Jesus, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of David’: The ‘Adoption’ of Jesus into the Davidic Line

Abstract

The authors of both the first and third Gospels, by insisting on both Jesus' divine paternity and his Davidic descent, pose a conundrum: if Jesus was not Joseph' biological son, in what sense is he the Davidic Messiah? Most modern scholars assume that Joseph must have adopted Jesus in some form or another, thus giving him Davidic status, and many even point to such adoption as a ‘Jewish custom’. This article examines this assumption and shows that adoption was unknown in Jewish law of the period. Furthermore, such adoption was well known in Roman law, especially among the aristocracy. In the case of such emperors as Augustus, whose adoptive fathers had been deified posthumously, this gave them the status of divifilius, ‘son of god’. The inclusion of such a Roman concept into the Gospels may be an indication of the Gentile, rather than Jewish, cultural backgrounds of the evangelists.

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