Heli ben Matat

Luke 3:24. Heli (Gr. HELEI -- Luke 3:23) is evidently the same name as the preceding. In Luke he is said to be the father of Joseph, while in Matthew 1:16, Jacob was Joseph's father.

One explanation of this seeming contradiction is afforded by having recourse to the levirate law among the Jews, which prescribes that when a man dies childless his widow "shall not marry to another; but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother" (Deuteronomy 25:5). The child, therefore, of the second marriage is legally the child of the first (Deuteronomy 25:6). Heli having died childless, his widow became the wife of his brother Jacob, and Joseph was the offspring of the marriage, by nature the son of Jacob, but legally the son of Heli. It is possible that Matt. gives the natural, and Luke the legal descent. (Cf. Maas, "The Gosp. acc. to S. Matt.", i, 16.). This was the solution proposed by Africanus, and endorsed by St. Augustine.

Lord A. Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who wrote a learned work on the "Genealogies of Our Lord Jesus Christ", thinks that Mary was the daughter of Jacob, and Joseph was the son of Jacob's brother, Heli. Mary and Joseph were therefore first cousins, and both of the house of David. Jacob, the elder, having died without male issue, transmitted his rights and privileges to the male issue of his brother Heli, Joseph, who according to genealogical usage was his descendant.

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Heli, the Davidian Prince - the Father of the Maiden called Miriam

http://www.biblewalks.com/Photos6/marystomb12s.jpgIn the days surrounding the birth of Jesus, it was not safe to be recognized or be known as a descendant of the House of David. The Davidian princes were hunted by the Romans, and were despised by the jealous Jewish temple leadership, who were Zadokian cousins presiding as high priests. The ruler of Judea was Herod the Great who at his best, sought to manipulate, or at the least destroy every Zadokian priest that allied himself to Davidian princes. King Herod also targeted every Prince of Israel, who was of the royal House of David, and heirs to the throne of David.

The seduction of power and authority was equally at home with the Sadducee based family of the House of Boethus, who were rightful inheritors of the office of the high priest, were equally zealous to rule like the “kings” of the Jews, and oppose any Davidian who depicted any aspirations of royal leadership. It was to the one family, the Patriarch and High Priest Ananus of the House of Boethus had a special hatred, the Princes of David, Joseph and Yehoshua, who was the legal heir to the royal House of David, yet preached a anti-globalist message of emuna (faith) in the Sovereignty of His Father in heaven.

Before the reign of Herod was over, his progressive paranoia in his advancing years, history testifies that more and more of the Princes of David were executed by Herod the Great. They were hunted down by the Roman armies as royal rivals to the Caesar of Rome. As this reality begins to sink in, we have to ask, were the Davidian princes of the family of Jesus truly a non-historical family or were they a part of the messianic, Davidian, Hasmonean, Zionist, or Zealot parties seeking to regain the sovereignty of Judea away from the arena of Roman global power?

Considering all the historical facts in first century Judea BCE, there was one life that of a historical prince whose age was the same and who lived a life within the same social circle that paralleled the life of Heli the Davidian. This young man was called, Prince Alexander III Helios. He was the son of the future Maccabee Queen Alexandra II, who at this time was known by her Jewish name, Esther of Jerusalem. Heli, the shortened nickname for Helios (“The Sun”), was a descendant of both the Maccabee Kings of Judea and a prince of the House of David, for his father was Matthan ben Levi, a Davidian Prince who was first married in his youth to the vivacious royal princess, Elizabeth of Jerusalem.

Prince Alexander III Helios was apparently not as much Hellenized as he was anti-Herodian. It appears that Prince Heli had the same aspirations and hopes for “Israel” as the high priest within the temple at Jerusalem. In the era in which parents chose the husband of their daughters, Heli found favor with the High Priest Yeshua III. Now this high priest was the son of Phabi, the founder of the House of Phabit, and the grandson of Boethus, that Alexandrian Zadokian priest that King Herod in 37 BCE asked to return to Jerusalem in order to restore the Zadokian dynastic reign again over the office of the high priest. Herod’s reasons were more subliminal and sinister, for he eventually plotted to eliminate the Maccabees from holding either royal or priestly offices in Jerusalem and eliminate their presence entirely from Judea. Was Prince Heli, or his father, Mattathias ben Levi, approached by the high priest for the young Davidian was a potential candidate to marry one of his three daughters, Hannah or Anna?

The Grotto of the Nativity at the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem – Photo by Robert Mock

To Prince Heli and Hannah, a young daughter, Princess Miriam, was born about the year of 20 to 19 BCE. This Jewish maiden, Mary, was a Davidian on her father’s side, and a Zadokian priest heiress on her mothers. Yet, fate appeared not to be good to her, for she was early orphaned.

Her Davidian father, Prince Alexander III Helios, was executed by King Herod the Great in a series of persecutions or pogrom against the Davidians. It was Herod’s attempt to eliminate any rival to the throne of Judea. The death of Heli occurred, according to Davidian genealogist David Hughes, in the “Davidic Dynasty”, either in the years of 20 to 16 BCE or 17 to 13 BCE. Heli’s wife, Anne or Hannah, died a few years later and the orphaned young maiden was placed in the temple within the Order of the Temple-Virgins until she was eligible for marriage about the year of her bat Mitzvoth at the age of 12-13 years of age.

This young maiden was of supreme interest to the priest elite. She was the granddaughter of the High Priest Yeshua III, who died apparently the year of 23 BCE, by execution, according to some scholars, for sedition against the throne of Herod. From all appearances, the Yehoshua the high priest never knew his granddaughter, Miriam, as she was born about three years later in the year of 20 to 19 BCE.

While many have considered that “Jesus” or “Yeshua” in Aramaic was a unique name in Jewish society, what we do know is that the name, Yeshua, was a quite frequent name in 1st century Judea, both in the lineages of King David and in the lineages of the high priests of the House of Zadok. The name of Yehoshua was relatively common as the name of the High Priests of Israel. There were a total of five High Priests that were called Yeshua, from the first High Priest Aaron the Levite, the brother of Moses, to the last high priest, Phannias, the 83rd high priest of Israel (69-70 BCE) who died in the flames that engulfed the city of Jerusalem and the entire structure of the holy temple.

Bethlehem as seen from the Church of the Nativity – Photo by Robert Mock

As we continue, we will see the historical and genealogical evidence that Jesus was not only a Davidian prince but also a Maccabee prince, but was the heir to be the real High Priest of Israel from the legitimate lineage of the House of Zadok? In one of the most potent genetic merges in Jewish history, we find that Yehoshua ben Yosef (Jesus son of Joseph) was a real genetically eligible Priest-King. He would later be recognized as eligible to be a member of the Order of Melkizekek Priest-King, whose first High Priest-King was Shem, the son of Noah. Here was a true fusion of the genetic tree between the House of Aaron the Levite and King David the Judaite.