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A Literary, Theological, and Historical Analysis of the Matthean Birth Narratives, It Is Clear That History Was Driving Theology in Matthew’S Account

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A Literary, Theological, and Historical Analysis of the Matthean Birth Narratives, It Is Clear That History Was Driving Theology in Matthew’S Account View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Liberty University Digital Commons SOUTHEASTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY HISTORY DRIVING THEOLOGY: A LITERARY, THEOLOGICAL, AND HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MATTHEAN BIRTH NARRATIVES SUBMITTED TO DR. ANDREAS KÖSTENBERGER IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF PHD9950 PHD DISSERTATION DEFENSE BY LANCE T. BEAUCHAMP FEBRUARY 22, 2010 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................1 Relevance of the Study 1 Purpose of the Study 4 Organization and Methodology of the Study 6 CHAPTER 1: HISTORICAL AND MODERN INTERPRETATION OF THE MATTHEAN BIRTH NARRATIVE...............................................................................9 The Early Church Fathers 9 Genealogy of Jesus 10 Virgin Birth 11 Magi and Moving Star 13 Chronology and Location of Birth 16 Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Sources 18 Middle Ages Through Renaissance 23 Anselm of Canterbury 24 Thomas Aquinas 25 Martin Luther 27 John Calvin 29 Erasmus 32 John Lightfoot 34 Nineteenth Century Lives of Jesus 36 ii Source Criticism and the Virgin Birth 36 Events of Matthew 2 40 Monographs of the Birth Narratives: Virgin Birth Revisited 42 Paul Lobstein 43 Louis Matthews Sweet 43 G. H. Box 45 Vincent Taylor 46 Elwood Worcester 48 J. Gresham Machen 49 Thomas Boslooper 50 Raymond Brown 51 Jane Schaberg 53 Edwin Freed 55 Twentieth Century Commentaries on Matthew 56 Genealogy and Virgin Birth 56 Events of Matthew 2 65 Recent Works on the Matthean Birth Narrative 71 John Meier 72 James D. G. Dunn 73 John Shelby Spong 74 Conclusion 76 CHAPTER 2: LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE MATTHEAN BIRTH NARRATIVE................................................................................................................77 Textual Criticism 77 iii Gospel Starting Point Comparison 80 Birth Narrative Comparison: Matthew and Luke 82 Literary Structure of Matthew 85 Literary Style and Vocabulary 89 Structure of Matthean Birth Narrative 92 Literary Analysis of the Genealogy (Matt 1:1–17) 94 Βίβλος γενέσεως (Matt 1:1) 94 Genealogical Structure: Three Divisions of Fourteen 97 Foreshadowing: Four Women of the Genealogy 100 Genealogical Source(s) 102 Purpose of the Genealogy 105 Literary Analysis of the Birth Narrative (Matt 1:18–25) 106 Setting 106 Transition and Repetition: Dream Appearances and Fulfillment Quotations 110 Foreshadowing 125 Typology 127 Source(s) of Matt 1:18–2:23 130 The Purpose of Matt 1:18–2:23 143 CHAPTER 3: THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MATTHEAN BIRTH NARRATIVE..............................................................................................................145 Theological Purpose of Matthew’s Gospel 145 Theology of the Genealogy (Matt 1:1–17) 147 Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ υἱοῦ ∆αυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάµ (Matt 1:1) 147 Genealogical Structure: Three Divisions of Fourteen 150 iv Four Women of the Genealogy 153 τὸν Ἰωσὴφ τὸν ἄνδρα Μαρίας , ἐξ ἧς ἐγεννήθη Ἰησοῦς (Matt 1:16) 157 The Birth of Jesus (Matt 1:18–25) 158 The Virgin Birth 158 Jesus…Emmanuel 163 Magi, Herod, and Moving Star (Matt 2:1–12) 165 The Birth at Bethlehem 165 Journey of the Magi 170 Flight to Egypt and Settlement in Nazareth (Matt 2:13–23) 175 Theological Purpose of the Matthean Birth Narrative 184 CHAPTER 4: HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MATTHEAN BIRTH NARRATIVE..............................................................................................................187 Genealogy of Jesus (Matt 1:1–17) 187 Comparison with OT Genealogies 187 Comparison with Luke’s Genealogy of Jesus 194 The Virgin Birth (Matt 1:18–25) 204 Comparison with Luke’s Account 206 Natural vs. Supernatural Presuppositions 211 Multiple Attestation? 212 “In Bethlehem of Judea in the Days of Herod the King” 217 Birth at Bethlehem 217 In the Days of Herod: Chronological Comparison with Luke 2 220 Journey of the Magi (Matt 2:1–12) 230 Identity and Origin of the Magi 230 v The Moving Star 235 The Slaughter of the Innocents (Matt 2:16–18) 241 Flight to Egypt and Settlement in Nazareth (Matt 2:13–15, 19–23) 245 Conclusion: Historical Plausibility 248 CONCLUSION ...........................................................................................................250 vi INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY Relevance of the Study With the release of "The Nativity Story" 1 in 2006, the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke made it to the silver screen and reached millions of moviegoers across the globe. The film takes much of the Gospel narratives at face value though often preserving tradition (as with the scene of simultaneous worship of the Christ child by shepherds and magi) over a historical-critical approach. At the same time, certain characters, such as the humorous magi, are developed much more than the Biblical account. Regardless, the harmonization of the two Gospel birth narratives in the form of film has brought more focus on Jesus' birth than with any previous multimedia production. Rather than a skeptical approach of a historical-critical scholar, the movie presented the birth of Jesus from a faith perspective. The National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) aired a special on the birth of Jesus during November 2005 as part of their news documentary, Dateline: NBC . The title of the story was “The Birth of Jesus: A Question of Faith or History?” 2 As correspondent, Keith Morrison, states, “It’s a story many Christians all over the world believe word for word—but how much is history? Wars have started over the question of whether the 1The Nativity Story , 101 min., prods. Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen, dir. Catherine Hardwicke, (Hollywood: New Line Home Entertainment, 2006), digital video diskette. 2Keith Morrison, “What is the Real Christmas Story?,” NBC Dateline (aired 11 Nov 2005), n.p. [cited 3 Jan 2008]. Online: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005045/ . 1 Nativity story was to be taken literally or as an allegory, a myth.” The television special focused on the historicity of the birth narratives, including interviews with such renown scholars as John Dominic Crossan, Craig Evans, and Ben Witherington and writer, Lesley Hazleton. While scholars such as Evans and Witherington represent a more conservative background, the more skeptical scholars demonstrate how the discussion of the birth narratives has changed over time. Hazleton, author of A Flesh-And-Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother , remarks in an interview with Morrison, “The Gospels, you have to remember, were not written as history. They were written as theology; they were written in Greek outside of Palestine.” Morrison narrates, “And it’s this theology written some 80 years after Jesus’ birth that grew into the biggest religion in the world—two billion people—and became the foundation of Western civilization. That happened even if the Nativity story didn’t unfold exactly as it’s told by the Gospel writers.” John Crossan focuses upon the significance rather than the historicity of the events: “The most important debate is this: Whether you take it literally or whether you take it metaphorically, what meaning are you taking from it?” The circle of scholars focus upon several aspects of the Matthean and Lukan birth narratives, including the virgin birth, the Lukan census, the magi and moving star, the flight to Egypt, and the birth in the geographical location of Bethlehem. Crossan continually points to a metaphorical understanding although he focuses on the significance rather than the literary strategy. Insisting that Matthew wrote his birth narrative to present Jesus as the new Moses, Crossan says that Matthew thought, “I will have a story in which Herod, the new pharaoh, tries to kill all the children of Bethlehem 2 in order to kill Jesus. In plain language, it’s a parable. Matthew knew what he was doing.” These comments from Crossan illustrate much of the modern view of the birth narratives of Jesus: that they were theologically contrived. With the publication of Raymond Brown's Birth of the Messiah 3 in 1977, the scholarly world saw the most detailed analysis of the Synoptic birth narratives to date and concludes with this same skepticism. Although Brown believes that Matthew began with a narrative and later added the fulfillment quotations to bring out the theological implications of the events of Jesus’ birth, there were several elements that were contrived based on his understanding of OT prophecy and two or more narratives were conflated. This thought has been echoed by such recent publications as James D.G. Dunn’s Jesus Remembered (2003) 4 where he allows only eight pages to focus on Jesus’ birth out of 1,019 pages which cover the life of Jesus. Such skepticism has also infiltrated more conservative scholars such as N. T. Wright who does not spend more than one page on the birth events in his three volumes of Christian Origins and the Question of God .5 John P. Meier’s massive three-volume work on the historical Jesus entitled, A Marginal Jew ,6 casts many shadows of doubt on elements of the birth narratives, including a birth at Bethlehem. 3Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke , 2d ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1993). 4James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003). 5N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996); The Resurrection and the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003). 6John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew Volume One: The Roots of the Problem and the Person (New York: Doubleday, 1991). 3 One of the most recent books to be published concerning the life of Jesus is from John Shelby Spong whose book, Jesus for the Non-Religiou s (2007), reveals its opinion on the birth narrative from the title of the second chapter: “There Was No Star Over Bethlehem.” Not only quoted in the body of the text in this chapter but also printed in bold under the title of the chapter are Spong’s words that sum up his view: “Birth stories are always fanciful. They are never historical. No one waits outside a maternity ward for a great person to be born.” This reflects the intense skepticism of his approach throughout the chapter.
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