The Line of Joseph

There are few biblical characters more ignored than Joseph, the father of Jesus. He is generally viewed as an aside, simply the somewhat unnecessary husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and after all, Jesus could have been born and raised without Joseph around at all.

Mary was genuinely the first and only woman to exist who seemingly really didn’t need no man. 

However, Joseph is far more than just an aside; in fact, he is as important to the birth of Jesus as Mary herself.

Of course, the role of a father in a child’s life is irreplaceable, but more than that, with Joseph, his bloodline was irreplaceable, and I believe he was especially selected by God for the lineage of Jesus the Anointed. 

You see, Scripture never traces a lineage through a woman, and you won't find any place where it explicitly identifies Mary’s lineage.

Was she of the House of David?

We aren’t told explicitly, but her cousin Elizabeth is said to be of the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1:5). 

That’s the only clue we’re given as to the tribal identity of Mary in the entire Bible, and it’s not a very good one, unless Mary’s father and Elizabeth’s father were brothers. 

Lineage always descends through the father in the Bible, and a man is known by who his father is. You can see that little fact in any genealogy in the Bible, as it reads off a long list of fathers and sons, and pretty much anywhere a man is identified, he is: his name, the son of his father’s name. 

For example, David the son of Jesse. 

Many European cultures continued this naming convention until the invention of the continuous surname. 

Some of the names harkening back to the convention of taking your father's name as your own are names such as Jacobson, Johnson, Odinson, Igardson, etc., all names meaning son of, just as the Hebrew "ben" does. 

David ben-Jesse, Jesus ben-Joseph, etc. 

By this point you’re probably going, well, what about Luke’s genealogy? Isn’t that Mary’s line of origin?

That’s a popular theory, but show me the verse that says that it is her family tree.

There isn’t one, but it’s brought up as a way to reconcile the two different lineages given for Joseph in Scripture.

There is another solution to this problem, and unlike the Mary theory, it only relies on what is given in Scripture. 

It is, in fact, the oldest attested solution for reconciling the two trees, recorded for us by Eusebius in the fourth century and witnessed by Africanus in the third century, and besides that, it’s what Scripture plainly says without adding anything to the narrative. 

If you took just what was recorded for us by Matthew and Luke at face value, Joseph had two fathers. 

Plainly and simply, that is what we have recorded.

So, let’s recap for a moment.

Mary’s tribal affiliation is not stated anywhere in Scripture; she is never said to be of the House of David, lineage passes from father to son, and both lineages are stated to go through Joseph.

More than that, while no gospel author has anything to say on the lineage of Mary, both Matthew and Luke pay special attention to the fact that Joseph was of the House of David.

Multiple times, either an angel or the narrative states that Joseph is of the House of David, and both genealogies trace back to David, though through different sons. 

We have a hundred percent of the explicit mentions regarding the genealogy of Jesus attributing the house of David to Joseph and zero percent attributing it to Mary. 

If Mary's lineage tracing back to David is so important, shouldn't there be at least one explicit mention of it?

The fact that there isn't a single explicit mention should at least make one wonder where the "scholarly consensus" got the idea that one genealogical line belongs to Mary when Scripture says no such thing!

Joseph is the first one called the son of David in Matthew's account, and then Jesus is addressed exactly eight times by that same title.

Matthew 1:20 NKJV - But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 9:27 NKJV - When Jesus departed from there, two blind men followed Him, crying out and saying, "Son of David, have mercy on us!"

Matthew 12:23 NKJV - And all the multitudes were amazed and said, "Could this be the Son of David?"

Matthew 15:22 NKJV - And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed."

Matthew 20:30 NKJV - And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"

Matthew 20:31 NKJV - Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"

Matthew 21:9 NKJV - Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: "Hosanna to the Son of David! 'Blessed [is] He who comes in the name of the LORD!' Hosanna in the highest!"

Matthew 21:15 NKJV - But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant

Matthew 22:42 NKJV - saying, "What do you think about the Christ? Whose Son is He?" They said to Him, "[The Son] of David."

Again, if Mary's bloodline was so important, why did Matthew make not a single mention of the fact that she was from the House of David?

Why did he only attribute that title to Joseph and Jesus?

Again, for Luke, who only ever calls Jesus and Joseph sons of David, if Mary’s bloodline was so important, why is there not a single explicit mention of it?

That alone should make us slow down and look at what Scripture actually says again. 

There is a question to be asked here, however, and I will ask it and seek to answer it if I can. If not from Scripture, where did the idea that Luke’s genealogy is actually Mary’s even come from?

The first place I could find that mentions it, written roughly 150 AD, is a false book of the Bible called the Protevangelium of James. However, it does not list her father as Heli, but rather Joachim. 

The one who popularized the theory was a man writing in the 1400s named Annius of Viterbo, a renowned forger of genealogies and other works. 

With the advent of the study bible, what was once a fringe theory took firm hold in the Protestant world and has since become what is known as the scholarly consensus. Among many other false theories, we can trace this back to the Scofield Bible for popularizing it. 

“The conclusion is therefore inevitable that in Luke we have Mary's genealogy; and Joseph was "son of Heli" because espoused to Heli's daughter. The genealogy in Luke is Mary's, whose father, Heli, was descended from David.” Scofield Reference Bible Luke Chapter 3

There are similarities between the two genealogies in that they are the same from Abraham to David. 

Past David, they diverge for a while until they reunite, then diverge, and finally reunite once and for all in Joseph.

We'll look at Joseph in a moment, but we're going to look at the first reunion in the person of Shealtiel, the son of Jeconiah, king of Judah. 

Luke 3:27 NKJV - [the son] of Joannas, [the son] of Rhesa, [the son] of Zerubbabel, [the son] of Shealtiel, [the son] of Neri,

Matthew 1:11 NKJV - Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon.

Matthew 1:12 NKJV - And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel.

Matthew 1:13 NKJV - Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor.

Luke places Shealtiel's father as Neri, while there was a court official in Jeconiah's household named Neriah who was the father of Baruch; there is nothing to actually connect the Neri in Luke's line with that Neriah directly. 

Neri means “YHWH is my lamp” and could be a renaming of Jeconiah; it could be an adoptive father, or it could be a title. 

Either way, the father of Shealtiel was King Jeconiah, which is very interesting considering the prophecy God handed down because of how evil he was. 

Jeremiah 22:24 NKJV - "[As] I live," says the LORD, "though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;

Jeremiah 22:25 NKJV - "and I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand [of those] whose face you fear--the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and the hand of the Chaldeans.

Jeremiah 22:26 NKJV - "So I will cast you out, and your mother who bore you, into another country where you were not born; and there you shall die.

Jeremiah 22:27 NKJV - "But to the land to which they desire to return, there they shall not return.

Jeremiah 22:28 NKJV - "Is this man Coniah a despised, broken idol--A vessel in which [is] no pleasure? Why are they cast out, he and his descendants, And cast into a land which they do not know?

Jeremiah 22:29 NKJV - O earth, earth, earth, Hear the word of the LORD!

Jeremiah 22:30 NKJV - Thus says the LORD: 'Write this man down as childless, A man [who] shall not prosper in his days; For none of his descendants shall prosper, Sitting on the throne of David, And ruling anymore in Judah.' "

He was cursed to never have a descendant to sit on the throne of David, so it would make sense that his son would be reckoned as the son of another man. Now, the curse on Jeconiah was removed because one of his descendants was faithful to God.

Jeremiah 22:24 NKJV - "[As] I live," says the LORD, "though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet on My right hand, yet I would pluck you off;

Notice the specific wording used here, and then notice what God says about Zerubbabel. 

Haggai 2:23 NKJV - 'In that day,' says the LORD of hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,' says the LORD, 'and will make you like a signet [ring]; for I have chosen you,' says the LORD of hosts."

The curse on the line of Jeconiah was removed, though Zerubbabel was not a king; rather, he was a governor of Jerusalem. 

That's not the end of the mystery surrounding Zerubbabel either, however, because he was not Shealtiel's son—he was his nephew!

1 Chronicles 3:17 NKJV - And the sons of Jeconiah [were] Assir, Shealtiel his son,

1 Chronicles 3:18 NKJV - [and] Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jecamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah.

1 Chronicles 3:19 NKJV - The sons of Pedaiah [were] Zerubbabel and Shimei. The sons of Zerubbabel [were] Meshullam, Hananiah, Shelomith their sister,

Shealtiel and Pedaiah were actually brothers, Shealtiel possibly even being adopted by King Jeconiah as his own son, but either way, Pedaiah was the biological father of Zerubbabel.

So why, in every other place, is Shealtiel called the father of Zerubbabel?

Shealtiel is not listed as having any other children, yet Pedaiah had more than one, which leaves only one real possibility for this situation: Shealtiel died childless and activated a little-known law.

Deuteronomy 25:5 NKJV — “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be [married] to a stranger outside [the family;] her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

Deuteronomy 25:6 NKJV — “And it shall be [that] the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

His brother likely married his brother's wife and raised up seed to his brother's name, which would mean Zerubbabel would be Pedadiah's oldest son, as indeed he is listed.

So, Zerubbabel, rather than bearing the name of Pedadiah, bears the name of his uncle instead, thus becoming the son of Shealtiel thereafter. 

Nehemiah 12:1 NKJV - Now these [are] the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,

Haggai 2:2 NKJV - "Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying:

Haggai 2:23 NKJV - 'In that day,' says the LORD of hosts, 'I will take you, Zerubbabel My servant, the son of Shealtiel,' says the LORD, 'and will make you like a signet [ring]; for I have chosen you,' says the LORD of hosts."

We have at least one obvious case of adoption in the line of Jesus so far, with one more potential adoption in Neri. After Zerubbabel, the line diverges again until Joseph, which is what we'll look at next.

Luke 3:23 NKJV - Now Jesus Himself began [His ministry at] about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) [the] son of Joseph, [the son] of Heli,

Luke 3:24 NKJV - [the son] of Matthat, [the son] of Levi, [the son] of Melchi, [the son] of Janna, [the son] of Joseph,

Matthew 1:15 NKJV — Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob.

Matthew 1:16 NKJV — And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.

The two fathers listed for Joseph are Heli and Jacob, which could be reckoned a couple of different ways. Number one, we've already seen at least one case of adoption, very likely more than that in the line of Joseph, so it's very possible a man married his mother after he was born and adopted him. 

The second possibility is that this is indeed another case of levirate marriage, where Heli or Jacob married their dead relative's wife and raised up seed in his name. 

Either way, both men are legitimately fathers of Joseph, which means Joseph was adopted by one of them, making him the perfect candidate to be willing to adopt and raise a son he did not father. 

That would mean Jesus did not have the blood of David in him, but legally, and in the only way that matters, he was the son of David and heir to the throne. 

Adoption in the Bible is much different than what we might think of adoption in our day and age, and a son adopted was a son in every respect. He was the legal and legitimate heir to everything the man had, and more importantly, he was legally part of that man’s bloodline. 

A man did not even have to marry the man's mother to be able to adopt him as his son; any man could adopt another man as his legal son and heir to his bloodline. We see this many times in the history of the Roman emperors, and likely in the story of Paul and Timothy as well.

One of the most blatant Biblical examples of this is in the account of Jacob adopting the sons of Joseph as his own. 

Genesis 48:5 NKJV — “And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, [are] mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine.

 

Ephraim and Manasseh became the full legal heirs of Jacob, receiving an inheritance right along with his other sons. Throughout prophecy, we see these two tribes reckoned as the sons of Jacob, full tribes of Israel. 

Another example is in the case of Adam, who is reckoned as a son of God, even though he was not literally born of God. 

Luke 3:38 NKJV - [the son] of Enosh, [the son] of Seth, [the son] of Adam, [the son] of God.

That is exactly what happened with Joseph and Jesus. 

Matthew 1:25 NKJV - and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS.

By naming Him, Joseph adopted Jesus and accepted the responsibility for the young Jesus, placing Him as his own son in every sense of the word. Legally, Jesus was now of the house of David, through the line of Nathan and Solomon. 

Joseph was indispensable to the story and origin of Jesus, and he was far from being a sideline character. If Joseph had not been of the line of David, then neither would Jesus, regardless of Mary’s lineage. 

The only way for Jesus to inherit the throne of His father David was to be adopted by a faithful man to be raised as his own son. Was the reason Joseph was amenable to adopting and raising a son who was not his own because of his own history of being adopted?

Perhaps, but we’ll not find out for sure until the return of Jesus. Either way, it’s a remarkable story and not nearly as Mary-centric as some people make it out to be.

Mary was a faithful woman, highly favored by God, but I believe she was chosen largely because of who her husband was and what his bloodline was. 

Matthew 1:18 NKJV - Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 1:26 NKJV - Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

Luke 1:27 NKJV - to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name [was] Mary.

Without him, there would be no throne of David or royal bloodline. Looking at the two lines of Joseph, it’s easy to see the working of God’s mighty hand and His faithfulness to the House of His servant David.

He preserved his line clearly down to Joseph, ensuring that Jesus would have a royal bloodline to inherit.  

Rather than importing information into the two gospel accounts to assign one genealogy to Mary, this reckoning takes exactly what’s written and assigns both lines to Joseph just as Scripture does. 

Some might argue this means Jesus had no biological connection to David, but this misunderstands the biblical definition of 'flesh.' In the Old Covenant, a man's legal standing was his 'fleshly' reality.

Romans 1:2 NKJV - which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures,

Romans 1:3 NKJV - concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,

Romans 1:4 NKJV - [and] declared [to be] the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.

When Joseph, the legal son of David, received the child and named Him, Jesus was born into the legal and royal flesh of David's house.

He was 'of the seed of David,' not by a random biological accident, but by the deliberate, judicial act of a faithful Father.

His royal inheritance was not merely a matter of DNA; it was a matter of Law, and Jesus is the rightful Heir to the throne of David because He is the legal son of the man who held the keys to that inheritance, a son according to the flesh.

Joseph indeed had two fathers, a remarkable detail that was important enough that God had it recorded for us, so it should be important enough for us to acknowledge it for what it is—divine preservation of the House of David.

Joseph was not the son of David by just one line but by two, a remarkable working of God to ensure that Jesus would indeed be the full heir to that noble throne. 

© Kyle Bacher 2026