Muhammadan Objections

72	OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE GENUINESS OF

the apparent discrepancies can be easily accounted for. Please mention a few.

45. M. Matthew's Gospel contains one genealogy of Christ, Luke's quite a different one. How can both be right?

C. [Every man¹ has two genealogies, one on his father's side, the other on his mother's. Hence we may infer that one of the two genealogies of Christ is probably that of Joseph, His putative father, the other that of the Virgin Mary, His mother². St. Matthew gives the former, St. Luke the latter. In Luke iii. 23 we find Joseph called "(the son) of Heli," doubtless because he was his son-in-law. He may have been adopted into the family lest it should die out—a common practice among the Hebrews and Romans, and one which still prevails among most nations. An old tradition represents Mary as daughter of Heli.] You must see yourself that it is a great proof, not of the corruption of the Scriptures, but of their remaining free from intentional alteration, that both genealogies occur in them. Had the Christians wished to make any

¹ Commentators are by no means unanimous on this subject. I give my own opinion for what it may be worth, though this is not the place to enter fully into arguments in support of it. Readers of this Manual should notice that the passage is in brackets, and should consult commentators.
² The Right Rev. Bp. Stuart prefers Dean Mansel's view (Speaker's Comm. on Matthew) that both genealogies are those of Joseph, Matthew giving the table of the royal line and Luke that of actual descent. Dean Mansel (on Matt. i. 16) conjectures that Jacob was Mary's father, and Joseph his adopted son.

THE BIBLE AS IT NOW EXISTS

change, how easy it would have been to remove all difficulties by placing Mary's name instead of Joseph's in Luke iii. 23. That they did not do so is a sign that (1) the early Christians, who knew all the facts of the case, found no difficulty in the matter, while any difficulty that now exists arises from our not knowing all the circumstances; and that (2) Christians in later times have had too much veneration for the Bible to venture to make any change in its text in order to remove opponents' grounds for objections.

46. M. But if, as both the Bible and the Qur'an (Surahs XXI., Al Anbiya, v. 91, and LXVI., At Tahrim, v. 12) assert, Jesus had no human father, what was the object of giving Joseph's genealogy in Matt. i.?

C. It was doubtless given for the sake of the Jews¹, in order that, whether they believed in His miraculous birth or not, they might see that He was descended from David, according to prophecy (Amos ix. II, &c., &c). According to Mary's genealogy in Luke iii. the same result follows.

47. M. There are many contradictions in the Bible which cannot be thus explained. One is that of the blind men whose eyes Jesus is said to have opened at Jericho. The Gospels give three contradictory accounts of this miracle. St. Mathew

¹ For in the eye of the law every man must have a father, real, putative, or adoptive. Thus Christ was the heir of the promises made to David. (Rev. W. A. Rice.)

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