Hey All,
I found these two articles. I am not sure if they completely answer your question. But they are worth reading donadams. Maybe it will further your understanding.
How Were Mary and Elizabeth Related?
ERIC LYONS, M.Min.
Reason & Revelation
DOCTRINAL MATTERS
BIBLE INTERPRETATION
From Issue: R&R Volume 28 #8
Q.
The New Testament contains two genealogies of Christ. Matthew recorded the genealogy of Christ from Abraham to Jesus (1:1-16), while Luke recorded Christ’s genealogy from Jesus all the way back to Adam (3:23-38). The differences in the genealogies result from the fact that Matthew gives the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, while Luke presents the genealogy of Jesus through Mary (see Miller, 2003; cf. Luke 1:30-32). [NOTE: Luke followed the strict Hebrew tradition of mentioning only the names of males. Therefore, in Luke 3, Mary is designated by her husband’s name (see Lyons, 2003, pp. 157-159).] Still, some wonder how Mary could be a descendant of David. Skeptic Dennis McKinsey, for example, asked in his journal, Biblical Errancy, “If, using the genealogy in Luke, Jesus’s claim to descent [sic] from David, of the tribe of Judah, is through Mary rather than Joseph, then how can it be that Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, was descended from the house of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi?” (1998, emp. added). Does Luke 1:5,36 imply that Mary could not have been a blood descendant of King David?
A.
First, the King James translation of the term syngenis as “cousin” (Luke 1:36) is unwarranted and somewhat misleading to those who normally interpret the word to mean “first cousin.” The Greek term syngenis simply means “relative” (NKJV, NASB, NIV) or “kinswoman” (ASV, RSV). It is “a general term, meaning ‘of the same family’” (Vincent, 1997). Thus, Mary and Elizabeth may have been first cousins, or they may have been fourth cousins. All we know for sure is that they were kin.
Second, Mary and Elizabeth could have been from different tribes and still have been first cousins. It may be that their mothers were sisters. Their mothers could have been from the tribe of Judah or Levi. As commentator Matthew Henry noted: “Though Elisabeth was, on the father’s side, of the daughters of Aaron (v. 5), yet on the mother’s side she might be of the house of David, for those two families often intermarried, as an earnest of the uniting of the royalty and the priesthood of the Messiah” (1997).
However Mary and Elizabeth were related, tribal heritage among the descendants of Jacob was passed down through fathers, not mothers (cf. Ruth 4:18-22); children were always of their father’s tribe, not their mother’s. Thus, Elizabeth and Mary were descendants of Aaron and David, respectively, by way of their fathers’ ancestry, and not necessarily of their mothers’.
REFERENCES
Henry, Matthew (1997), Commentary on the Whole Bible (Electronic Database: Biblesoft).
Lyons, Eric (2003), The Anvil Rings (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).
McKinsey, Dennis (1998), “Tough Questions for the Christian Church,” Biblical Errancy, October, [On-line], URL:
http://home.comcast.net/~errancy/issues/iss190.htm.
Miller, Dave (2003), “The Genealogies of Matthew and Luke,” [On-line], URL:
https://apologeticspress.org/articles/1834.
Vincent, Marvin R. (1997), Word Studies in the New Testament (Electronic Database:
Taz here:
Here is the second article, which answers the question indirectly, gives us a possibility. That may be as close to an actual answer that we can get.
Genealogies of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38)
The genealogies recorded by Matthew and Luke show how the birth of Jesus fulfilled the promises made to Abraham (Genesis 12:2-3; Genesis 22:18). Matthew, writing for the Jews, begins his genealogy with Abraham, father of the Jewish race (Matthew 1:1-2a). Luke, writing for non-Jews, traces Jesus’ genealogy back past Abraham to Adam, to emphasize Jesus’ union with the whole human race (Luke 3:34-38).
Between Abraham and David the two genealogies are the same (Matthew 1:2-6a; Luke 3:32-34a), but between David and Jesus they are different, as they follow two lines of descent that started with David and came together in Jesus (Matthew 1:6-16; Luke 3:23-31).
Matthew’s genealogy shows that Jesus had legal right to the throne of David, for he was in the royal line of descent that came through Solomon and other kings of Judah down to Joseph. Jesus therefore fulfilled the promise that the Messiah would be one of David’s royal descendants (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Jeremiah 23:5). But both writers point out that though Joseph was Jesus’ legal father he was not his natural father (Matthew 1:16; Luke 3:23).
The genealogies do not necessarily list every person in the line of descent. As is often the case, they may be selective and stylized, to make them fit a simple scheme. Matthew, for example, omits some names to produce an arrangement of three sets of fourteen (Matthew 1:17).
Luke’s genealogy gives further proof that Jesus was descended from David, by tracing his ancestry through the line of another of David’s sons, Nathan. This may represent another line of descent from David to Joseph, or it may represent the line of descent from David to Mary (but Mary’s name is not shown, since the genealogies record only the names of the males). If the latter is the case, Joseph was the ‘son’ of Heli only because of his marriage to Mary (i.e. Mary was the daughter of Heli, Joseph the son-in-law). It is possible that Mary’s mother was from the tribe of Levi and descended from Aaron (cf. Luke 1:5,Luke 1:36) and her father from the tribe of Judah and descended from David (cf. Luke 1:32,Luke 1:69).
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Bibliographical Information
Flemming, Donald C. "Commentary on Luke 3:33". "Fleming's Bridgeway Bible Commentary".
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/bbc/luke-3.html. 2005.
Keep walking everybody.
May God bless,
Taz
