But again, we know there is a third option: Neither list was supposed to be history, even if they include some historical figures. As it happens, there’s an even bigger potential problem with the genealogies. If Jesus was born to a virgin Mary, it doesn’t matter who Joseph was, because even though Joseph was Mary’s husband, he wasn’t Jesus’s father. Jesus’s lineage doesn’t depend on the man Mary happened to marry unless they were both his parents. Yet Jesus has to be the descendant of David.
