Did Jesus descend from David?

A query for today. Right at the beginning of Matthew there is a list of the descendants of Jesus, going back to David. Jesus is linked to David through Joseph, his earthly father.

HANG ON. Joseph had no genetic input into Jesus at all, so he is in fact not descended from David.

Apologists claim that the word for son and son-in-law are the same in Hebrew.  The version I am reading (Good News) mentions Joseph by name as the descendant of David. It says nothing about Mary. It was highly unusual for people in those days to trace heritage through a mother - it was only a father's line that was considered of any significance. Jesus was not genetically related to Joseph at all. Others argue adoption, but relatedness is to do with genes and nothing more. Jesus is not descended from David. How can Matthew be wrong? How can this Gospel be so vague?

Then there is the issue of Jesus's "brothers". I know it is offensive to Catholics (and perhaps other denominations) to consider that Mary had other children with poor old Joseph after Jesus, because in their minds anyone who gave birth to the Lord has to be perfect. Which makes no kinds of sense to me at all. No human on earth can be perfect, by the very nature of Christian sin. God did not get another Goddess to have his child, the whole point was for God to take human form. Mary was a human and could not be perfect. And since when was having sex outside of marriage wrong?

Anyway. Apparently the Hebrew word for brother is the same as for cousin. But that does not prove Jesus did not have brothers, it only casts a question mark over the issue.

What amazes me is with so may faulty ideas and contradictory claims, is that Christians so much WANT to believe, they CHOOSE to believe, that they are willing to overlook or explain away any number of issues. However if a con-man came to them asking them to lend him their bank account for his sick granny's inheritance, they would not accept any faulty ideas or contradictory claims at all. Most people have a level of self-protection in the form of a bullshit detector, but religion requires one to shut that very instinct down.

That people would willingly do that is a true mystery to me.