{"id":44160,"date":"2023-01-06T06:35:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-06T14:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.timesandseasons.org\/?p=44160"},"modified":"2023-01-06T06:50:57","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T14:50:57","slug":"what-you-might-be-missing-in-matthews-genealogy-of-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2023\/01\/what-you-might-be-missing-in-matthews-genealogy-of-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Might Be Missing in Matthew\u2019s Genealogy of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMost readers of Matthew\u2019s Gospel take one look at that first page full of \u2018begats\u2019 and impossible-to-pronounce names and quickly turn the page.\u201d So begins Julie Smith\u2019s thoughtful essay \u201cWhy These Women in Jesus\u2019s Genealogy?\u201d, which is <\/span>available free of charge in the Segullah journal (2008)<\/span><\/a> and is reprinted in her book <\/span>Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels<\/span><\/a>. \u201cBut,\u201d Smith continues, \u201cMatthew was a deliberate writer.\u201d She goes on to highlight that among more than 25 men in Jesus\u2019s line, Matthew includes just four women (plus Mary), and they aren\u2019t the matriarchs, as one might have expected (such as Abraham\u2019s wife Sarah or Isaac\u2019s wife Rebekah). Rather, the women she includes are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Smith goes on to reflect on why Matthew may have included each of these women who were outside of the social mainstream in at least some way. Smith poses a range of hypotheses; readers can, of course, decide for themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I strongly recommend <\/span>reading the (short, accessible) article yourself<\/span><\/a>. But I\u2019ll share two passages that I marked with exclamation points in my hard copy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese women are, as Jesus is, intercessors: Tamar enables Judah\u2019s line to continue; Rahab brings her family into the house of Israel; Ruth brings the Moabites into David\u2019s line; and Bathsheba brings her son Solomon to the throne.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And one more:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cModern readers generally do this Gospel an injustice by skimming over the genealogy as if it were just a collection of facts. The Gospels were written by talented writers with limited space, acting under the inspiration of the Spirit. This is particularly true for Matthew, where the genealogy gets pride of place as the introduction to the story of Jesus\u2026 Matthew thought women\u2014and not just any women, but women with unusual, out-of-the-ordinary lives\u2014were worth including and their stories worth thinking about.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMost readers of Matthew\u2019s Gospel take one look at that first page full of \u2018begats\u2019 and impossible-to-pronounce names and quickly turn the page.\u201d So begins Julie Smith\u2019s thoughtful essay \u201cWhy These Women in Jesus\u2019s Genealogy?\u201d, which is available free of charge in the Segullah journal (2008) and is reprinted in her book Search, Ponder, and Pray: A Guide to the Gospels. \u201cBut,\u201d Smith continues, \u201cMatthew was a deliberate writer.\u201d She goes on to highlight that among more than 25 men in Jesus\u2019s line, Matthew includes just four women (plus Mary), and they aren\u2019t the matriarchs, as one might have expected (such as Abraham\u2019s wife Sarah or Isaac\u2019s wife Rebekah). Rather, the women she includes are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. Smith goes on to reflect on why Matthew may have included each of these women who were outside of the social mainstream in at least some way. Smith poses a range of hypotheses; readers can, of course, decide for themselves.\u00a0 I strongly recommend reading the (short, accessible) article yourself. But I\u2019ll share two passages that I marked with exclamation points in my hard copy.\u00a0 \u201cThese women are, as Jesus is, intercessors: Tamar enables Judah\u2019s line to continue; Rahab brings her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10383,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2907,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-testament","category-scriptures"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10383"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44163,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44160\/revisions\/44163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}