INFANCY NARRATIVES
Matthew 1.
The first chapter of Matthew’s gospel is a genealogy (vs 1-17) It is an account of the mysterious and scandalous circumstances in which the birth of the Messiah was brought about in the long history since the Call of Abraham. Matthew’s Greek text begins with Biblios genesios Iesio Christou. “The Book of the beginnings of Jesus Christ”. It is probably the author’s intention to do as Mark did in his Gospel’s opening verse – to draw the reader’s attention to a certain link with Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning, the Lord God was making the heavens and the earth”. The use of the word genesios is interesting because although the word does mean genealogy, it undoubtedly brings echoes of Genesis to mind. Maybe Matthew intends that his new book should be a new Torah, a new Pentateuch?
If so then the figure of Jesus must be dominating in the same way as Moses dominates the Torah. The New Torah of Matthew or the new Instruction of Matthew is deliberately introduced with “The Book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ.” Jesus is deliberately situated in the historical line of the leaders-patriarchs, prophets and kings- in order to authenticate his claims to be the Messiah.
Verses 2-16 have the genealogy proper. Matthew divides the genealogy in three parts.
The Call of Abraham to the time of David.
The Kingship of David to the Exile.
The Babylonian Exile to the Birth of the Messiah.
There is upward and downward movement in this genealogy.
From the Call of Abraham to David’s rule there is a story of success, as Israel is generally gaining strength and land. After David’s death and the death of Solomon his son, the graph descends, as Israel becomes divided and selfish, forgetting her unity in covenant with the Lord God, to the point where God takes away their land and gives it to the Babylonians. From the return from Exile, one can see an upward movement to the time of the coming of the Messiah. Israel has regains her land and some national identity.
The third part of the genealogy is largely composed of unimportant figures. They are nor kings or prophets, just a new type of people. From them sprang the Messiah.
The nobodies who populate the latter genealogy are perhaps a foretaste of who Jesus will appear to be.
He will belong to the anawim the nobodies of the countryside.
He will attract followers, he will be notorious and seen as a lawbreaker.
He will have no land or property
He will be put to death scandalously
He will rise from the dead and his followers will be a new people, based on him rather than his ancestors.
This movement through history can be described as God writing straight with crooked lines. God’s plan for the world does not depend on the virtue of the ancestors of Jesus. God often used sinners in the Old Testament, e.g. Jacob and David. The women are sinful to our ears, and yet they are heroines in the eyes of the writers of the Old Testament. They act so that they can survive. Those narratives are reported out of a society which did not have a belief in eternal life. To be moral in such a society is to be the survivor.
The Tamar Narrative
The Tamar story is recorded in the context of a society which believes in the apocalyptic coming of God once a certain sacred number of humans have been born. For that reason, the fertility of the woman was God’s own work in hastening his own coming. Infertility was not only unfortunate; it deprived the couple of their part in the plan of God. That is why Onan, the one who spilt his semen upon the ground rather than impregnate his brother’s widow, has such a great sin in him. That is why God killed him; he had deliberately delayed the day of the Lord...
His sin is in delaying God’s fulfillment of his plan for Israel.
But this is a later interpretation of the story. The original reason the story has such impact immediately following its occurrence was that Tamar survived and that ability to survive is seen as praiseworthy. The people who lived in Tamar’s time did not believe in an after-life, nor did they look for the coming of any Divine Messiah.
Tamar needed sons if she was not to die of starvation in old age. Her sons were her right from the marriage. Er, the first son failed to give her sons, Onan the second son of Jacob, failed to impregnate her. It was her right to become pregnant by the third son, Shelah.
Since he was only a boy, she had to await his maturity. But Jacob her Father-in-law had no intention of allowing the boy to doe like his brothers and so he sets out to deceive his daughter-in-0law of her children.
She outwits him, getting the seed from the boy’s Father instead.
Tamar teaches Judah about injustice. She reminds him of the terrible injustice of which he has been guilty. By attempting to deny her sons by Shelah, Judah would have condemned her to a life of prostitution. There is irony in the fact that she disguises herself as a prostitute in order to obtain justice from the patriarch. But when Judah realizes his injustice to his daughter-in-law, it also serves to remind him of his recent injustice to his brother Joseph. When Tamar is condemned she accusingly presents the seal and the staff of Judah as proof of his guilt.
Her phrase “Recognize, I pray thee” is exactly the same phrase that Judah has used to convince his Father that Joseph had been devoured by a wild animal. (Gen. 37: 22)5 His injustice to his daughter-in-law has brought about this strange and embarrassing resolution. It may remind Judah that his injustice to his brother will also have repercussions.
Three months later, when Tamar’s pregnancy begins to show, Judah is informed that “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has played the whore, and behold, she is with child by whoring.” Without even considering the matter, Judah responds hastily and high-handedly with a two-word sentence of death by burning, “Bring her forth that she may be burned” (38:24) In mortal jeopardy, Tamar calmly and skillfully makes her defense. She says not a word on her own behalf. Instead she makes a more serious charge against Judah. Recognize, I pray thee, whose these are, the signet, the cords, and the staff. (Gen. 38: 25)6
But let us now briefly look at the possibility that the biblical author of Genesis is, in some way, charting a development in the character of Judah. Whereas his previous bad conduct is brought to mind in that phrase, “Recognize, I pray you …”, Is it possible that in his response to Tamar’s challenge, there is a redeeming moment for Judah? “I was wrong and she was right.” His admission to his wrongdoing contrasts with the response of Adam in Genesis 3 when God accuses him of eating from the forbidden tree. “The woman you gave me, she gave it to me and I ate.”
The three remaining female characters in the genealogy are Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheeba. Ruth’s significance is primarily because of her close relationship to David. Though her actions were immodest or even immoral by later Christian standards, she acts in accord with a greater divine plan to bring about the birth of the Messiah.
The temptation to judge these four Old Testament women by the moral standards of our times is to be avoided. I think that Brown’s comments on these women’s inclusion are worthy of mention.
It is not clear, for instance, that Ruth sinned with Boaz. Moreover, while in the O.T. the other women were guilty of unchastity in varying degrees, (Tamar was a seductress and pretended prostitute; Rahab was a prostitute; Uriah’s wife was an adulteress) in the Jewish piety of Jesus’ time these woman came off quite well. Tamar was esteemed as a saintly Jewish proselyte, (a convert Canaanite) for by her initiative, she had perpetuated the family line of Judah’s son who was her deceased husband.”7