1:8 skips over Ahaziah, Athaliah, Jehoash, and Amaziah, two of whom were kings of Judah and all are well documented by other sources. Begat can also mean grandfather of and skipping unimportant generations is not uncommon in ancient genealogies. See Matthew 1:8 for a full discussion on why these four may have been left out. It may appear duplicitous to claim that there were fourteen generations, when in fact there were eighteen. Fowler argues that this verse is not in error, as it is not a description of the actual genealogy, but simply of the list that was presented in the Gospel. Fowler believes that the author of Matthew had good reason to drop the names he did and to skip unnecessary ancestors. Fowler sees instructions in this verse are to aid in the memorization of Matthew's version of the genealogy, not the historical list of decedents. By tradition the first period from Abraham to David always had fourteen names, so the author of Matthew simply cut unneeded names from the other two sections to create an easily memorized triple structure. A transcriber skipping similar names in a list is a common error known as homoioteleuton. One theory is that the original author of Matthew probably had the list correct, and that a later scribe erased the four. This implies that this verse must be a later addition to text, as the 14/14/14 structure only came into being after that error was made. An added problem is that, even with several extra names added, there are far too few names for the many centuries this genealogy is meant to cover, as Matthew focuses mainly on Jesus's royalty lineage, not the biological line (which is possibly used in Luke 3) which he did not have access to. References Sources Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. "Matthew." The Anchor Bible Series. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971. Fowler, Harold. The Gospel of Matthew: Volume One. Joplin: College Press, 1968 Gundry, Robert H. Matthew a Commentary on his Literary and Theological Art. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1982. 01:17