Pete Lorenz has written an excepted post of his longer essay, which deals with Luke’s genealogy in the early Uncial Manuscript “D”. Here, he notes the almost universal early acceptance of Mary’s genealogy, in Luke 3. Justin Martyr is the focus in this post. Females in first century Judea, had a genealogy, just like males since Elizabeth was “from the daughters of Aaron,” in Lk. 1.5. Her offspring would, however, follow the husband’s line. Jesus was virgin born; therefore, Luke traces Mary’s line to show fulfillment of 2 Sam. 7.11-17. This was The Davidic Covenant whose ultimate fulfillment referred to the Messiah. I plan to write another post on this topic from a theological point of view. Lorenz does a fine job tracing the history of interpretation of Luke’s genealogy in the early Christian Church:

Writing in the first half of the third century, Julius Africanus is our earliest writer to raise the two genealogies of Jesus as a potential apologetic issue.1 But before Africanus, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and apparently even Celsus all refer to the two genealogies, yet mention not a word about any conflict between them. Thus, Origen takes…

via Justin Martyr and the Genealogy of Mary — Peter Lorenz’s Blog