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Matthew 1:8


Matthew 1:8 is the eighth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the legal father of Jesus, is listed.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

The World English Bible translates the passage as:

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 1:8.

The first part of this verse coincides with the list of the Kings of Judah that is present in a number of other parts of the Bible. According to William F. Albright, Asa of Judah ruled from 913 BC to 873 BC. His son Jehoshaphat ruled from 873 BC to 849 BC. His son Jehoram ruled from Jehoshaphat's death until 842 BC. However the other lists have Jehoram's son being Ahaziah while Uzziah is a monarch who comes several generations later.

This means that Matthew's genealogy skips Ahaziah, Athaliah, Jehoash, and Amaziah. Those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible contend that the genealogy was never meant to be complete and the author of Matthew deliberately dropped those who were not needed from the list. Simply dropping unnecessary figures from genealogies was a common practice, and this is also done in several points in the Old Testament. One theory is that they were dropped because of their wickedness, but the even more unpleasant Manasseh is left in the list. All four were also murdered, but so was Amon, who also remains in place. Their reigns were also relatively short, but again there are other monarchs with shorter reigns included. Another theory says that names were omitted to achieve multiples of seven.


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