In the gospel of Matthew we are told that Christ was 'the son of David'. Then again we are told that Christ was not the son of David, but rather that Christ was the literal son of God, and was born of a virgin, points made in both the story of the virgin birth of Christ, and then again in a parable denying that Christ was the son of David later in the manuscript. For their own ideological reasons, elements of the Matthew community required a ‘virgin birth', or better said, for their own reasons they required God as the Father of Joshua (literally) and a single line from Isaiah was the only prophecy they could find to twist and take out of context in the Greek Septuagint, and the fact that Mary then became a virgin in the process was actually inconsequential. You see, what was first and foremost in their minds was that God be the Father of Joshua, not that Joshua have a ‘virgin birth.'

      Now as I related in previous sections, the Matthew gospel is complex, containing both reform and reaction, and certain elements of that Matthew community had this terrible character flaw in that they were under the influence of Torah ‘Holy War' ideology and the Torah racism that went with this particular strand of tradition, and, as I pointed out, this personality characteristic was entirely unique to them, and a product of their ideological viewpoint, not to mention the result of standing outside the radical traditions of the prophets and the early church as well.

      We are told that Mary and her cousin Elizabeth were from the tribe of Levi, and were Levites (not then, children of David, which would have required them to be from the tribe of Judah). Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron the Levite, and Mary, the mother of Joshua was her cousin.

"In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah; and he had a wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth ... And behold, your (Mary's) cousin Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren." (Luke 1:5, 1:36)

      Now in the Book of Romans, Paul tells us that Joshua was descended from David, of the tribe of Judah, and from the gospel accounts we know that Joseph, Joshua's father, was from the tribe of Judah, as well as being a direct descendant of King David. (If the Holy Ghost was Joshua's father, then Joshua could not have descended from King David, since Mary was a Levite.) Paul also states that Joshua was a descendant of King David, ‘according to the flesh' which indicates that Joseph was in fact his father. He then declares that Joshua was declared Son of God by his resurrection from the dead.

"The gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Joshua Messiah our Lord." (Romans 1:3)

" Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my gospel." (2 Timothy 2:8)

      In speaking of Joshua as being ‘descended from David, according to the flesh' but being ‘declared Son of God in power' Paul is referring back to the Psalms.

"I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill." I will tell of the decree of YAHWEH: He said to me, "You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession." (Psalm 1:6)

      So then, here we see that it was common thought in the early church that Joshua was ‘descended from David, according to the flesh.' And, in accord with streams of thought in the psalms, on the day of his rising from the dead he was taken in as God's son. Now we have already seen how isolated this one Matthew community was in some of their viewpoints in the gospel. It turns out, that once again, the Matthew gospel is found disagreeing with everybody else in the early church. Joshua was not the Son of David according to Matthew.

""What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?" They said to him, "The son of David." He said to them, "How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘YAHWEH said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I put thy enemies under thy feet'? If David thus calls him Lord, how is he his son?" And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did any one dare to ask him any more questions." (Matthew 22:42)

      At this point I should note that the denial of David is found in Luke's gospel, but this is no surprise, since Luke practices 'harmonization' and also picked up on the Matthew communities story of non-Davidic origins and the virgin birth. Incongruously, this statement is also found in Mark's gospel, thus causing Mark to also disagree with Paul and the early church (note that the gospels accounts with all their internal inconsistencies and contradictions were not written by apostles, or eye witnesses, but were later compositions by churches. The letters of Paul are the earliest documents the church possesses.) Mark has no reason to deny David. There is no mention of a virgin birth in Mark's gospel, and Mark does not regard Joshua as a god, (indeed Joshua was offended to be called good, and would have been more offended to be called 'God'.) In Mark's gospel, Joshua was originally referred to as 'son of man', a term borrowed from the book of Daniel. In the opening line of Mark's gospel we read that this is 'the beginning of the story of Joshua Messiah, the son of God.' The phrase 'the son of God' is not present in the earliest manuscripts and was added later by the church to harmonize Mark's 'godless' account with later developments in church theology, not to mention later developments in church gospels. Similarly the denial of David has no purpose in Mark's gospel, and is unique to Matthew's gospel in its origins, something I will clarify. The denial of David was a later interpolation into Mark's gospel.

      So then, in their own inimitable way, the Matthew community finds some scripture quote, as they did in using Isaiah, this time from the psalms, (and assumes that all psalms were written by David, by the way) and then ‘proves' that Paul and everybody else in the early church was wrong and that Joshua certainly could not be the Son of David. Now we must ask why it is so important and so peculiar to this community of Matthew that Joshua not be the son of David, so important, in fact, that they will twist Isaiah and fish for other quotes to prove that this just wasn't the case. Follow the link below to the next page to find out....