Megan McArdle links to a review, reflecting currently a widely held view in Jewish circles, of the four source documents of the Hebrew Bible. Extending this spirit of inquiry into our Testament, I commented:

God who who was the father of Adam...Abraham begot Isaac'...Jesse begot David, the king, and David, the king, begot Solomon and Solomon begot...and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ...
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. (Matthew Chapter 1)

However, St. Paul says somewhere 'let's not talk about genealogy.' Why, perhaps because in that genealogy from David to Jesus there is an individual to whom a prophet gives the curse 'neither you nor any of your descendants will be king of Israel.' Ignatius of Antioch, possibly a student of John the Apostle, writes in the first century against those who say Christians must follow Jewish law, and touts the lineage of Mary, whose characterization in Hebrew is of a young or nubile woman, a virgin in the sense that Sir Richard Branson might mean.