The genealogy of Jesus given in Matthew 1 is actually a genealogy of Joseph. Curious, right? Why would Matthew think Joseph's ancestry is relevant to Jesus? Matthew seems to believe that Joseph wasn't Jesus' natural father. Was it a careless oversight? Was it easier to get Joseph's genealogy? Or does it betray something Matthew thought was important about Jesus?
The tradition in my old Church is that the evangelists included genealogies of Jesus to show that he had a right to inherit the throne of David. I've come to understand that that's not very likely. The gospel writers didn't seem to be trying to re-establish the Jewish monarchy. I guess you could argue the they thought Jesus was coming back pretty soon and they might have wanted to make the case for why he should preside over a new political kingdom that was the successor to the old Jewish state. But, it also seems to me like a sort of weak position relative to an easier alternative. Since they were claiming that Jesus is the son of God, just go ahead and state that as the basis for a claim to rule the Kingdom of God. Inserting Joseph as a link to a claim can only confuse things. So what could be going on? It's been a while since I've thought of the Bible as "God-breathed" with only one right interpretation, so I'm going to play around with an idea. What if we read Matthew's genealogy of Joseph as a way of putting Jesus in a social context?
The tradition in my old Church is that the evangelists included genealogies of Jesus to show that he had a right to inherit the throne of David. I've come to understand that that's not very likely. The gospel writers didn't seem to be trying to re-establish the Jewish monarchy. I guess you could argue the they thought Jesus was coming back pretty soon and they might have wanted to make the case for why he should preside over a new political kingdom that was the successor to the old Jewish state. But, it also seems to me like a sort of weak position relative to an easier alternative. Since they were claiming that Jesus is the son of God, just go ahead and state that as the basis for a claim to rule the Kingdom of God. Inserting Joseph as a link to a claim can only confuse things. So what could be going on? It's been a while since I've thought of the Bible as "God-breathed" with only one right interpretation, so I'm going to play around with an idea. What if we read Matthew's genealogy of Joseph as a way of putting Jesus in a social context?
Matthew's genealogy of Joseph includes special and unusual references to Joseph's gentile ancestors, specifically his women gentile ancestors (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba), showing us the special role of women and non-Jews in the history of the house of Joseph and, more generally, in the history of Israel. Thinking about Matthew's genealogy of Jesus in those terms lays a peculiar, but very appropriate foundation for reading the Gospels. It could focus the mind of the reader not on Jesus' descent from a kingly Jewish line, but on Joseph - and Jesus - as being part of a social group to which God had historically shown special grace: those who did not have legal claim to political power in Israel. Instead of focusing on some legal entitlement Jesus might have been able to claim, we can read his genealogy as a re-interpretation of Israel's history, one that should open the mind to the universal grace God showed to his children in Israel's history and which Jesus would proclaim in the most radical and broad terms.
No comments:
Post a Comment