The Infancy Narratives: Matthew

Hint: there are no shepherds in Matthew, and no star in  Luke.

Inspired by the adult Sunday school topic from last week at First Congregational Church, I decided to write about the infancy narratives. (I know, I haven't even caught up on the summer pictures. But in order to remain timely from a holiday perspective . . .) Following is the first of hopefully three on the separate narratives. Yesterday we received a Christmas card in the mail that had the Shepherds observing the “star of Bethlehem.” The card's mishmash of the various narrative threads confirmed my prior opinion that we have reduced the narratives with our holiday sentimentality to be mere props for a different narrative, which is alien to the scriptural accounts. The intent of these posts is to read the various accounts as individual narratives with unique plots, purposes and motifs. What follows is a brief exegetical project followed by an even briefer meditation.

The Gospel by Matthew begins with a genealogical record of Jesus (an English translation of the Greek equivalent for what we now translate into English as Joshua/Yeshua). It starts with Abraham, follows the “begats” through to David (with a nice round number of 14 generations—or 2 x 7), from David to the Babylonian Exile (when the southern Kingdom was defeated, another 14 generations), and from the Exile to Jesus (again, another 14 generations). Thus, the first chapter comprises the equivalent of 6 groups of 7 generations to trace Jesus' ancestry from the time Yhwh covenanted with Abraham to be his and his descendant's god (and to inherit the land, etc.), to the time the covenant was extrapolated to promise that, though the Israelites were transitioning to a monarchial form of government, Yhwh would maintain the special relationship and one day restore the glory days King David in one of his descendants, to the point where the land vomited them away in Exile being unfaithful to the covenant by following other gods and thwarting justice in the land, to the time of Jesus . . . The emphasis there is on the ellipsis: Israel's history has brought them to this point, back in their own land but ruled over by pagans who have instituted what many, if not most, of the Jews thought of as an illegitimate king (Herod). The equivalent of six groups of seven generations alludes to the sabbatical week and gives the impression that in the story of Jesus to follow, Jewish history has in some sense been completed (or fulfilled—more on that later). The arbitrary divisions from Abraham to David to Exile highlight some of Matthew's themes.

There are, of course, many instances in ancient mythology of virgin (or at least miraculous) births of important historical or mythological figures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births). When Matthew attributes Jesus' birth to the “fulfillment” of Isaiah's prophecy, this isn't meant to be the kind of “fulfillment” that most modern readers assume. Isaiah prophesied to King Ahaz that a sign indicating Yhwh would be “with them” in the war with Aram and Ephraim (the Northern Kingdom) would be that a young maiden would give birth and should name the son Immanuel (Immanuel means El (God)-with-us). The Hebrew for “young maiden” is most definitely not the Hebrew word for “virgin” and there doesn't seem to be anything extraordinary about this birth, except its use as a symbol/sign, a common device in prophetic literature. In Isaiah, Yhwh promises to give Judah, the “house of David,” the victory over an apostate Northern Kingdom allied with the pagans. Matthew's point is not this is what Isaiah really meant, happening now in Jesus through a literal virgin birth. Rather, as in many places in his gospel, he is retelling Israel's story and casting Jesus as the true Jew, the one who sums up the long history of calling, election, exodus, temptation in the wilderness, kingdom, exile and eventual vindication. (So, I believe, he wasn't “taking prophecies out of context” to prove something about Jesus from Jewish scriptures; that objection only works with the narrow understanding of what “fulfills” means.) Jesus' conception by the Holy Spirit, then, is a sign that Yhwh is once again with his people to give them victory over another instance of apostate Israel allied with the pagans. Indeed, instead of naming him Immanuel, which would be the obvious choice for a name if the narrow meaning of “fulfilled” is in view here, he is named Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus, which translates He Saves, presumably because he is not just the sign, but the means by which Yhwh will “save his people from their sins” as Ahaz defeated his own enemies. Contextually, it appears Matthew is indicating Yhwh through Jesus would deliver Israel from her current state of subjugation to Rome and corrupted Israel, a result of “their sins” that got them in this predicament in the first place. He certainly does not have in view a universal salvation myth, regardless of how we read that 2000 years later.

I'm not sure Matthew thought through that light from distant objects doesn't work like that. You know, the whole issue of parallax.

When the Zoroastrian astrologers (magi, everywhere else in the Bible translated magicians, not kings) observe (what we can assume to be) a special astrological phenomenon, they understand a new and significant king has been born in Israel. They naturally seek out Herod, the king of the Jews, as he would have it, to congratulate him on his new heir. Whoops, Herod must not have any recent sons. Herod and “all Jerusalem” were pretty upset to hear of a threat to the current political arrangement. Bethlehem, David's City, was identified by the scholars as the expected birthplace of the anticipated god-appointed King who would “shepherd” Israel at a time of national crisis (i.e., for Micah, when the Assyrians came to destroy them). Artistic embellishment on Matthew's part aside (the light stopped over the place Jesus was staying), the “star” reappears and leads the Magi to the child Jesus. Herod, however, is threatened and the slaughter of the innocents follows. Warned by an angel, Jesus' family escapes to Egypt until Herod dies. For Matthew, this another device to use to depict Jesus as re-enacting in his life the long history of Israel, who escaped famine in Egypt and were then led out in the Exodus by Moses, who had escaped a similar slaughter of the innocents at the hand of Pharaoh.

Matthew presents his readers with Jesus, born as a result of Yhwh's promise to deliver his people post-Exile. Although they had returned to the land, Israel's enemies again posed a threat to the future of God's people. The enemies in Matthew are at least three-fold. First, the birth of Jesus marked by an astrological phenomenon indicates that, probably in the back of his mind, Matthew considers Rome, headed by Augustus, to be a sort of parody of Jesus, the coming world ruler. Second, and more obvious, Herod (and the ruling elite) has become the new Pharaoh. Lastly, Israel's sins had put her in this place of servitude, despite covenantal promises that she should be the head and not the tail, a blessing to the nations rather than a byword in a backward and often rebellious part of the Empire. Jesus is the new Moses, born in a time of chaos, to save Israel. He is Israel, taking Israel's own history of miraculous beginnings to exile into his own life.

Meditation

Stripped of the sentimental accretions, Matthew's infancy narrative leaves us with a complex historical narrative re-enacted in his central character. It's an introduction to a larger story, and causes us to anticipate victory, a replay of the Exodus by Moses, or of they heyday of the monarchy under King David. How will Jesus save Israel from Jerusalem's rulers? What will he do about the emperor? How will Israel survive almost certain destruction if yet another, more widespread, rebellion against Rome arises? What will the new Promised Land look like, or, rather, what will the Israel inheriting this land look like? In Matthew, the point is not about abstract and universalizing incarnation or salvation. It is about the historical question of how Jesus would save Israel. The rest of the gospel shows us how, of course: by calling a people around himself, to be, with him, true and faithful Israel, the community embodying the beatitudes, who are aware of an imminent regime change and who find that Jesus really is a threat to the political status quo, predicting its destruction within a generation. He is the one who takes Israel's exile, her sin, onto himself as a means forward for the community through the coming crisis that is already being foreshadowed in these opening lines of Matthew.