The Politics of Advent: Matthew and his Surprising Genealogy

Let’s begin with one of the most exciting parts of the nativity story¹– the genealogy. What? You don’t think genealogies are exciting? Well it may not be exciting reading, but as a prelude to the gospel, it has some interesting and important things to tell us.

For us as people living in the era of science, we privilege DNA and biology. We expect genealogies to reflect biology accurately. In the ancient world people were not concerned about DNA or factual lineage. Very few people in those times had accurate genealogical records. Genealogies in the ancient world were constructed to associate the individual with famous ancestors in order to enhance their reputation. Genealogies explain or describe the way the subject is related to the past and why that person matters in the present. Biological accuracy was not a concern. Genealogies were created from a mixture of biology and the appropriation of important ancestors to secure one’s social and political status.

Because genealogies in the ancient world were not biologically accurate accounts we don’t need to stress over the differences between Matthew’s and Luke’s genealogies. They were created to serve different functions. They have different roles to play as the gospel writers work to be sure we understand the importance of Jesus.

Matthew’s genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17) of Jesus is not historically or biologically accurate. Its function is to locate Jesus in the story of God, its, past, present and future. Matthew’s genealogy functions exactly as the first audience expects it to function.

Verse 1 is likely Matthew’s title for his gospel. Look how much Matthew packs into this one verse. “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” The first two words are literally “book of genesis”. Genesis, which means, story, origins, beginnings, birth. Genesis also echos title of the first book of the Old Testament. Are we, as we read this gospel, to think about Jesus birth as a new creation? “Christ” is the Greek , and “Messiah” is the Hebrew for anointed². In the Old Testament God anoints Kings, Priests, and Prophets to do God’s will and represent God’s reign.

“Son of David” is a messianic title as well as reference to Jesus’s ancestors. “Son of Abraham” is not a messianic title but clearly links Jesus back to the promises that God made to Abraham. Among them the promise that all the families of the world would be blessed through Abraham and his family. Abraham, we sometimes forget was not Jewish, but he is the shared ancestor of Jews, Christians and, Muslims. Here is an early sign of God’s wide inclusion.

As you read the genealogy, look at how Matthew has constructed this genealogy. Notice who’s included and who is not included. Where is Moses? Where are any of the prophets? This doesn’t mean they are not important, in fact Matthew’s nativity will echo Moses’ story and in the rest of the gospel the prophets are regularly invoked. But here, in the genealogy, Matthew wants to make a different point. He wants to lift up particular aspects of Israel’s past and connect that to Jesus.

What aspects? Who has repeated mentions? David. Why do you think Matthew does this?

Son of David is a messianic title. David of course is an important figure in Israel’s history. He is divinely called to be king. He is promised a line and a kingdom that will last forever ³. He was a human after God’s own heart.

Look at the big structure of the genealogy. There are three groups of names with a definite pattern — x the father of Y.

–Abraham to King David

–David to the deportation to Babylon

–After the deportation to the Messiah.

Look how the groupings in the genealogy move us through history. Abraham – the beginning of God covenant with a people to King David the most important of the kings and the one promised a kingdom that doesn’t end. David is the only king whose title is used. That makes him stand out in the long list of names. Then from David to the deportation. Why isn’t there a name here? There is a point to be made. We have moved from David’s powerful reign to the disaster of the destruction of the Temple, the fall of Jerusalem and the deportation. But God isn’t finished, the third grouping takes us from the low of the deportation to the Messiah.

As we read through the list of names, some of them are known to us. Some of the people we know a lot about, some we only know their name, and some we have no idea who they were. Since one of the purposes of genealogies was to link the person to their famous ancestors, we should wonder why these unknown, clearly not important people are included. What is Matthew’s point?

Verse 17 tells us there are three sets of fourteen generations here. Interestingly if you count, the 14 generation pattern does not hold, neither on this list nor historically. The length of time between the three groups is not equal and the known number of generations is not equal. Some generations are clearly left out.⁴ If we actually count who Matthew lists, there are not 14 names listed in each group. So why? There are a few possibilities. There is precedent for lists of 14 generations in the Jewish tradition.Perhaps Matthew is alluding to that. In Hebrew, letters have numerical value. The letters in “david” ( d,v,d= 4,6,4) have the numerical value of 14. Fourteen is a multiple of seven which is a number associated with completion and wholeness ( the seven days of creation).

As we read, we should pay attention when the genealogy deviates from the “x the father of y” pattern. For example “Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers” and “Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers”. Again we should ask ourselves why? Perhaps Matthew is reminding us that God does not necessarily favor the first born. Perhaps also Matthew is reminding us that there is a larger community of families and we shouldn’t forget them. Judah and his brothers, for example, are the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Judah is important, but so are his brothers.

Another break from the pattern in Matthew’s genealogy is the inclusion of women. Including women in a genealogy was not unheard of, but it was unusual. If we were going to include women in the genealogy, who would we pick? What values would you want them to bring to the genealogy? Who is an important woman who would be worthy of inclusion? Sarah? Rachel? Someone else?

We probably wouldn’t pick the women actually in Jesus’ genealogy –Tamar (Gen 38), Rahab (Joshua 2), Ruth (book of Ruth), the wife of Uriah (Bathsheba, 2 Sam 11-12). People have offered a variety of reasons why these women are included. Tamar, Rahab and Ruth are gentiles. Here is an inclusion of “outsiders”. Bathsheba was married to a gentile. Identifying her in this oblique way causes us to recall David’s abuses of his authority. All of these women’s relationships with men “are not culturally approved”⁵ They challenge the patriarchal structure. Even though they find themselves outside the typical relationship of their day, their actions and presence are crucial to the ongoing lineage and story of God. God is working through them and outside the patriarchy of the day. While not a gentile, Mary’s marriage and pregnancy are not expected or typical. The unexpected lives of the women set the stage for Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, which occurs outside of culturally approved means. God continues to work through women and outside of the patriarchal structure.

The end of the genealogy is instructive, ” …and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.” As we note the father son relationship of Jacob and Joseph, we should recall the Old Testament stories of Jacob/Israel and Joseph. This Old Testament story will be echoed in Joseph of Matthew’s nativity story.

Matthew’s pattern when women are named in the genealogy is X the father of Y from Z (woman) but now the statement is X the father of Y the husband of Z of whom A was born, making it clear that Joseph is not the father of the Messiah.

After all this, what does this genealogy tell us? It is inclusive of the outsider and the unexpected person. There are Jews and gentiles, men and women, the famous and unknown, people of good and bad behaviors. (Some of those kings!) The genealogy connects the life of Jesus to the Old Testament story. It situates Jesus as the heir to the Davidic kingship and the inheritor of the promises to Abraham.

Matthew’s genealogy also and importantly stands in contrast to the Roman emperor ‘s genealogy. The emperor was also considered the son of a God. The emperor’s family was claimed to have descended from the gods. Famous people were in the emperor’s family history. The emperor claimed to be the savior of the world. Matthew begins his gospel with the startling revelation of the true Messiah, the Savior who is most definitely not the emperor.

1. Here are the major resources used for this series:
   The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth, by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, Harper One
   Light of the World, A Beginner’s Guide to Advent, by Amy-Jill Levine, Abingdon Press.
   Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading by Warren Carter, Orbis Books aThe Gospel of Luke, by Joel B Green, Eerdmans. Also the pertinent volumes ( Volume VIII and IX from The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Abingdon Press  ↩︎
2. The NIV uses “Christ”, the NRSV uses “Messiah” ↩︎
3. 1 Sam 16, 2 Sam 5 ↩︎
4. read more about that in The New Interpreter’s Bible Vol VIII (129-130) Carter, 63-66 ↩︎
5. Carter, 59 ↩︎