The New Testament opens with a genealogy: 42 generations leading from Abraham to Jesus. To which my initial reaction was a bit of bemused snark: I thought the whole point was that Jesus was the son of God, so why recite that list? But I actually felt a little bad after thinking that, because the text immediately launches into a discussion of Jesus’s parentage, in the context of Joseph’s reaction. Which is a very personal issue, enough to make me feel abashed about the whole idea of blogging about anything having to do with morality: what do you do when your wife is pregnant, and you know it’s not your kid?
His initial reaction is Matthew 1:19: “Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.” I wish I knew quite what the ramifications of “put her away” are (which, incidentally, is the same phrase that Lattimore uses, though the rest of that verse reads a bit differently), but I’m willing to accept that Joseph is being a decent guy about a sticky situation. And then he has a dream where an angel tells him what’s really going on, and he’s happy to get with the program.
What I like about this is what it says about the meaning of family. I can only imagine the thoughts that would go through your mind if you learn that your wife is pregnant with somebody else’s kid; and I wouldn’t for a moment blame people for having any of a wide range of reactions to that. But if you end up deciding that the marriage is important, then yes, the child is very much a part of that marriage and will be very much your child, and the facts of the biological parentage have nothing to do with that, any more than they do in, say, a case of adoption. So actually leading off with that family lineage is a pretty awesome statement about what family is, and I was kind of being an asshole by thinking snarky thoughts in response to seeing that lineage. (Score: Bible 1, David 0!)
What I don’t like about this chapter: we don’t see anything about Mary, or indeed about women in general (the family lineage at the start is all men). For this verse, at least, women are just vessels, men are what’s important.
(A side note: when writing the first paragraph, I wasn’t sure whether to write ‘god’ or ‘God’, probably as a reflexive atheist reaction against the whole concept. But I’m going with the latter: among other reasons, in this context I’m happy to treat it as a proper name, and we capitalize those.)
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Hi David! Just noticed you were doing this, and I hope you won’t mind if I observe! My own take on the genealogy is that it reveals the uncertainty of the early church about how to make the “son of God” claim; I actually find it touching in that way, too.
“Put her away” is just as ambiguous in Greek as in English. To my mind it reflects “Matthew’s” ignorance of Jewish custom–though I myself don’t know what the pertinent customs would be.
Do you know about Raymond Brown’s work on the gospels? He’s wonderful, and wonderfully balanced despite having been a Roman Catholic priest.
12/18/2010 @ 8:53 am
At first I suspected that “put her away privily” might mean to seclude her for the duration of the pregnancy, as when unmarried girls went to stay with out-of-town relatives to avoid embarrassment.
But it seems that “put her away” means divorce her, and his choice was to divorce her publicly, destroying her reputation, or privately ( http://books.google.com/books?id=AKYc25IW6NcC&lpg=PA9&ots=-XACbbXhFN&lr&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false , especially the following page, where it describes that later in Matthew, Jesus argues that fornication is the only justification for divorce).
Some of the sources I looked at mentioned that “husband” also meant “fiancé” because there was not a strong distinction between betrothal and marriage. That may indicate that divorce and breaking an engagement were not really different things.
12/18/2010 @ 12:34 pm
@Roger No, I’m not familiar with Raymond Brown, my ignorance on this subject really is vast. Right now, I’m honestly not at all sure what I’ll do once I’ve finished the Gospels, but I’m certainly happy to have more suggestions for where to look next. (I do think I’ll avoid reading large chunks of other commentary until I’ve gone through it once myself.)
And thanks to both of you for the information about “put her away”.
12/18/2010 @ 8:58 pm
As someone with a very unresolved relationship with the Gospels, and the bible in general, I’m finding this series (early though it be) to be quite enjoyable. Great insight! (would be the very ‘christian culture’ thing to say =P)
12/19/2010 @ 2:24 am
To jump on the clarification pile: They were engaged, “put her away” means “divorce her,” and breaking an engagement was equivalent to divorce.
Joseph’s spot was a tricky one, especially from a modern standpoint. She’s likely showing in her pregnancy at this point, and they’re not yet fully married, so folks are talking. Thing is, if Joseph divorced her publicly, she (and fetus Jesus) would probably have been stoned to death. If Joseph divorced her privately, she and Jesus would have become social outcasts, with Mary likely having to turn to prostitution to feed her son. If Joseph didn’t divorce Mary, the gossip mill would likely have turned into calls to stone all three of them. So Joe thought he was taking the best way out, up until the angel told him to just go with it, and it’d be cool.
Your note about the lack of women in this story is apt. Matthew was likely written by a Jewish Christian, with an emphasis on how Jesus tied in with Jewish values and traditions. With that in mind, it’s less surprising that Matthew takes more time on lineage and less time on, well, women. If you’re looking for the story of Mary (and of her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist), turn over to Luke.
12/29/2010 @ 10:52 am