jesus, and his family tree, comes primarily from the Bible.
Now, if you are a genealogist, then you may already be thinking in the back of your mind about where you might go to find additional source material or some official documents that would help prove a familial connection between Jesus and his ancestors. While those kinds of sources are useful, and even expected, when working on the genealogy of your own family, it is generally deemed acceptable to overlook proper genealogy research techniques when taking a look at the family tree of a deity.
Even within the Bible itself, there is more than one interpretation about exactly who is considered to be the ancestors of Jesus. You can go with what was written by Matthew or what was written by Luke. The genealogy of Jesus is something that has been studied by scholars of the Bible, and much can be written about it.
Let’s start with Jesus himself, and work backwards. His biological mother is Mary, who was a virgin when she became pregnant with Jesus. The father of Jesus, as the Bible states, is God. I suppose you could stop there with the genealogy, if you wanted to. Mary’s mother was Anne, which makes Anne the grandmother of Jesus. Mary’s father was Joachim, which makes him the grandfather of Jesus. Mary’s parents were childless for years before Mary was conceived.
Mary was betrothed to Joseph at the time she became pregnant with Jesus. So, Joseph is the adoptive father, and legal father, of Jesus. The father of Joseph was Jacob, (according to Matthew), or Heli, (according to Luke). Heli might also have been called Eli. If I am understanding it correctly, Jacob would be the biological father of Joseph, but Eli would have been the legal father of Joseph. At the time that Joseph was born, it was not unusual for a woman to have more than one husband at the same time, especially if those two husbands were brothers. Both Jacob and Eli, (who were half brothers), essentially shared a wife, whose name has been forgotten over time. This woman would have been the step-grandmother of Jesus. Things quickly get more complex from here, the farther back you go into the genealogy of Jesus.
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