Category Archives: birth narrative
Team 1 Question 1
In Matthew’s birth narrative, Matthew tells the lineage of Jesus through 3 sets of fourteen generations. The first set (v.2-6) begins with Abraham and ends with David. The second set (v.6-11) begins with David and ends with Jeconiah. And the last set (v.12-16) begins with Jeconiah and ends with Jesus. Clearly in retelling a birth narrative, Matthew is trying everything he can to make a connection between Jesus and the office of the Jewish Messiah. Matthew intentionally starts and stops each section of generations with prominent figures in the Jewish community. The effect of this is that it personally connects Jesus directly to Abraham, David and Jeconiah. This is important because as the narrative continues we learn that Jesus is not the son of any man in actuality but sent directly from God by the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus was not “born of man” so to speak, Matthew demonstrates that his human father Joseph is from direct lineage of David and Abraham.
Also something I found interesting in this particular section is the strong emphasis to make sure that he pointed out fourteen generations even though there are not fourteen generations. Several times in the genealogy, Matthew omits people in the genealogy on purpose to keep the fourteen generation theme consistent. I think this is important because fourteen is a multiple of seven, and seven in Jewish culture represented completeness. Once again pointing to the case that everything is complete through Jesus because he is from God. Genealogies were very important in establishing a proper aretalogy. In this section, both Luke and Matthew are trying to demonstrate that Jesus is from God. Luke even takes his genealogy of Jesus further all the way to Adam! It is clear form the genealogy stories that the important thing that Matthew wants us to understand is that Jesus is from God.
In the birth story, Matthew tries to make as many parallel to Jesus and the Jewish people as possible. Just as Moses’ mom and to predict him from a king trying to kill all the male infants, so Mary must protect Jesus from being killed as an infant. Just as God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, so he brings Jesus and his family out of Egypt. Matthew tries to use as many parallel as possible to prove the Jewishness and Divinity of Jesus. No one man could have this much in common with huge figures such as Moses and David unless he was from God, seems to be Matthew’s whole premise.
Team 6: Question 2
Before the two panels are examined I think that it’s important to note Luke’s prologue which addresses his writing to Theophilus as an account concerning the truth after Luke’s careful investigation of oral tradition. L material of the intertwined birth stories that Luke implements to Mark’s plot begins with the annunciations of John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ birth. John’s annunciation happens at the beginning of Luke when an angel of the Lord appeared to Zechariah in the sanctuary, telling him that his prayer has been heard and that his wife Elizabeth will bear him a son and he will name him John. That even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit and thus imposing his divinity. Luke goes directly to Jesus’ annunciation when Gabriel, an angel from God goes to Nazareth but in this case appears to the mother, Mary. Gabriel tells her that she has found favor with the Lord, that she will conceive and bear a son, that he will be named Jesus. He continues and tells her Jesus’ importance, how he will be called “Son of the Most High(God)” and will give him the throne of his ancestor David. Both of these stories come full circle when Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and John “leaped” in her womb, expressing how even John felt Jesus’ presence, so it’d be pretty safe to say that he’s the real deal. Luke continues on into the actual births, illustrating Jesus’ birth more but both John and Jesus are circumcised on the 8th day. White makes the comparison in 251 and tells how Jewish scripture shapes the narratives with the relationship of Jesus and John, and that of Isaac’s (Gen 18.1-15) and Samuel’s birth (1 Sam 1.1-2.10).
The background information at the beginning of Luke is used to make sense of John’s role but putting him side by side with Jesus, but eliminates any implications that may have arisen in thinking that John the Baptist was the Messiah as in some cases many people favored John over Jesus. But it is clear that even before birth, John knew from the womb knew his purpose and that he would only prepare the world and its people for Jesus’ mission. This is a way of implicitly stating how the book of Mark starts, when John the Baptist is at the river baptizing and says “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1.7-1.8)
Luke’s material doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but the purpose of it is to make his story sound better than Marks, to appeal better to a reader at the time and fill in the blanks that Mark left with the birth story and genealogy. These two components are key of an aretalogy and the narrative could even be compared to the ancient aretalogy of Apollonius of Tyana. Being and honest and truthful didn’t necessarily make a good writer, making it sound good and as close to perfect is what made a story sound good. Luke follows the outline of an aretalogy to make his story near perfect for whom he’s addressing it to in the name of Theophilus. Luke implies from the beginning that his version is the true version, so why not make the true version sound great and add elements that would make it a great piece?
TEAM 4: QUESTION 2 (ROJ 5/3)
The author of Luke draws almost parallel birth and genealogy narratives for Jesus and John the Baptist. It begins with the virgin pregnancy of Elizabeth, then while John is in the womb, he kicks when Mary arrives at their home, showing that pre-birth John the Baptist has predicted Mary’s own divine pregnancy. Then the naming of Jesus closely follows that of John’s and then they both circumcised. The Gospel of Luke creates a much more expansive birth narrative than Matthew and focuses more on Mary than Joseph. While the author consciously advances the reputation of John the Baptist, later in Luke there is an obvious divide between the divinity of John and that of Jesus. Luke also hones in on the John the Baptist’s mother, Elizabeth who is unexpectedly pregnant like Mary. The entire foundation of Luke seems to be built upon relationship of Jesus and John and that of Isaac’s (Gen 18:1-15) and Samuel’s birth (1 Sam 1:1-2:10 Luke’s author makes a point of using the word favor, “for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant” (Luke 1:48) to create a connection with “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look with favor on the lowliness of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant” (1 Sam 1:11 LXX). In Samuel, Hannah who had been barren was finally blessed by god with child, similarly in Luke, Elizabeth and her husband Zachariah who were much older were also blessed. Also Hannah promises “he shall drink neither win nor intoxicants, and no razors shall touch his head.” (1 Sam 1:11) This same announcement is made by an Angel in regards to John in (Luke 1:15)
By creating such a detailed background story, Luke’s Author wants to show the tight and undeniable connection between John the Baptist and Jesus. On the other hand, the audience should also know that events didn’t just occur by accident. Because, “even before his birth he will be filled with Holy Spirit” (Luke 1:15). John the Baptist is already a holy baby within the womb, and then upon Mary’s arrival he kicks, showing his own divine significance and simultaneously warning of Mary’s own divine pregnancy. Further down the line, this intertwined narrative creates the building blocks for Jesus receiving a baptism from John, and the beginning of Jesus’s ministry.
While Matthew shows little Greco-Roman literary influence, The Gospel of Luke creates a birth narrative similar to Apollonius of Tyana, following aretology guidelines. In a sense, The Gospel of Luke is trying to fill in the blanks left by mark, while also polishing up some of the semi-divine or human like traits. By creating a birth and genealogy narrative, the Gospel of Luke cohesively shifts from “the birth narrative and continues right through to the Passion narrative and into Acts” (White 255). It needs to be obvious to the readers that these scenes haven’t just been predicted, they’ve been divinely prophesized. Out of all the gospels, it is Luke that creates the best ‘divine-man’ narrative, using ancient aretology methods to both compare and out due its literary predecessors like the Life of Apollonius and the Life of Moses. Luke creates the true son of god, the ultimate savior.
Team 3 Question 1
a. Gospel stories of Jesus’s youth appear only in Matthew and Luke. In this, there is no underlying oral tradition behind it at all which makes each set functionally specific to each Gospel. In Matthew 1:1-17, he specifically discusses the genealogy of Jesus and formats it in 3 sets of fourteen. Many argue that this represents Jesus as the Messiah as a blood relative of David (which in Hebrew means 14). Other theories for this include the idea that this is a poetic approach symbolizing Joseph’s and Herod’s dreams which were sent from the Holy Spirit to tell of the process of the coming of the Messiah (White 242-243). Matthew’s genealogy section one of Jesus begins with Abraham and ends with King David of Israel (Matthew 1:1-6). The next section included fourteen generations between David and Jechoniah which is when the deportation to Babylon took place (Matthew 1:7-11). Last, after the deportation to Babylon, the generations between Jechoniah and Joseph were listed which would make Jesus the fourteenth generation of section three (Matthew 1:12-17). Matthew does this in a way to highlight Jesus’ deep roots and lineage with Israel and the Jews. Because this lineage exposes that Jesus is the son of both David the king and Abraham the patriarch, he is now shown to be royal and a true Israelite. As shown in ancient aretalogies, lineages become very important in validating and convincing a following that an individual, in this case Jesus, is divine if it can be tied back to a powerful historical figure(s) such as David and Abraham.
b. Verses 1:18-2:23 are all included by Matthew with the purpose of providing proof and reason of Jesus being the Messiah who has come to fulfill Jewish prophecy. Matthew explains the forthcoming of the holy spirit, the rising star which led to Jesus, and the Messiah’s extraordinary birth. All of these serve as Matthew’s literary evidence of prophecy. Joseph’s, Mary’s and baby Jesus’s flight to Egypt is unique to the Gospel of Matthew, as is Herod’s slaughter of the children. Raymond Brown refers to this as verisimilitude, or a story that gives the appearance of being real when it is not, especially if it is based off of some other legend or event. In this case, he argues that Matthew’s story is based off of the story of Moses’s birth and the pharaoh’s attempt to kill all of the male children of the Israelites (White 240). The Matthew birth narrative also ties directly with the Moses-Joshua/Egypt-Exodus tradition, especially in Matt 2:15 when he says “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”. The parallel to this is shown in Exodus as it quotes “When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son (II:I). Furthermore, it is stated that Matthew’s story of Jesus’s return from Egypt to Nazareth is based on the wording of Isaiah II:I. All of this points to the theory that Matthew is collecting Jewish scriptures and combining them to develop his literary story of Jesus’s birth and further prove that he is truly the Messiah, son of God.
RoJ 5/3 Team 2, Question 1
The birth narrative of Jesus does not appear in the book of Mark, the first written gospel, and surfaced at first in the book of Matthew. It is speculated whether there was oral tradition regarding Jesus’ birth before the writings of Matthew, however as Matthew has such a specific theme in telling and composing the birth story, it is easiest to understand that in it’s earliest form the story is carefully and intentionally crafted by Matthew.
Matthew’s main theme regarding the birth narrative is the clear emphasis on Jesus as the Messiah being a part of the Davidic bloodline, and also being fully Jewish. His genealogy is separated into three, roughly fourteen generation parts. A theory for this arrangement is that the numerical value of the name David in Hebrew is fourteen. Another potential reason is the flow or the rhythm of the literary structure as crafted by Matthew; there are three parts of generations, and three different dreams given to Joseph.
The first part of the genealogy begins with Abraham and leads to David, claiming strong ties to his role as a Jew (from Abraham,) and as royalty and “messiah,” or “anointed one,” (from David.) The second is David to Jechoniah at the deportation of Babylon. And the third is from the deportation of Babylon to Joseph, the father of Jesus “who is called the Messiah.” (1:16) Matthew’s intention for this genealogy is largely to emphasize the identity of Jesus as a true Israelite, and to show his ties to the important figures of Abraham and David. This is Matthew’s way of stating the divine parentage (or lineage) of Jesus, which often are tied to birth stories in aretalogies. Matthew focuses on these main figures and ideas to support his claims of Jesus, as there was little circulation of information about his lineage.
The book of Matthew has a strong theme of prophecy and fulfillment, especially from Jewish scriptures. Matthew uses scriptures that aren’t necessarily referencing Jesus, and shapes them to the story of the birth of Jesus. His use of Hosea 11:1 “Out of Egypt I have called my son,” originally speaks of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt. It is purposed by Matthew to be prophetic for Joseph in his dreams to move out of Egypt. He further related the birth story of Jesus to the Moses tradition by referencing Jeremiah 31:15, “Rachel weeping for her children.” Matthew related this verse to the slaughter of the children found in the Moses story, and then ties it to the order of Herod, which put Jesus in the same circumstances as Moses. Matthew uses these Jewish scriptures, as well as other prophecy fulfillments, to further shape the image of Jesus as divine and set apart by God. Through the line of Abraham and David he is seen as royal and a part of God’s chosen people, and through the references to Exodus and the Moses tradition he is seen as a similar savior to God’s people; a figure with divine purpose as seen in his birth story, or the “anticipated prophet like Moses” (White, 248)