the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,
One solution to this problem is that the custom of levirate marriage in the ancient Near East permitted the widow of a childless man to marry his (unmarried) brother. It was common to consider a child of the second marriage as the legal son of the deceased man to perpetuate that man’s name. In genealogies the ancients sometimes listed such a child as the son of his real father but at other times as the son of his legal father. This may be the solution to the problem of Joseph’s fathers. It is a very old explanation that the third century church father Africanus advocated. [Note: The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 1:7.] Evidently either Jacob or Eli (Heli) was Joseph’s real father, and the other man was his legal father. This may also be the solution to the problem of Shealtiel’s two fathers (Matthew 1:12; Luke 3:27). This is only an adequate explanation, however, if Jacob and Eli were half-brothers, specifically the sons of the same mother but not the same father. Jacob’s father was Matthan and his grandfather was Eleazar whereas Eli’s father was Matthat and his grandfather was Levi.