So far, we have considered a Mary solution and a Joseph solution which have been proposed throughout the millennia. Another ancient argument dates to Africanus, who argues for a levirate law situation. A different article on Levirate Law can go into more detail on this subject. The basic Law states that if a man dies before he has children, his next eligible brother shall marry his widow and raise at least one child in the first brother’s name. This child would then be counted as the son of the first brother, not as the second brother’s. This is how the argument is applied to Jesus’ genealogy: if Heli and Jacob were brothers, and one died, the one left then brought up Joseph in the other’s name. It would be impossible to identify which brother was the actual father. The predominant view is that Luke traces the bloodline (actual father) while Matthew uses the inherited name (legal father). The same thought or similar thoughts could be said of the second set of names during the days of the kings. Jeconiah may have faced a time where he needed to bring up children in the name of his next of kin: Neri. Conversely, Jeconiah may have died “childless” (no actual blood children) and Neri raised up Sheiltiel with the royal name.

The advantage to this view (which is really a branch of the Joseph solution) is that where few of the other solutions have biblical precedent, this has both a law and a NT discussion to back up its credibility as an option.[1] It is a version of the legal vs. literal line and allows for both lines. The weakness of this argument is that it is factually misapplied. The Levirate law states that those who are legally obligated to this task must be brothers of the same house. If Heli and Jacob were of the same father (as opposed to half brothers through the mother) then the lines would be the same. If they were not of the same house and lineage and were operating by principle only, then the legality would be different. One of the other views must be taken past this single generation to adequately apply the Levirate Law. Beyond this, the same disadvantages of the other Joseph solutions may apply.

Some argue on a separate plane altogether. A popular trend today challenges the historicity of the genealogies. They want to show that genealogies were rarely intended to be biologically accurate. They say that ancient cultures did not always intend to record biological connections, therefore they could choose whomever they desired to pass the name through. This argument is based on research of ancient oral cultures. Much of the genealogical tradition is based on memory aid. This could significantly impact numbers of generations, sets of names, etc. Much of the purpose of those genealogies was to establish social connections with the community. Ancient society was more dependent on social interactions and neighborly connections. Genealogies may have been used in some societies to: establish links to other families that one was familiar with, establish links to a new family for the purpose of opening a new relationship, or/and confirm legitimacy and rights for heritage. Historians believe that these cultures may accomplish their goals by many means. One mean may be association of contacts rather than blood relation. One family who was closely associated with another could be grouped by genealogy. By these assumptions they would rather think that the genealogies of Matthew and Luke are not intending to be a strict biological chain anyway.

The strength of this argument is that it makes any discrepancy of accounts a non-issue, since there could be near infinite ways of recording the line. It is an extended version of the royal title argument, just applied to both genealogies and to social connection instead of kingship. Its weakness, like the previous argument, lacks historical proof. As covered in the Historicity article, in order to believe that the historical data is not literal, there must be an alternative credible historical source. Since there is no indication in the text that these lines are figurative, one must have another source to indicate this. Even if most ancient genealogies were figurative, we must show by text how this impacts the genealogies of scripture and bypasses Luke’s intent as preserving ‘the exact truth’ of Jesus. Additionally, this view does not take the Jewish culture into account, nor the expectations of their messiah. The Jewish culture was fiercely nationalistic, and valued bloodline religiously. Other cultures may have valued this to certain levels, but the scriptures clearly indicate that heritage and genealogy was a focal point of culture and religion. (see sonship and purpose articles). To apply a historicity argument nullifies much of the truth on which Christianity is based. It does not fit well with any context of the passages.