Many people are aware that there exists a contradiction between “Luke’s” genealogy of Jesus and “Matthew’s”. Whilst “Matthew” records "42" generations from Jesus back to Abraham, (see "Matthew" 1:2-16 Vs “Luke” 3:23-38), “Luke” says there were 57 and many of these ancestors were different people. ("Luke" 3:23-38). Before getting to the contradiction which forms the basis of this Post, we should also be aware that “Luke’s” genealogy of Jesus is also in contradiction with 1 Chronicles 3:16-19 and "Matthew's" is also in contradiction with 1 Chronicles 3:9-15 (which lists 18 generations from David to Babylonian Exile, not 14 as "Matthew" errantly claimed).
At “Matthew” 1:17, the pseudonymous author asserts:
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.
Now, if we were to take him/her at their word, that every 14 generations, some big event takes place which alters the course of the nation of Israel, we might be led to believe that there is some divine plan behind this nation’s history, but why every 14 generations? What is, or was, significant about the number 14?
It could be that the number 14 numerologically represents the doubling of the “holy” 7, which frequently occurs throughout both the OT and NT, not to mention more ancient “Pagan” religions and philosophies and forms the basis of the septenary (7 primary planets), from which we derive our days of the week.
In the words of Aristotle:
Since the number 7 neither generates nor is generated by any of the numbers in the decade, for this reason they also said that it was Athene. For the number 2 generates 4, 3 generates 9 and 6, 4 generates 8, and 5 generates 10, and 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10 are generated, but 7 neither generates any number nor is generated from any; and so too Athene was motherless and ever virgin. (1)
Or, it could be something more relevant to Hebrew and the “history” of Israel. Looking to the Hebrew language, we may find a probable answer to this riddle. Hebrew is an alpha-numeric language, meaning that the letters double as numbers, each letter carrying a specific numeric equivalent or value.
1= 1 א ALEPH
2= 2 ב BETH
3= 3 ג GIMEL
4= 4 ד DALET
5= 5 ה HE
6= 6 ו VAV
7= 7 ז ZAYIN
8= 8 ח HET
9= 9 ט TET
10= 10 י YOD
11= 20 כ KAF
12= 30 ל LAMED
13= 40 מ MEM
14= 50 נ NUN
15= 60 ס SAMEKH
16= 70 ע AYIN
17= 80 פ PE
18= 90 צ TSADI
19= 100 ק QOF
20= 200 ר RESH
21= 300 ש SHIN
22= 400 ת TAV
(2)
Further, if we take two other factors into consideration, we may get a clearer picture of the intentions of the pseudonymous author of “Matthew.”
(1) Hebrew did not use vowels in its manuscripts, so to give you an example, the name for one of their tribal gods, Yahweh, who henotheisticially became the sole god, into which the others were incorporated, appears in the Hebrew texts as, YHWH, with the vowels (AEIOU) omitted.
(2) The second being that the messiah was supposed to be descended from the House of David. (see; Isaiah 9:5-7, Psalms 89:3-4, 132:11 Jeremiah 23:5-6) The name David, in the Hebrew texts appears without vowels as ‘DVD’ or Dalet, Vav, Dalet. If you consult the chart I have supplied above and add together the value of David’s name, you will see that Dalet has a value of 4 and Vav, 6, giving a total of 14.
The pseudonymous author of “Matthew,” who seems to have been the most traditional out of the other 2 synoptic authors and the more Gnostic/Hellenistic “John”, in some regards, may have been attempting to allude to the fact that Jesus was the thrice great (see Hermes Trismegistus for a comparison, re: thrice great and numerological significance of 3) David, the divinely appointed messiah (3) from the House of David (14), so he made Jesus’ birth come after 3 lots of 14 generations.
With regards to this possibility, nay probability, Professor of New Testament Studies, Bart D Ehrman, said:
Also, in ancient Hebrew no vowels were used. So the name David was spelled D-V-D. In Hebrew, the letter D (daleth) is the number 4 and the V (waw) is 6. If you add up the letters of David’s name, it equals 14. That may be why Matthew wanted there to be three groups of precisely fourteen generations in the genealogy of the son of David, the Messiah, Jesus.
Unfortunately, to make the numbers work he had to leave out some names. I might also point out that if Matthew was right in his fourteen-fourteen-fourteen schema, there would be forty-two names between Abraham and Jesus.(3)
Here is where we get to the error made by “Matthew”. Remember, in chapter 1 verse 17 he asserted, 3 generations of 14, now I will leave you with his own version of the genealogy of Jesus and see if you can spot the mistake:
1. Abraham begat
2. Isaac;
3. Jacob;
4. Judas
5. Phares and Zara
6. Esrom;
7. Aram;
8. Aminadab
9. Naasson
10. Salmon;
11. Booz
12. Obed
13. Jesse;
14. David the king
1. Solomon
2. Roboam
3. Abia
4. Asa;
5. Josaphat
6. Joram
7. Ozias;
8. Joatham
9. Achaz
10. Ezekias;
11. Manasses;
12. Amon
13. Josias
14. Jechonias
1. Salathiel
2. Zorobabel
3. Abiud
4. Eliakim
5. Azor
6. Sadoc
7. Achim
8. Eliud
9. Eleazar
10. Matthan
11. Jacob
12. Joseph
13. Jesus
Matthew 1:2-16
1. Jonathon Barnes & Gavin Lawrence. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. 2. Fragments. Princeton University Press, (1984), Pg. 71.
2.
The Hebrew Numbering System
3. Bart D Ehrman. Jesus Interrupted. Harper Collins (2005) Pg. 38