Jump to content
IGNORED

Telescoping


~candice~

Recommended Posts


  • Group:  Royal Member
  • Followers:  5
  • Topic Count:  955
  • Topics Per Day:  0.16
  • Content Count:  11,318
  • Content Per Day:  1.90
  • Reputation:   448
  • Days Won:  33
  • Joined:  12/16/2007
  • Status:  Offline

This will be a closed debate between The_Patriot and Candice on the subject of telescoping.

....the usual rules apply which are:-

1) This will be a "polite" discussion. This means that neither party will engage in namecalling, ad-hominem attacks, or resort to any manner of character assassination at any point in time.

2) Time to reply will not be a consideration. However, please be considerate enough to at least try to reply in a timely manner, or otherwise concede the discussion.

3) This is not a "win/lose" discussion. The nature of a debate is to argue your points clearly and to the best of your ability. Nobody is right or wrong. Even though you may use the words "right" and "wrong" in the process of disputing a point, the purpose of debate is to get your point across, and support that point with evidence. It is up to the reader to decide who's argument is more weighty.

4) Books and online articles may be used as source material. However, those articles may be referenced in accordance with the Terms of Service. Links to inappropriate material will be removed. Material that is plagiarized will not be considered at all. At all times participants will cite their source material completely.

5) Wherever possible, please try to avoid leading the course of discussion "off track," or "off topic." In order to have a clear and concise debate it is necessary to stick to the topic until such time as the issues involved have been completely discussed and all points have been exhausted. When such a point in the discussion has been reached then other issues can be brought into the discussion and debated.

I will let Pat make the opening post.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Worthy Ministers
  • Followers:  28
  • Topic Count:  338
  • Topics Per Day:  0.05
  • Content Count:  15,676
  • Content Per Day:  2.46
  • Reputation:   8,495
  • Days Won:  39
  • Joined:  10/25/2006
  • Status:  Offline
  • Birthday:  02/27/1985

Im going to start by saying that I feel that the geneologies, especially those in the gospels, are not telescoping in nature, but are literal geneologies. Since, I am for this, Im going to address to common arguments for telescoping-the first, and I do not know if this is your view candice, but I will address it anyway, but feel free to correct me if its not, is the differing genealogies between Matthew (Matthew 1:1-17) and Luke (Luke 3:23-38) Their argument being that they are different, and the reason being that the two authors considered different members of the bloodline to be more important then others, so they listed different names, but also listed several in common. However, I do not hold to this, I hold that Luke, followed the lineage of Joseph, (Luke 3:23, notice Jesus is listed as Josephs son, and Mary is not even mentioned) while Matthew, follows the lineage of Mary. Now, the text in Matthew 1:16 says "and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ." However, according to jewish custom, that is how it was supposed to read, it was proper to list a son-in-law, as a son. Which would explain why in Luke, Joseph was the son of Heli, and matthew the son of Jacob, because Jacob was actually Marys father, but since she married joseph he also became their son. That would explain the differing names on the list, while both were from the line of david, they were different lineages, and Josephs, was more complete going all the way back to Adam, since the jewish culture put more weight on the mans lineage, then the mothers.

further reading--->http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matthew-mark/why-are-there-different-genealogies-jesus-matthew-1-and-luke-3

The next, is the wording, in the original language. In our earlier debate, the hebrew word for begat, was brought up, which means as follows:

1) to bear, bring forth, beget, gender, travail

a) (Qal)

1) to bear, bring forth

a) of child birth

b) of distress (simile)

c) of wicked (behaviour)

2) to beget

b) (Niphal) to be born

c) (Piel)

1) to cause or help to bring forth

2) to assist or tend as a midwife

3) midwife (participle)

d) (Pual) to be born

e) (Hiphil)

1) to beget (a child)

2) to bear (fig. - of wicked bringing forth iniquity)

f) (Hophal) day of birth, birthday (infinitive)

g) (Hithpael) to declare one's birth (pedigree)

So it has several meanings, however, I would suggest, in context of the geneologies, it would meanmeaning Qal, to bear, bring forth, pertaining to childbirth. However, I might want to bring out, that these genealogies, that I am discussing, were written in the new testament, and not the old, so the hebrew does not count, since the NT was written in greek. The greek word for begat is Gennao, which means, literally, to procreate, by the father, by means of the mother (strongs exhaustive concordance) It doesn't have multiple meanings there, so in the greek, it suggests a literal, genealogy, from Adam to Jesus.

Now, I don't hold to a specific 4,004 years between Christs birth and adam-as the ages of everyone on the genealogy, were not given. If you go back into the OT, you can find the ages of many of them, but you can't find them all, or what age they had kids, so it would leave some room for error, which even Ussher, couldnt really account for, it would be impossible because not all the ages are given. but I do see 4000 years as a good aproximatation, with maybe a max of a 500 year leeway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Royal Member
  • Followers:  5
  • Topic Count:  955
  • Topics Per Day:  0.16
  • Content Count:  11,318
  • Content Per Day:  1.90
  • Reputation:   448
  • Days Won:  33
  • Joined:  12/16/2007
  • Status:  Offline

Hi Pat,

Thanks for going first. I choose not to focus on the specific issues of reconciling Matt 1 and Luke 3, as telescoping is a literary feature seen throughout the bible, and not just in those passages.

I believe the core issue to be addressed in a discussion on correctly interpreting biblical genealogies is their purpose. In modern western times we tend to view history from a scientific point of view, as if someone has rewound a video that we can watch, and thereby watching the facts of the matter about past times.

I think the ancients had a different focus. The core focus was the transmission of blood lines, not the transmission of a complete family tree. They needed to be able to tell who came from what blood line to determine who had rights to which parcels of land, and who had rights to the priesthood. There are also prophecies that can only be fulfilled by people of a certain bloodline.

So we move on to whether or not the genealogies are "literal". I am an inerranist, so I do not believe there is any error to the biblical genealogies. But what would an error be? An error is not reading "Joe begat John" and later finding out that John was Joe's great grandson. That kind of genealogy matches the above purpose of genealogies and the meaning of the word begat (I will defend that later). So yes, I believe they are literal genealogies, I simply don't believe a literal genealogy must be "Father begat son".

We arrived at this debate from a thread discussing Adam and Eve and their children. Atheists love to point out that the bible doesn't list Eve's daughters, or other children before Cain and Able, so who was Cain afraid of when he was cast out? When we think of the purpose and function of biblical genealogies, it is clear that there is very little benefit of listing Eve's daughters or earlier children. It doesn't dictate the giving of land, the rights to the priesthood, or help in the fulfilment of any prophecy. They clearly did have other children (Gen 5:4) but that isn't expanded upon into a genealogy.

Since you started in the New Testament, let me address Matt 1:1 This is the genealogy[a] of Jesus the Messiah[b] the son of David, the son of Abraham:

It clearly states here that Jesus was the son of David, and yet there were many many generations between David and Jesus. So what happened here? This is a clear case of telescoping. Jesus had partially fulfilled the Davidic Covenant through His birth and first coming, and the reference to Jesus as the Son of David is appealing to that fulfillment.

In greek, the word son is huios (υἱός) and both the context (we all agree that Jesus was not the literal son of David) and the word usage demonstrates an appealed to telescoped genealogy as a means to indicate fulfiment of prophesy.

Here is the partial list of definitions for huios. It seems you only wish to appeal to 1) ©, and the context of this verse (and, I assert, many verses) means the definition 1) (d) is far more appropriate.

1) a son

a) rarely used for the young of animals

b) generally used of the offspring of men

c) in a restricted sense, the male offspring (one born by a father and of a mother)

d) in a wider sense, a descendant, one of the posterity of any one,

1) the children of Israel

2) sons of Abraham

e)) used to describe one who depends on another or is his follower

1) a pupil

I believe a similar argument must be made for word usage in the old testament. Let me quote from what I said in the telescoping thread before we moved to a soapbox:

Another important difference between ancient and modern genealogies is vocabulary. In modern English, we have a whole host of words to describe precise familial relationships. For example, we have son, grandson, uncle, father, cousin, brother, and ancestor. Hebrew has a very small vocabulary, so only a few Hebrew words to carry all of these modern meanings. For example, the Hebrew words for “son” (ben, 1121) means son, grandson, great grandson, and descendent. Similarly, “father” (ab, 1)[5] means father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and ancestor. We find in Genesis 28:13 that God tells Jacob, “I am the L ORD, the God of your father (ab) Abraham and the God of Isaac,” but Abraham was the grandfather of Jacob. Similarly, father (ab) can refer to multiple ancestors as in when Elijah cried, “Take my life, I am no better than my ancestors (ab)” (1 Kings 19:4). According to Vine’s, ab“may refer to the first man, a ‘forefather,’ a clan (Jeremiah 35:6), a tribe (Joshua 19:47), a group with a special calling (1 Chronicles 24:19), a dynasty (1 Kings 15:3), or a nation (Joshua 24:3). Thus ‘father’ does not necessarily mean the man who directly sired a given individual” (Vine’s “father,” but see also HGKSB, p. 1574).

Clearly I am going to disagree with you that hebrew word usage in the old testament prohibits telescoping because it only means Father -> Son.

At this stage I will leave it at this for you to respond to. Thanks for engaging with me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Worthy Ministers
  • Followers:  28
  • Topic Count:  338
  • Topics Per Day:  0.05
  • Content Count:  15,676
  • Content Per Day:  2.46
  • Reputation:   8,495
  • Days Won:  39
  • Joined:  10/25/2006
  • Status:  Offline
  • Birthday:  02/27/1985

Alright let me start of with, the argument about the differences between the matthew account, and luke account, was like I said, a common argument I have heard and I wasn't sure if it was one you would use or not, thankyou for clarifying that. :D

And I also believe in Biblical inerrency, and I do not believe that the purpose of this debate from either side, is to find an error in the Bible, nor to question its inerrency but to further ones understanding of it.

Now, if we go solely off of matthew 1:1, yes, that would actually be an example of "telescoping" so in that sense, I guess telescoping is in the Bible, however, I am using the term loosely here as I don't think that telescoping, is what the author is intending, but rather a summation. The problem is though, is that matthew does not stop with that, but continues on with a genealogy in verse 2, from Abraham To Jesus. The first verse, was not a genealogy, persay, but more of the opening summary, listing the two most important points of the genealogy, where he was starting the genealogy from-Abraham, and where the family tree split (marys line from Josephs) king David. That "telescoping" is a summation bringing out the two important figures in the geneaology. The author, then, goes through, and lists the full genealogy. Now, it does not make sense for the author to use a telescoping geneaology to start with, just to follow it with another, telescoping genealogy, but rather, sum the genealogy up with the telescoping one, and then go into the specifics of the genealogy, hence, the people between Abraham and David, and the time between David, and present.

Now, in Matthew 1:1, you bring forth the greek word for son, huios, and in matthew 1:1 we see it used in a figurative since, as, you are correct, Jesus was not the imediate son of David, so, according to the context, yes, the author was speaking figuratively here. Not in a telescoping manner, but to sum up the important parts of the geneaology.

Now, lets move to verse 2, and see what it says.

Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;

Now we see, Mathew, does not even use the word son, in the rest of the genealogy, just so and so begat so and so. Now, I touched on this in my first reply, lets look at the greek word for begat, which is gennao, which means to procreate, to bring forth, usually implying that so and so had this person as their child, in the greek. Furthermore, we can see, that this second verse, by itself, is indeed literal, as we can compare it to the OT account of Abraham, and Isaac in Genesis 22 and see that Abraham, did indeed, have Isaac, and Isaac, did indeed, have jacob. Isaac was not Jacobs uncle, or grandfather, but is father. So, verse two, at least is a literal history of Jesus lineage.

Now, the question is, why would Matthew be literal in verse 2, but use a telescoping line of thought through the rest of the genealogy? And if he did use a telescoping, what dicated, who in the line to skip, and who to include? Obviously, Abraham and David had to be included, but what about everyone else? why would Matthew pick some people over others. And seeing how male oriented the Jewish society was at the time, and how much stock they put in the father, would they choose to skip anyone?

Now, lets look at the passage of Luke, which does use the greek word for son, huios. Now, unlike Matthew, which started off his genealogy with a summation, which used the word in an obviously figurative manner, Luke does not sum up the genealogies. But instead, starts off, again with a literal name,

23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

Now, no one is questioning that Joseph, was at least Jesus earthly father (not biological though) and that heli, or Eli, was the next descendent down the line. the word, in the first verse, is used in a literal sense. Now, in the next verse, it continues:

24 Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph,

The word, is used in the exact same manner, in every verse, from 23 on down to 38. The way it is used, does not change. So, logically, if it was literal in the first verse, and the wording does not change, and there is no context, to suggest that the word is used differently, then the logical assumption is that the meaning of the word does not change-leading to a literal genealogy. I see nothing in the context, to suggest that maath, was mattathias grandson, the word meant literal son in verse 23, and I see no difference in how it was used in 25-38.

So, in summation, the "telescoping" genealogy, was merely a summation of the literal, genealogy, to follow, because Matthew wanted to emphasize, that Jesus was of the line of David, and that the literal genealogy, was to further prove that, and in the case of both passages, the first verse of both geneaologys, in context, was indeed literal, and the way the words were used and context, suggests that it is literal.

As far as the hebrew genealogies, correct me in Im wrong here, but the OT doesn't really dive into genealogies much, perhaps if you were to list an actual genealogy as found in the OT I can continue from there.

Thankyou for your time and patience, I look forward to your reply.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Royal Member
  • Followers:  5
  • Topic Count:  955
  • Topics Per Day:  0.16
  • Content Count:  11,318
  • Content Per Day:  1.90
  • Reputation:   448
  • Days Won:  33
  • Joined:  12/16/2007
  • Status:  Offline

Hi Pat,

Worthy Forums went down so I am compiling a short reply using only my memory of what you have said. So please forgive me if

I misrepresent you, or are a little off track.

Telescoping IS summarising, so it is a little disengenious to accept summarising but not telescoping. It seems at this point that is a mere semantic issue, when we both agree with the concept that multiple genealogies are collapsed into fewer.

You accept "summarising" of Matt 1:1, based on context, but do not agree that "begat" in greek (γεννάω gennaō) can be anything

other than literal (meaning, Father -> son). The problem with this is that we have demonstrated telescoping, or summarising, even in the New Testament, and using the word gennaō.

If you look at Matt 1:8,

8 And Asa begat (gennaō) Josaphat; and Josaphat begat (gennaō) Joram; and Joram begat (gennaō) Ozias;

the word gennaō appears three times, and it appears on the surface as if there is only three generations listed. However, this genealogy appears in 1 Ch 3:10-12,

10 And Solomon's son was Rehoboam, Abia his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son,

11 Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,

12 Amaziah his son, Azariah his son, Jotham his son,

but with three additional genealogies between Joram (Jehoram) and Uzziah (Azariah).

There is a second clear example. In Matt 1:16, we see that Jacob begat (gennaō) Joseph

Matthew 1:16

And Jacob begat (gennaō) Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

but in Luke 3:23 we read that Joseph is the son of Heli.

Luke 3:23

And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

This isn't an error, it is an example of telescoping using the word gennaō.

I do not know what you plan on doing with these examples, and I know there are a few more. So I will leave it at this and see how you respond to my criticism of the father->son use of gennaō. The real issue of telescoping is in the old testament, so we should eventually wander in that direction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Worthy Ministers
  • Followers:  28
  • Topic Count:  338
  • Topics Per Day:  0.05
  • Content Count:  15,676
  • Content Per Day:  2.46
  • Reputation:   8,495
  • Days Won:  39
  • Joined:  10/25/2006
  • Status:  Offline
  • Birthday:  02/27/1985

The contrast between the genealogy in chronicles, and Matthew, has me perplext, at this momen, so I am going to hold off on answering that at this moment, but when I get a chance to research it a little more in depth, I will address it, so please don't feel I am ignoring it.

I am I am, however, going to address your second point, the difference between the genealogies in Matthew and Luke. I agree, they are not in error, but for a different reason. The difference, is actually not a argument for, or against telescoping, because as I pointed out in my first post, I believe we are discussing two sperate genealogies, the one in Matthew following Marys bloodline, and the one in Luke following Josephs bloodline. Some believe it to be the other way around, but either way, they are two seperate bloodlines. They both have abraham and David in it, because before David it was one bloodline, and at king David, the bloodline split which accounts for the different names between the two genealogies. So, as I stated in my opening post, the different names (Heli and Jacob) are not evidence for a telescoping genealogy, but evidence of two seperate genealogies.

I agree, that the word begat, can be used figuratively, and that context, is what defines it-I agree that matthew 1:1 is figurative, as is based upon context. So I guess, in that case, I guess if you want to call that telescoping, it is indeed in there. However, the context of 2-16 defines a literal genealogy. Context, is key.

As far as the old testament ones, I will admit, Im not exactly certain where all the genealogies are in the OT, so like the issue with Chronicles, I am going to further research into the genealogy there in Chronicles. If you would point out a few specific Genealogies you would like to discuss it might make it easier. Thankyou.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


  • Group:  Worthy Ministers
  • Followers:  28
  • Topic Count:  338
  • Topics Per Day:  0.05
  • Content Count:  15,676
  • Content Per Day:  2.46
  • Reputation:   8,495
  • Days Won:  39
  • Joined:  10/25/2006
  • Status:  Offline
  • Birthday:  02/27/1985

After researching 1 Chronicles, I have come to the conclusion, that that passage, is a literal genealogy, as well Matthew, the key, is to look at the verses after the ones you listed. None of the names, in that passage, match up with Matthew. Now, its safe to assume that Solomon had more then one son, the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3, doesnt follow the genealogy of Jesus, but simply his bloodline, and the genealogy split. They are seperate bloodlines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...