genealogy of Jesus

The New Testament provides two accounts of the genealogy of Jesus, one in the Gospel of Luke and another in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew's starts with Abraham, while Luke begins with Adam. The lists are identical between Abraham and David, but differ radically from that point. Traditional Christian scholars (starting with the historian Eusebius) have put forward various theories that seek to explain why the lineages are so different, such as that Matthew's account follows the lineage of Joseph, while Luke's follows the lineage of Mary. Modern biblical scholars such as Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan see both genealogies as inventions, conforming to Jewish literary convention.