The NT blogfather Mark Goodacre has a very good 5 minute podcast on Matthew's genealogy. I used to think that Matthew's genealogy was a rather boring and prosaic piece of literature included only to satisfy antiquarian interest in an important persons' biological stock, until one of my Ph.D students, Jason Hood, began writing his Ph.D thesis on the annotations of the genealogy. Jason's thesis has been eye opening in that he's seen Matthew's genealogy as an encapsulated history of Israel and looked at the signficance of the annotations. Goodacre focuses on the four women named in the Matthean genealogy and he contends that they are included either because of their gentile origins or because of their association with illicit sexual activity. While that maybe true, the mention of the women cannot be understood apart from the other annotations in the genealogy as well like "Judah and his brothers" (v. 2) "Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of exile" (v. 11). Makes for a very good discussion and Goodacre shows us the tip of the iceberg.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the shout-out, Michael, and for the reminder about Jason's work.
I agree with Mark that the genealogy is vitally important for understanding the gospel (see my comments on the post by Willitts on Huizenga's piece). I do think Goodacre is right when he says the women are included because they are gentiles . . . well, half right. As for the other half? Hopefully my article will be accepted for publication and all can know!
If Dr. Willitts truly took my SBL paper to heart, he can tell you! ha!
I recall (sketchily) that Mervyn Eloff from George Whitfield College, Capetown, developed some of this in his PhD thesis. The genealogy is indeed Matthew's metanarrative summary of the OT - a series of ephochs, in which the dilemma of the exile is unresolved until the Christ comes. I think his thesis was looking for evidence of the exile theme right through Matthew's gospel. Interesting stuff, but it's five years since I read it, so getting vague. I do, however, remember being persuaded at the time.
Is Jason done with his dissertation yet? If so, how might I obtain a copy of it?
Kelly, just a few more months, perhaps.
Phil, Eloff has done some good work. You can see virtually everything in his dissertation on the genealogy in Neotestamentica 38 (2004 I think), 75-87
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