From Adam to Jesus

About the two genealogies

Two Gospels give Jesus’ ancestry. Matthew opens with it, running forward from Abraham in three sets of fourteen and calling Jesus son of David and son of Abraham: Israel’s Messiah and heir to the royal promise. Luke places it after Jesus’ baptism and runs backward through David and Abraham to Adam, “son of God”, presenting Jesus as the Son of Man who belongs to all humanity.

The lists agree from Abraham to David. After David, Matthew follows Solomon and the kings of Judah, and Luke follows another son, Nathan. They meet at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, part again, and meet once more at Joseph, whose father is Jacob in Matthew and Heli in Luke. Most readers take Shealtiel and Zerubbabel to be the same men in both lists; some think they are different men with the same names.

Readers have explained the difference in several ways:

Royal succession and natural descent. Matthew traces the heirs to David’s throne; Luke traces Joseph’s physical ancestry.
Levirate marriage. Jacob and Heli were half-brothers, and one fathered Joseph on the other’s behalf. This is Julius Africanus’ explanation, preserved by Eusebius.
Mary’s line. Luke traces Mary through her father Heli and names Joseph as his son-in-law. This reading is especially common in later Protestant commentary.
Distinct traditions. Each Gospel drew on different sources and shaped its list to its own themes.

This tree draws both lists as written and leaves the question open.

Reading the chart

Adam sits at the centre. The line curls clockwise and outward, one step per generation, so Jesus lands at the top of the rim. Each generation gets an equal share of the disc’s area, which is why the outer rings are thinner, as in an old tree.

After David the two lists braid: Matthew always on the outside, Luke on the inside. Luke’s list is the longer one here, so its names set the spacing and Matthew’s names are spread evenly between the shared people. Matthew’s list is shorter here; the spacing shows that, not which list is right.

Years mode places people by a traditional reckoning from the Hebrew text of Genesis 5 and 11, with anchors at the Flood, Abraham, the descent into Egypt, the Exodus (c. 1446 BC), David (c. 1010 BC), the kings’ accession years, the exile (597 BC), the return (c. 538 BC) and Jesus’ birth (c. 5 BC). Dates before the monarchy are contested. Names between anchors are spaced evenly and marked as such.

Links open the King James Version on Bible Gateway, so the cards list the KJV spellings (Booz, Salathiel, Zorobabel) beside the modern names.