Jesus the Helite

 Re-reading my article on Job reminded me of another theory I have, regarding Jesus the Helite*. It draws from the same Pentateuchal passage I cited earlier, to gain some insight on the Lucan genealogy:

"The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father's brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter. And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father's brethren. And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses." --Numbers 27:8-11

Note that this statute required a man's inheritance to pass on to his daughters, should they lack brothers (the male kind). Only in the case of utter childlessness would it pass to a male relative of the same generation, or one above it. The daughters, having been duly married to kinsmen, would each pass on their portion of that inheritance to their sons. 

Now let's look at how this would work if a firstborn daughter with no brothers (the male kind) came of marrying age. As an heir apparent to her father's estate, she would need to marry a relative within her sub-tribe (Numbers 36:8) in order to secure the inheritance. Should that husband die without issue, she would have to marry another relative--specifically the closest one--in order to keep the inheritance from passing on through her to another clan (Ruth 4:4). 

Now, let's take this hypothetical scenario and apply it to a real-life situation. Luke starts out his genealogy of Jesus by stating that he was "the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli." How could Joseph be considered the son of Heli when Matthew records that his father was Jacob? Well, suppose that Heli had no sons, but a firstborn daughter Mary. In that case, Mary would have been required to marry someone from her own sub-clan: and in fact, Luke also reports, or at least implies, that both Joseph and Mary were of the house of David (Luke 1:27). Thus Joseph, along with his sons by Mary, stood to inherit from Heli's estate--in which sense he could be referred to as the heir, or son, of Heli. And thus Jesus, as the legal heir of both Joseph and Mary, stood to inherit both Joseph's claim to the Israelite throne and a double portion of whatever inheritance his mother had brought into the marriage: at least a double portion, were she the firstborn, and possibly all of it, had she no younger sisters. 

One final observation: John records that among Jesus' dying words were a charge to him: take care of my mother. If John's mother Salome were in fact Mary's younger sister, it would explain a few things: 

1) John, although apparently much younger than Jesus, becoming a disciple first of his cousin John, then switching allegiance to his other cousin Jesus.
2) John's mother being audacious enough to ask her nephew for special placement of her sons in their cousin's kingdom.
3) Jesus (knowing that the older brother James would suffer an early death, but that John would outlive Mary) commending Mary into the charge of her sister's son John, thus passing his double portion of the double inheritance (meagre as it was) onto the man who would use it to care for his widowed aunt. 

One more note in passing: we can conclude from the fact that they came up short on a staple at their wedding reception that the couple getting married in Cana were poor. And we know from their choice of offering at Mary's postpartum purification ceremony that Jesus' parents were also poor. That, along with the likelihood that several of his disciples were themselves close relatives, would help to explain why Jesus and his disciples, along with all his brothers (the male kind) were invited to the wedding at Cana: Rabbinical Law specifies that ten male guests are the minimum to comprise a wedding party (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Ishut, Chapter 10, Halacha 5), and apparently this couple really had to scrape to come up with a sufficiently padded guest list. Because, of course, couples want to go all out for their weddings, so just the minimum wouldn't do. Such eagerness could also explain why the wine order hadn't been expanded to meet the expected demand. 

*"Helite" is just a fancy way of saying "descendant of Heli."