Full Luke 3:23–38. Greek of 3:23: hōs enomizeto: "as was supposed." Luke is marking the Joseph link as conventional, not biological. Ancient Jewish convention regularly used sonship language for sons-in-law; "son of Heli" is plausibly Joseph-as-husband-of-Heli's-daughter Mary. The genealogy runs back to "the son of Adam, the son of God" (Luke 3:38, ASV), rooting Jesus in universal humanity.
Luke's Natural Line: The Biological Son
Jesus back to Adam, with a careful parenthetical flagging Joseph as "as was supposed".
Primary passage:Luke 3:38 →
Commentary
Full verse-by-verse commentary and cross-references live on the verse page →
Key passage
"And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."
Cross-references
- Luke 3:23'As was supposed' — Heli is best read as Mary's father.
- Luke 3:31Through Nathan — David's son, not Solomon's.
- Luke 3:38Adam, son of God — universal human descent.
- 1 Cor 15:45-47Christ as the second Adam — Luke's genealogy's theological frame.
Typological connection
Luke's line goes through Nathan (David's son, not Solomon's): biological Davidic descent that bypasses Jeconiah's curse entirely. Through Mary, Jesus is biologically of David's line without inheriting the legal-line curse.
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