It’s remarkable to think that both Matthew and Luke independently inserted a genealogy of Joseph into the Jesus tradition.  What seems more likely is that Matthew introduced the genealogy and Luke reworked it to fit his own non-atonement theology.

The genealogy of Jesus’ adoptive father Joseph in Matthew explains Jesus getting killed but still being victorious in the age to come.  Is there a curse on one of the members of Matthew’s genealogy of Joseph that says their heir will never sit on the throne of David?

There is a well-known curse on Jeconiah (also called Jehoiachin or Coniah), who appears in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.

In Matthew 1:11–12, the genealogy lists: “Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel…” (continuing the line down to Joseph).

The curse is recorded in Jeremiah 22:24–30. God says of Coniah (Jeconiah):“As I live, declares the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off… Write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Judah.” (Jeremiah 22:24, 30,).

Jeconiah was a short-reigned king of Judah (about three months in 597 BC) who was taken into Babylonian exile. The prophecy declares that none of his descendants would prosper by sitting on David’s throne or ruling in Judah. He did have sons (listed in 1 Chronicles 3:17–18), but none of them (or later descendants in that line) reigned as king in Judah after the exile.

This has long been discussed in relation to Jesus’ claim to the Davidic throne, since Matthew traces the royal line through Solomon and the kings (including Jeconiah) to Joseph.

Jesus’ virgin birth means He is Joseph’s legal adopted heir (receiving the royal claim) but not his biological descendant, so He does not fully inherit the blood curse.  Jesus dies without attaining the throne but will attain it in the age to come.

Regarding adoption, the apostle Paul teaches that people are heirs (or children/seed) of Abraham through faith, not merely through physical/Jewish birth or descent.

Key passages include:

Galatians 3:7: “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” Paul continues that those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, and that “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29).

Romans 4: Paul presents Abraham as the father of all who believe—both the circumcised (Jews) and the uncircumcised (Gentiles)—because Abraham was justified by faith before he was circumcised. The promise comes “through the righteousness of faith” so that it may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s descendants who share his faith (Romans 4:11–16).

Romans 9:6–8: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring… It is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.”

Paul does not deny that ethnic Jews are physical descendants of Abraham. He argues that true status as Abraham’s heirs—those who inherit the promises—depends on sharing Abraham’s faith (now specifically faith in Christ), which is open to both Jews and Gentiles. Physical descent alone is insufficient.

Ehrman notes an adopted son was often more favored than a literal son in the ancient world because the adopted son was chosen, like how Julius Caesar adopted Augustus.  Mark could be read that Jesus being adopted by God at the baptism positions him as even greater than Augustus.  Price and Helms note the syncretic flavor of Mark is at once evident from his reproduction of a piece of Augustan imperial propaganda and his setting it beside a tailored scripture quote. “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God” closely matches the formula found on a monument erected by the Provincial Assembly in Asia Minor (1st century BCE): “Whereas… Providence… has… brought our life to the peak of perfection in giving us Augustus Caesar… who, being sent to us and to our descendants as a savior…, and whereas… the birthday of the god has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (euaggelion) concerning him, let all reckon a new era beginning from the date of his birth.”

That is a summary of a well-known line of interpretation in New Testament scholarship, particularly associated with Bart Ehrman and especially Michael Peppard (The Son of God in the Roman World, 2011).

Adopted sons in the Roman world

In elite Roman society, adoption (often of an adult) was a deliberate, high-status legal act used to secure a capable heir and transfer power, name, and property. An adopted son was chosen, which could make him more favored than a biological son. The classic example is Julius Caesar’s adoption of Octavian (later Augustus). Caesar had a biological son (Caesarion, with Cleopatra), but Octavian, as the adopted heir, inherited the name, status, and eventually the empire, becoming divi filius (“son of the deified one”). Biological descent alone did not automatically confer the same political legitimacy.

Scholars such as Peppard (and Ehrman following similar reasoning) argue that reading Mark’s baptism scene against this cultural background turns the heavenly voice (“You are my beloved Son…”) into something like an adoption formula. In that reading, God chooses Jesus, elevating him to divine sonship in a way that would have carried high prestige in a Roman context—potentially positioning Jesus as greater than the emperor himself (a “counter-emperor”).

The Priene inscription parallel

The opening of Mark is frequently compared to the Priene Calendar Inscription (c. 9 BCE), an official decree from the Provincial Assembly of Asia Minor honoring Augustus. A key portion reads roughly:“…the birthday of the god [Augustus] has been for the whole world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] concerning him…”

It also calls Augustus a savior sent by Providence. Mark 1:1 (“The beginning of the gospel [euangelion] of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”) uses strikingly similar language and structure. Many scholars see this as deliberate: Mark appropriates the language of imperial propaganda and reassigns it to Jesus, creating a syncretic or competitive claim.

This Roman-imperial lens is a legitimate and influential way to read Mark. It does not require denying the Jewish scriptural allusions in the baptism scene (Psalm 2, Isaiah 42, etc.), but it highlights how Mark’s language could simultaneously resonate with both Jewish messianic expectations and Roman political ideology. Whether Mark intended a full adoptionist Christology in the later theological sense remains debated, but the cultural parallel with Augustus and the elevated status of adoption in the Roman world is historically well-grounded.

Luke’s genealogy avoids the Jeconiah curse by tracing a completely different line of descent from David—through Nathan rather than Solomon—and therefore does not include Jeconiah at all.  Bart Ehrman and many critical scholars note that both Matthew 1 and Luke 3 present genealogies of Joseph (not Mary). Luke 3:23 explicitly frames it as “the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli…,” and Jewish genealogies were customarily traced through the male line. Matthew and Luke disagree on many names (including Joseph’s father: Jacob in Matthew vs. Heli in Luke) and take different routes after David.

Matthew’s line (the royal succession): David → Solomon → the kings of Judah → … → Jeconiah → Shealtiel → Zerubbabel → … → Joseph. This includes the cursed king from Jeremiah 22:30 (“none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David”).

Luke’s line: David → Nathan → … → Neri → Shealtiel → Zerubbabel → … → Heli → Joseph. Nathan was another son of David (2 Samuel 5:14; 1 Chronicles 3:5). Luke never mentions Solomon’s royal line or Jeconiah. Even the shared names Shealtiel and Zerubbabel appear in a different context (Shealtiel’s father is Neri, not Jeconiah).

If both genealogies belong to Joseph, Luke simply records (or constructs) a non-royal branch of David’s descendants that bypasses the Solomonic kings and the curse entirely. Scholars who take this view often attribute the discrepancies to different purposes (e.g., one more “official/legal,” the other more biological or traditional), levirate marriage customs, or the evangelists drawing on independent traditions. The virgin-birth narratives in both Gospels already create tension with any bloodline-through-Joseph claim, which Ehrman and others highlight as an internal difficulty.

In short, under the “both are Joseph’s genealogies” reading, Luke avoids the curse simply by not going through the cursed ancestor. Why did Luke go back to Adam?

The curse on Jeconiah (Coniah/Jehoiachin) in Jeremiah 22:24–30 is because: He “did evil in the eyes of the Lord,” following the pattern of his father Jehoiakim (2 Kings 24:8–9; 2 Chronicles 36:9).  The broader context of Jeremiah 22 condemns the royal house for injustice, oppression of the poor, building palaces through unpaid forced labor, shedding innocent blood, greed, and refusing to listen to God’s word through the prophets.  Idolatry and breaking the covenant with Yahweh are also part of the overall indictment against the final kings of Judah that led to the Babylonian exile.

The specific oracle against Coniah focuses on his removal from power, exile to Babylon, and the dynastic sentence that none of his offspring would sit on David’s throne again. It uses the imagery of tearing off a signet ring and recording him as “childless” in the royal sense. Jeremiah elsewhere criticizes Judah’s sacrifices as unacceptable because of the people’s broader sins (e.g., Jeremiah 6:20; 7:21–26; 14:11–12), and earlier kings were condemned for child sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom (Jeremiah 7:31; 19:4–5).

The Old Testament repeatedly states that God prefers a contrite (broken, repentant, humble) heart, obedience, justice, and steadfast love over mere ritual sacrifices. Matthew highlights Jesus as a sacrifice while Luke highlights Jesus as a catalyst for repentance and forgiveness.

Key passages include:

Psalm 51:16–17 (David’s prayer of repentance after his sin with Bathsheba):

“For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Hosea 6:6:

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

1 Samuel 15:22 (Samuel to King Saul):

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”

Similar themes appear in Isaiah 1:11–17 (God rejects sacrifices when the heart is full of injustice), Micah 6:6–8 (what the Lord requires is justice, kindness, and humility), Amos 5:21–24, Psalm 40:6, and Isaiah 57:15 and 66:2 (God dwells with the contrite and humble).  They emphasize that external rituals without a sincere, obedient, and repentant heart are worthless or even offensive to God.  God can’t forgive you if you’re not sorry and transformed because you’ll just keep on sinning.

Luke pushes the genealogy back past the origin of sacrifices of Cain and Abel, to Adam and the very will of God. 

Ehrman notes the major difference in Luke’s Gospel is that Luke doesn’t have atonement theology.  The death of sinless Jesus is meant to open the world’s eyes to how corrupt they’d become and so inspire repentance.

Ehrman argues that a major difference between Luke and Mark (and also Paul) is that Luke does not present Jesus’ death as an atoning sacrifice. In Mark, Jesus’ death has clear sacrificial/atoning significance (e.g., Mark 10:45: the Son of Man came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; the Last Supper language about blood “poured out for many”).

Luke, when using Mark as a source, systematically removes or reworks those references. In Luke’s earliest recoverable text, the explicit “for you” / sacrificial language at the Last Supper is absent or secondary (some scholars, including Ehrman, regard the longer reading in Luke 22:19–20 as a later scribal addition that aligns Luke more closely with Mark/Matthew).

Instead, Luke portrays Jesus’ death primarily as the unjust execution of an innocent, righteous man and prophet. Realizing that humanity (or “the world”) has killed God’s sinless one exposes how corrupt people have become (like with the death of Socrates). This recognition is meant to lead to repentance. God then forgives sins on the basis of that repentance (a theme repeated throughout Luke and especially the speeches in Acts).  In short, for Luke (on Ehrman’s reading), the death itself does not pay a penalty or atone; it serves as the decisive occasion that opens people’s eyes to their guilt and moves them to turn back to God. The penitential psalms and story of Jonah show if there is one thing Good can and does do, if forgive.

In the Old Testament, the formal Israelite sacrificial system originates with the instructions God gave through Moses at Mount Sinai, primarily recorded in Exodus and Leviticus. While individual acts of sacrifice go back to the earliest generations in Genesis with Cain and Abel, the organized sacrificial system that defined Israelite worship is presented as originating with the Mosaic covenant at Sinai.

Matthew’s genealogy begins with Abraham.  Do Some Jewish traditions attribute the willingness of Isaac to be sacrificed as addressing future Israel’s sin?  Certain classical and rabbinic Jewish traditions (perhaps reflecting earlier traditions)—particularly within the Midrash and liturgical poetry (Piyyutim)—do attribute atoning or mediating significance to the binding of Isaac (the Akedah), connecting his and Abraham’s willingness to the forgiveness of future sins committed by the people of Israel.

The tradition of interpreting Isaac’s willingness to be sacrificed as an act of atonement for future Israel dates back at least to the late Second Temple period (1st century BCE to 1st century CE).Scholars debate the exact decades this theology solidified, but the evolution of the tradition can be tracked across distinct historical stages:

Late Second Temple Period (1st Century BCE – 1st Century CE)

The Shift to Isaac’s Autonomy: In the original text of Genesis 22, Isaac is a passive child. However, during the era of Roman occupation and Maccabean martyrdom, Jewish texts began reframing Isaac as a consenting adult who actively volunteered to be sacrificed.

Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum): Written around the 1st century CE, this text explicitly has Isaac say to Abraham that he is willing to be offered so that he can be a pleasing sacrifice to God.

4 Maccabees: Composed around the middle of the 1st century CE, this text links the deaths of Jewish martyrs directly to Isaac. It suggests that the blood of righteous martyrs atones for Israel’s sins, explicitly drawing on Isaac as the ultimate prototype of this redemptive self-sacrifice.

2. Early Rabbinic Era & The Dead Sea Scrolls (1st – 2nd Century CE)

The Qumran Fragments: Discoveries like the Dead Sea Scroll text 4Q225 (Pseudo-Jubilees) indicate that early Jewish sectarian communities were already formulating a complex cosmic trial surrounding the Akedah, setting the stage for its later expiatory and redemptive role for Israel.

The Tannaitic Midrashim: By the early 2nd century CE, earliest rabbinic commentaries began stating that whenever God sees the “blood” or “ashes” of Isaac, He forgives Israel’s transgressions.3. The Great Polemical Parallel (2nd – 4th Century CE)

There is a famous scholarly debate (popularized by historians like Geza Vermes) regarding whether the Akedah’s atoning theology predates or reacted to Christianity.

Most contemporary historians conclude that the raw elements—Isaac’s willing submission and its salvific value—were already part of the pre-Christian Jewish “theological smorgasbord.”

However, as early Christianity adopted this imagery to explain Jesus’s crucifixion (viewing Jesus as the “true Isaac”), Rabbinic Judaism heavily expanded and codified its own Akedah theology. This was done to assert that Israel already possessed an eternal source of atonement through the merits of their patriarchs, independent of any external sacrifice

But basically, what we seem to have in Mark is the adoption of Jesus by God at the baptism to show he is greater than Augustus who was adopted by Julius Caesar.  In Matthew, Jesus is adopted into Joseph’s bloodline highlighting the inception of that tradition with the hints of an atoning willingness of Issac and culminating in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.  Jesus is thus connected to Joseph’s cursed bloodline in Matthew but while he dies before gaining the crown the virgin birth allows him to escape the curse and take the throne in the age to come.  Luke, by contrast pushes the genealogy behind the sacrifices of Cain and Abel all the way to Adam and ultimately God’s will for mankind to highlight a non-atonement theology of repentance and forgiveness that runs through the bible in tension with the sacrifice model.  This was typified in the Old Testament with the idea that God wanted a contrite heart, not sacrifice.