Why Are the Birth Narratives Significant? Flashcards
Only Matthew and Luke offer a birth narrative, in doing do it is clear they’re responding to two needs, what are they?
1 - Early Church’s need to know something more about Jesus’ early life + to establish when he was the designated Son of God (birth narratives indicate it was from conception - meet the accusations of illegitimacy)
2 - to anticipate themes which are developed throughout the gospel and in this sense the narratives are (Hookers phrase) keys that open the gospels
Does Matthews narrative seeks to unlock several different themes ?
Yes
What’s a theme unlocked in Matthews narrative?
Jesus is the divine Son of God from conception, and one who will ‘save his people from their sins’
- whom gentiles worship, but, despite the promises his coming fulfills, the majority of Judaism will reject
Another theme Matthews gospel tries to unlock
Matthew firmly en grafts Jesus onto the Davidic line through his genealogy
+
it serves to identify the reason from the prominent role that Joseph plays in this narrative
What does Reid and Tyler believe Joseph’s sole function is?
To provide the link with the line of David which ensures Jesus is fully Davidic and can be referred to as the Son of God
What does Matthew fill his birth narratives with?
Titles for Jesus and with geographical locations which acquire special significance or which already have meaning for the reader
How was Joseph Prompted to fulfill his role
By an angel in a dream who assures him that the strange circumstances which are unfolding in his life are set in motion by God
The visit of the magi to Herod, in search of the king of Jews rises a new specter what is it?
Rejection by his own people
Dreams continue to structure the birth narratives as magi are warned what?
not to return from their visit to Jesus by the way of Herod.
After giving their gifts (Gold- royalty, myrrh - passion, and frankincense- divinity) they return by another route, and Messiah again is preserved by the divine direction of events
what does Hooker write?
‘one cannot help but feel that the star, however divine its origin, made a mistake in leading the wise men first to Jerusalem, for the result was the massacre of the infants’
What does the massacre serve to anticipate?
Another important theme for Matthew - the rejection of Jesus by the Jewish leaders
what does Matthew also use the massacre for?
For two more fulfillment clauses
After the birth Mary and Joseph take the baby to safety in Egypt, giving rise too the old testament prophecy
- Hosea ‘ out of Egypt i call my son’
- Jeremiah ‘ a voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeps for her children and refuses to be comforted, because they w
were no more’
About Matthew using to quotes from Hosea and Jeremiah for the massacre use
he clearly takes them out of their original contexts
the use of the verse from Hosea infers what?
that Jesus has now replaced the nation of Israel as God’s first born son, through whom the true fate of Israel will now pass
What does Hooker observe?
That ‘ what Matthew does with this particular text is the kind of things that spiritual men and women, Jews and Christians..have always done with the texts: they see new meanings in it, and realise it’s relevance to different situations’
