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Mary The Mother of Jesus, Who Was She?
Part 2
Click here for Part 1
King Jesus by Robert Graves
Up to this point, the argument has been traditional. One may or may not agree with the authenticity of a fact or the conclusion drawn therefrom, however, there is nothing new presented to the debate on the life of Jesus. Here is where things go unconventional.
A number of years ago, I read the book King Jesus by Robert Graves. Although styled as historical fiction, Graves posited that Jesus was the son of Antipater, the eldest son of Herod the Great by Doris (his first wife), with his mother Mary (Mariamne) being the daughter of Antigonus, the last Hasmonean king. Thus, per Graves, Jesus had a claim to the Jewish throne in a Roman legal sense as being a legitimate son of Herod's eldest son and in a Jewish sense through his mother who was the daughter of the last Hasmonean king. An interesting theory but where is the evidence? Unfortunately, Graves states in the epilogue that he declines to give the sources for each historical point as it would take too much work to write it all down. What a turd. Without the evidence, Graves' work is just a piece of bad fiction.
Over the years, my mind occasionally returned to the issue of proof for the Graves theory. Does evidence really exist for the proposition that Jesus is the son of Antipater and Mary the Hasmonean princess? As stated in Part 1, the Bible gives us little information on Mary's background and Antipater is not mentioned at all. For information on Antipater, one must go to Josephus.
Antipater
Do we know the identity of the wives of Antipater (son of Herod)? The only source, to my knowledge, would be Josephus. Sure enough there are at least two wives of Antipater listed by Josephus: (a) his 1/2 brother Aristobulus' daughter (Antiquities, Book XVII, Chapter 1) and (b) "the daughter of Antigonus, who was the last king of the Jews before Herod" (Antiquities, Book XVII, Chapter 5). Neither wife is identified by name. Poor Antipater, his father Herod killed the fathers of both his wives. All joking aside, I nearly fell out of my chair upon the discovery that Antipater was indeed married to a daughter of Antigonus. Why? Antigonus was the mortal enemy of Herod. Antipater was the crown prince. Certainly Herod could not have been pleased that his chosen successor had made the daughter of his mortal enemy his principal wife. FN7 This fact adds context to Herod's eventual execution of Antipater.
But I digress. So we know from Josephus that Antipater had a wife who was not only an Hasmonean princess but the daughter of Antigonus. As stated in Part 1 of this article, we also are operating under the reasoned assumption that Luke 3 contains the genealogy of Mary the mother of Jesus. This brings us to the 64,000 dollar question, does Luke 3 contain the names of Hasmonean kings?
Mary Daughter of Antigonus
Below in column 1 are the first 7 ancestors from the Luke 3 list (in reverse chronological order). Column 2 lists Antigonus and his ancestors. See Hasmonean family tree.
For now, let's set aside Heli (given as father of Mary in Luke 3). We know that King Antigonus also used the name "Mattatayah". During his dual rein as king and high priest, he had coins minted inscribed with the words: "Mattatayah High Priest". Link and Link. Thus, Mattatayah Antigonus matches up nicely with "Matthat" found in Luke 3. Note: Mattatayah is the Hebrew form of Mattathias.
After Matthat, the modern version of Luke lists Levi, Melchi, and Jannai. Levi was the patriarch of the Jewish priesthood. Thus, this name plays into the theory that Jesus presented himself as the Messiah of Levi and, I submit, was unlikely to have been used by anyone outside of the Jewish priesthood during the Second Temple period as it was a very rare Jewish name in this period. The term Levite means priest. As previously stated, melchi is the Hebrew word for king. I am not aware of another instance where the word melchi was used as a Jewish name by a historical figure in the Second Temple period. The only Jewish kings known to history in the time period corresponding to the name Melchi on Luke's list (i.e., four generations or 80 plus years before Jesus) were the Hasmoneans. Jannai is a rare Jewish name. The only historical figures I uncovered with the name were Hasmonean king Alexander Jannai (103 BCE - 76 BCE) and a Rabbi Jannai from Sepphoris who lived in the second to third centuries CE (i.e., after the destruction of the Second Temple). The Luke list names Jannai's son and grandson, respectively, as king (Melchi) and priest (Levi). Only the Hasmoneans were both priests and kings. I submit the name Jannai found in the ancestor list of Luke undoubtedly refers to Hasmonean king Alexander Jannai.
One additional point exists worthy of mention concerning the name found after Heli on the Luke list. The Gospel of Luke, in the form we now have it, lists the ancestors of Jesus as Joseph, the son of Heli, son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, et cetera. Eusebius (263 - 339 CE) was the Bishop of Caesarea in Samaria and author of the earliest history of the Roman Catholic Church now existent, a work called Ecclesiastical History. In this history, Eusebius quotes extensively from a letter by early church father Julius Africanus (160 - 240 CE). Eusebius' quotation of Africanus is the only surviving fragment we have from this work of Africanus which attempted to explain why Luke and Matthew have different genealogy lists. Therein, Julius Africanus quotes Luke as follows: "Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Melchi." Remember the term "Melchi" means king. Writing at most two centuries after the time of Jesus Christ, Africanus named the individual in the position of Matthat as Melchi. As the ancestor lists of Luke and Matthew were the primary subject matter of Africanus' letter and, given the extensive nature of the analysis found in the letter, I do not believe the positioning of the name Melchi by Africanus was an accident. The stronger conclusion is that an early version of Luke in the possession of Julius Africanus listed "Melchi" (king) in the position of Matthat on the Jesus genealogy. My reasoned inference from these facts is that the names Melchi and Matthat apply to the same individual. Melchi Matthat from Luke 3 was King Mattatayah Antigonus, the last Hasmonean ruler executed by Marc Antony in 37 BCE.
Jesus Says He Is NOT A Son of David
This line of reasoning with a bit of conundrum. Jesus officially has no father (other than God himself), therefore, his biologic ancestry should flow from Mary alone. Isn't the Messiah supposed to be a descendant of King David? Is not every Christian child taught that in Bible class? Yes but let us careful examine the words of Jesus found in the NT that appear to rebuke the suggestion that he is a son of David, see Matthew 22:41-45, Mark 12:35-37, and Luke 20:41-44. Jesus relies upon Psalm 110 in these parallel passages. All three Gospels record the words in nearly identical fashion. Here is Luke's formulation.
Then Jesus said to them, "How is it that they say the Christ is the Son of David? David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' David calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"
Obviously, Jesus refers to himself in the third person as "the Christ". The confusion in this passage centers upon reference to two different lords. The Book of Psalms is a collection of wisdom sayings allegedly from the mouth of King David. Psalm 110 starts with, "The Lord says to my Lord." The initial "Lord" is clearly God. Who then is the second lord? It's not David; he's narrating and addresses the individual as "my Lord". The salient point made by Jesus in quoting Psalm 110 is that
David is NOT the second lord but is subservient to this individual. Who then is this person?
There is only one logical conclusion to be drawn from reading the quoted language from Luke together with Psalm 110--Jesus identifies the second lord in Psalm 110 as the Christ or Messiah. Further, Jesus equates himself with this individual. It's the only way to make sense of what Jesus is saying. Let's now rephrase Luke 20 using this interpretation.
Then Jesus said to them, "How is it that they say I am the son of David? David himself declares in the Book of Psalms: 'God said to my Lord (the Christ), sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.' David calls the Christ 'my Lord'. Thus, the Christ is not a son of David."
Carrying this logic through, the bottom line is that Jesus proclaims that the Christ does NOT descend from David. This implicitly means Jesus identifies himself as the messiah of Levi and not of Judah. It is the only messiah known to Jewish scripture other than the messiah of Judah. This fits neatly into the tradition of Jubilees, Aramaic Levi, and other texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls that proclaim Levi to be messiah and superior to Judah (David). This argument is not a novel invention by Jesus. It was first used by the Hasmonean kings, who were his forefathers.
Conclusion
To my eyes, the genealogy list found at Luke 3 contains the names of Hasmonean kings and high priests descended through Antigonus.
JJR 1-21-2007
FN7 I believe the full quote from Josephus' Antiquities strongly implies that Antigonus' daughter was the principal wife of Antipater. Antipater was arrested by Herod upon his return to Judea from Rome. Quintilius Varus, the new Roman president of Syria, happens to have been in Jerusalem upon the return of Antipater. "Antipater came upon them [Herod and Varus], without knowing any thing of the matter; so he came into the palace clothed in purple. The porters indeed received him in, but excluded his friends. ... [U]pon going to salute his father, he was repulsed by him, who called him a murderer of his brethren, and a plotter of destruction against himself [i.e., Herod told Antipater he was under arrest and to be tried for giving false testimony that led to the execution of his two 1/2 brothers]. ... [H]e went away in confusion; upon which his mother and his wife met him, (which wife was the daughter of Antigonus, who was the king of the Jews before Herod,) from whom he learned all circumstances which concerned him, and then prepared himself for his trial." Antiquities, Book XVII, Chapter 5. The two 1/2 brothers of Antipater mentioned above were Aristobulus IV and Alexander (Herod's sons by Mariamne). If the daughter of Antigonus was in the company of Antipater's mother Doris at the palace in Jerusalem publicly offering what support she could to her husband in his hour of need and her presence was so well remembered that mention was made by Josephus in his history, the reasonable conclusion therefrom is that she was Antipater's principal wife and a person of importance within Herod's royal court.
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