Tamar, Genesis, Chapter 38
For Rahab, Joshua, Chapter 2
For Ruth, look between Judges and First Samuel
For Bathsheba, 2 Samuel, Chapter 11
She was impressed that most of them wrote it all down.
Martha then addressed their unspoken question: “Why make reference to these women and ignore all the others; Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, wives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for starters? It almost looks as if someone was trying to cast a cloud on the royal line, and in so doing, maligning David as well.” There was some confused discussion. Someone thought that a later editor, with some malicious intent, might have inserted the names of the four women. Another wondered if it was because they were all probably non-Jewish, so that a hint was being given that the story to be told was the beginning of a new openness to Gentile people. Several thought that it was a preparation for the one who would be notorious for “eating and drinking with outcasts and sinners.” But Martha had more to say. “What if we are looking at the four women in the wrong way? Whatever else we can say of them, it is clear that they were resourceful and determined ladies. One possibility: ‘Matthew’ was a woman!” Big silence. No one had thought of that and there was a resistance to the unfamiliar.
Melanie was pleased with all of this. It was opening lots of new ideas. “Let’s keep Martha’s suggestion in the back of our minds as we proceed. Maybe we’ll find some other clues.” Martha nodded. “I can make quite a case for female authorship,” she insisted. “Wait for it!”
Melanie guided the conversation to the next big problem: why give a genealogy for Joseph when the text would immediately claim that Mary’s pregnancy was of divine origin, so that Joseph wasn’t the father at all? It was time to display the text of the second part of Chapter 1 and to wonder about the Virgin Birth.
The circumstances of the birth of Jesus Christ were these. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they were united in marriage, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. But Joseph her husband, being a kind-hearted man and unwilling publicly to disgrace her, had determined to release her privately from the betrothal. But while he was contemplating this step, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to bring home your wife Mary, for she is with child through the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus for he it is who will save his people from their sins.” All this took place in fulfillment of what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet, “Behold! The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call His name ‘Immanuel’ ”—a word which signifies ‘God with us’.
When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded, and brought home his wife, but did not live with her until she had given birth to a son. The child’s name he called Jesus.
Someone asked if belief in that doctrine was essential. Creeds were quoted (“born of the Virgin Mary”). Stephen remarked that Paul, who wrote his letters before the Gospels were compiled, seemed unaware of such a belief, saying of Jesus only that he was “born of a woman”. Al had been silent for a while and Melanie wondered if he was out of his depth. But he clearly had been doing his homework as he raised a question about the words of the prophet: “Behold! The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call His name Immanuel.”
He said that he had read somewhere that the word “virgin” didn’t appear in the original source and he wondered also why no one called Jesus “Immanuel”. Martha, full of information, was quick to respond. “Al is right about the word ‘virgin’. In the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14, where the quotation comes from, the word was “young woman.” But when translation was made into Greek, the word for ‘virgin’ was used.” Someone remembered the publication of the Revised Standard Version in 1952 when fundamentalist Christians attacked its translation of Isaiah 7:14 (“a young woman will conceive”) as an undermining of the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth.
On the question of the name, “Immanuel,” Webster remarked that it does not appear anywhere else in Matthew (or in any of the other Gospels, for that matter). Al added the comment: “We all hear ‘Jesus Christ’ used casually in the street. ‘Immanuel Christ’ would sound a little strange.”
Webster had been looking ahead to Chapter 2 and he remarked that if one omitted the second part of Chapter 1, then the text flowed nicely and there would be no debate about Virgin Birth, which many Christians found problematic. They needed to look at the flow from the end of the genealogy:
. . . Eliud was the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar was the father of Matthan,
Matthan was the father of Jacob,
Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus who is called Christ
There are, therefore, in all, fourteen generations from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the Removal to Babylon; and fourteen from the Removal to Babylon to the Christ.
And then go on to the beginning of Chapter 2:
Now after the birth of Jesus, which took place at Bethlehem in Judaea in the reign of King Herod, excitement was produced in Jerusalem by the arrival of certain Magi from the east, inquiring, “Where is the newly born king of the Jews? For we have seen his Star in the east, and have come here to do him homage.”
Since Chapter 2 was the topic for the following week, Melanie displayed the full text for all to ponder:
Now after the birth of Jesus, which took place at Bethlehem in Judaea in the reign of King Herod, excitement was produced in Jerusalem by the arrival of certain Magi from the east, inquiring, “Where is the newly born king of the Jews? For we have seen his Star in the east, and have come here to do him homage.” Reports of this soon reached the king, and greatly agitated not only him but all the people of Jerusalem. So he assembled all the High Priests and Scribes of the people, and anxiously asked them where the Christ was to be born.
“At Bethlehem in Judaea,” they replied; “for so it stands written in the words of the Prophet, ‘And thou, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, by no means the least honorable among princely places in Judah! For from thee shall come a prince—one who shall be the Shepherd of My People Israel.’”
Thereupon Herod sent privately for the Magi and ascertained from them the exact time of the star’s appearing. He then directed them to go to Bethlehem, adding, “Go and make careful inquiry about the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and do him homage.” After hearing what the king said, they went to Bethlehem, while, strange to say, the star they had seen in the east led them on until it came and stood over the place where the babe was. When they saw the star, the sight filled them with intense joy. So they entered the house; and when they saw the babe with his mother Mary, they prostrated themselves and did him homage, and opening their treasure-chests offered gifts to him—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But being forbidden by God in a dream to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by a different route.
When they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise: take the babe and His mother and escape to Egypt, and remain there till I bring you word. For Herod is about to make search for the child in order to destroy him.”
So Joseph roused himself and took the babe and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. There he remained till Herod’s death, that what the Lord had said through the Prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
Then
