Matthew 1:16 names Joseph's father as Jacob, son of Matthan, in a Davidic line running through Solomon. Luke 3:23-24 names Joseph's father as Heli, son of Matthat, in a Davidic line running through Nathan. Both genealogies claim to trace Jesus' paternal lineage, and they disagree on the most basic fact — his grandfather's name — along with most of the names between David and Joseph.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
Jacob
Here is the genealogy from the gospel of Matthew: (Matthew starts with David and ends with Jesus.)
David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;
And Solomon begat Roboam;
and Roboam begat Abia;
and Abia begat Asa;
And Asa begat Josaphat;
and Josaphat begat Joram;
and Joram begat Ozias;
And Ozias begat Joatham;
and Joatham begat Achaz;
and Achaz begat Ezekias;
And Ezekias begat Manasses;
and Manasses begat Amon;
and Amon begat Josias;
And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:
And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel;
and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;
And Zorobabel begat Abiud;
and Abiud begat Eliakim;
and Eliakim begat Azor;
And Azor begat Sadoc;
and Sadoc begat Achim;
and Achim begat Eliud;
And Eliud begat Eleazar;
and Eleazar begat Matthan;
and Matthan begat Jacob;
And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
6Jesse became the father of King David. David became the father of Solomon by her who had been Uriah’s wife.7Solomon became the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam became the father of Abijah. Abijah became the father of Asa.8Asa became the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat became the father of Joram. Joram became the father of Uzziah.9Uzziah became the father of Jotham. Jotham became the father of Ahaz. Ahaz became the father of Hezekiah.10Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh. Manasseh became the father of Amon. Amon became the father of Josiah.11Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon.12After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel.13Zerubbabel became the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim. Eliakim became the father of Azor.14Azor became the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim. Achim became the father of Eliud.15Eliud became the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan. Matthan became the father of Jacob.16Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
And here is the (supposedly same, but actually completely different) genealogy from Luke. (Luke starts with Jesus and goes back to David.)
And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Heli,
Which was the son of Matthat,
which was the son of Levi,
which was the son of Melchi,
which was the son of Janna,
which was the son of Joseph,
Which was the son of Mattathias,
which was the son of Amos,
which was the son of Naum,
which was the son of Esli,
which was the son of Nagge,
Which was the son of Maath,
which was the son of Mattathias,
which was the son of Semei,
which was the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Juda,
Which was the son of Joanna,
which was the son of Rhesa,
which was the son of Zorobabel,
which was the son of Salathiel,
which was the son of Neri,
Which was the son of Melchi,
which was the son of Addi,
which was the son of Cosam,
which was the son of Elmodam,
which was the son of Er,
Which was the son of Jose,
which was the son of Eliezer,
which was the son of Jorim,
which was the son of Matthat,
which was the son of Levi,
Which was the son of Simeon,
which was the son of Juda,
which was the son of Joseph,
which was the son of Jonan,
which was the son of Eliakim,
Which was the son of Melea,
which was the son of Menan,
which was the son of Mattatha,
which was the son of Nathan,
which was the son of David.
23Jesus himself, when he began to teach, was about thirty years old, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli,24the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,25the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,26the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Joseph, the son of Judah,27the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,28the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmodam, the son of Er,29the son of Jose, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,30the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonan, the son of Eliakim,31the son of Melea, the son of Menan, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23 name two different men as the father of the same Joseph. Matthew: "and Matthan begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary." Luke: Jesus was "as was supposed the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli." The divergence is not a single name but a near-total one: between David and Joseph the two lists share almost no figures, because Matthew descends through Solomon and the royal Judahite kings while Luke ascends through Nathan, a different son of David (2 Samuel 5:14). They briefly appear to touch at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27), but even there the surrounding names differ — Matthew's Zerubbabel begets Abiud, Luke's begets Rhesa — and the figures are probably homonyms rather than the same post-exilic pair. This is a structural divergence, not a copyist's slip; the textual tradition (NA28) shows no variant that would reconcile the two grandfathers.
The oldest harmonization is the levirate hypothesis preserved by Eusebius from Julius Africanus (early third century, Ecclesiastical History 1.7). On this view Joseph had a biological father and a legal father because of a levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10): one of Matthan/Matthat died childless, his brother raised up seed in his name, so Joseph could legitimately be reckoned son of both Jacob and Heli. Stated in its strongest form, Africanus has Estha married successively to two half-brothers, Matthan (Solomonic line) and Melchi (Nathanic line), producing Jacob and Heli as uterine half-brothers; Heli dies childless, Jacob performs the levirate duty, and Joseph is Jacob's biological but Heli's legal son. The fatal weakness is that this device reconciles only the single generation immediately above Joseph. It does nothing for the forty-odd generations back to David, where the two lists run on entirely separate tracks. Levirate marriage requires the two husbands to share a father, so the lines should converge at that point; Matthew and Luke never converge between David and Joseph. To salvage the scheme one must posit a stacked sequence of levirate marriages down the whole genealogy — the textbook shape of an ad hoc rationalization.
The second classic move, revived by Gleason Archer and many popular apologists, is that Luke gives Mary's line: Heli was Mary's father, and Luke names Joseph only as the conventional male head. The Greek does not bear this. Luke 3:23 reads tou Iōsēph tou Ēli — "of Joseph, of Heli" — with the same genitive construction (tou + name) running unbroken through the entire list. To make Heli Mary's father one must read the construction differently for this one link than for all the others, and supply a "son-in-law" sense the text never states. Luke has already framed the list around Joseph ("as was supposed the son of Joseph"), and Luke elsewhere shows no interest in tracing Mary's ancestry. The Marian reading is not attested before the Renaissance and arose precisely to solve this problem.
The critical consensus, set out by Raymond Brown in The Birth of the Messiah and supported by Davies-Allison and Fitzmyer, is that the two genealogies are independent theological constructions rather than competing archival records. No one in first-century Galilee possessed documented descent from David spanning a millennium for an artisan's family; such records did not exist, and post-exilic genealogical data is fragmentary even for priestly lines. Matthew builds a royal, Solomonic, throne-of-David genealogy to present Jesus as legitimate Davidic king; Luke runs the line back past David through Adam to God to present Jesus as the universal son of God and savior of all humanity. Each list serves its evangelist's Christology and was never designed to dovetail with the other.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction.
Sources for this reading
Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah, updated ed. (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1993) pp. 57-95with the levirate-marriage discussion at pp. 503-504, on Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23Matthew 1:16, Luke 3:23
W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988) pp. 165-188on Matthew 1:1-17Matthew 1:1-17
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (AB 28; Garden City: Doubleday, 1981) pp. 488-498on Luke 3:23-38Luke 3:23-38
Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas (New York: HarperOne, 2007) pp. 95-108
Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982) pp. 316-318on the Marian-genealogy harmonization
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 1.7, preserving the letter of Julius Africanus on the levirate harmonization of the two genealogies
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
Matthew 1:16 and Luke 3:23 name two different men as the father of the same Joseph. Matthew: "and Matthan begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary." Luke: Jesus was "as was supposed the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli." The divergence is not a single name but a near-total one: between David and Joseph the two lists share almost no figures, because Matthew descends through Solomon and the royal Judahite kings while Luke ascends through Nathan, a different son of David (2 Samuel 5:14). They briefly appear to touch at Shealtiel and Zerubbabel (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27), but even there the surrounding names differ — Matthew's Zerubbabel begets Abiud, Luke's begets Rhesa — and the figures are probably homonyms rather than the same post-exilic pair. This is a structural divergence, not a copyist's slip; the textual tradition (NA28) shows no variant that would reconcile the two grandfathers.
The oldest harmonization is the levirate hypothesis preserved by Eusebius from Julius Africanus (early third century, Ecclesiastical History 1.7). On this view Joseph had a biological father and a legal father because of a levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10): one of Matthan/Matthat died childless, his brother raised up seed in his name, so Joseph could legitimately be reckoned son of both Jacob and Heli. Stated in its strongest form, Africanus has Estha married successively to two half-brothers, Matthan (Solomonic line) and Melchi (Nathanic line), producing Jacob and Heli as uterine half-brothers; Heli dies childless, Jacob performs the levirate duty, and Joseph is Jacob's biological but Heli's legal son. The fatal weakness is that this device reconciles only the single generation immediately above Joseph. It does nothing for the forty-odd generations back to David, where the two lists run on entirely separate tracks. Levirate marriage requires the two husbands to share a father, so the lines should converge at that point; Matthew and Luke never converge between David and Joseph. To salvage the scheme one must posit a stacked sequence of levirate marriages down the whole genealogy — the textbook shape of an ad hoc rationalization.
The second classic move, revived by Gleason Archer and many popular apologists, is that Luke gives Mary's line: Heli was Mary's father, and Luke names Joseph only as the conventional male head. The Greek does not bear this. Luke 3:23 reads tou Iōsēph tou Ēli — "of Joseph, of Heli" — with the same genitive construction (tou + name) running unbroken through the entire list. To make Heli Mary's father one must read the construction differently for this one link than for all the others, and supply a "son-in-law" sense the text never states. Luke has already framed the list around Joseph ("as was supposed the son of Joseph"), and Luke elsewhere shows no interest in tracing Mary's ancestry. The Marian reading is not attested before the Renaissance and arose precisely to solve this problem.
The critical consensus, set out by Raymond Brown in The Birth of the Messiah and supported by Davies-Allison and Fitzmyer, is that the two genealogies are independent theological constructions rather than competing archival records. No one in first-century Galilee possessed documented descent from David spanning a millennium for an artisan's family; such records did not exist, and post-exilic genealogical data is fragmentary even for priestly lines. Matthew builds a royal, Solomonic, throne-of-David genealogy to present Jesus as legitimate Davidic king; Luke runs the line back past David through Adam to God to present Jesus as the universal son of God and savior of all humanity. Each list serves its evangelist's Christology and was never designed to dovetail with the other.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction.
Sources for this reading