Quote Originally Posted by Leslie View Post
Well, Mary was herself of the lineage of David, so that's not an issue.
Since all the lineages are in that society based on a paternal and not a maternal lineage, it seems to me that Mary's lineage is a jump--it skips one paternal generation. But you are right in a sense that it does not matter. The crux seems to be based on a need to explain to unbelievers a plausable rationale. Hence, the scientific conjecture by pointing to virgin sharks and other species. You are really not the intended audience from which we are making such a case, since you already believe. If the case we make is somewhat reasonable, then the conflicts that an unbeliever may face in accepting the whole of the Gospel may be reduced in his/her mind. If Paul quoted and connected with a pagan audience using their own sources or even by philosophical dialogue by the power of the Holy Spirit, then it really is good for us to do the same.

While I have speculated that Jesus' male Y chromosome is produced or extracted and formed from a paternal mtDNA inheritance in Mary, it is simply a speculation. It does not add or take away from the doctrine that Jesus was both fully human and fully God in all both those natures possess. I think the speculation that Jesus' human nature, which contains the XY chromosome, must be from Mary so that all his human nature must preceed from a direct lineage to David. Otherwise, God would have to create the Y-gene from nothing... and that would mean that Christ's human nature is not from a direct lineage back to David, but rather Christ would be only 45/46 human traceable to David's loins because our DNA is made up of 23 pairs; this would mean that Christ would only have 22 1/2 chromosomes direct from David's lineage making the Y chromosome to have been a copy not directly decended. In some manner, Mary must have carried the Y chromosome in her body that was recessive and not carried in her own DNA pattern. I think a paternal mtDNA inheritance in Mary to carry the pattern resolves this issue, but perhaps there are other ways to resolve it.