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I. Joseph in the Gospel of Matthew
I. 1 -- The Purpose, Structure and Genre of
Matthew 1-2
Neither Jesus' conception and birth of a virgin, nor his connection
with Nazareth, seem to fit the Jewish expectations for the Messiah
to be born. Matthew's infancy narrative presents Joseph as an
important figure linking Jesus to Israel, in order to show that
Jesus is the promised Messiah, despite the virginal conception
and despite being raised at Nazareth. Old Testament quotations
are cited to show that Jesus fulfills the prophecies. Joseph
himself is shown to image the Old Testament Joseph. He also prefigures
the Church. He models the response that every Christian, both
Jew and gentile, should give to Jesus.
The literary structure for these two chapters can be analyzed
in a variety of ways. One approach has been to note divisions
into five books, like the five sacred books of the law of Moses,
the first five books of our Bible. As the rest of Matthew's Gospel
can be divided into five parts, each ending with a similar refrain,
so the infancy narrative is also found to contain five episodes,
punctuated by five fulfillment quotations, as follows:
Scene - Verses - Episode
- Quotation
Intro: 1:1-17 Genealogy
1: 1:18-25 Parentage, Joseph's Vocation Is 7:14
2: 2:1-12 Herod, Magi, Bethlehem Mic 5:2
3: 2:13-15 Flight into Egypt Hos 11:1
4: 2:16-18 Massacre of Innocents Jer 31:15
5: 2:19-23 From Egypt to Nazareth Is 4:3/Jgs 13:5?
Matthew weaves together other structural elements which are
to be noted, however. There are three Joseph stories containing
dreams followed by his immediate action, which we will examine
later. There is a geographical movement from Bethlehem to Egypt
and back to Nazareth. The material can also be seen to be organized
as a fourfold response of who and how, where and whence, as follows:
1:1-17 The Who: Jesus, son of David, son of Abraham,
for Jew and gentile, to be born of woman.
1:18-25 The How: Son of God is son of David by Davidic
Joseph's acceptance of child conceived by Holy Spirit.
2:1-12 The Where: Bethlehem, city of David, but visited
by gentile magi as sons of Abraham.
2:13-23 The Whence: from Bethlehem of the Jews, through
exile in Egypt like Moses, to Galilee of the gentiles, at Nazareth
as Nazarene.
For genre, we are dealing with a genealogy and a series of
narratives completed by biblical citations. Matthew himself defines
it as "genesis" (Mt 1:1), an account of the origins.
It is an infancy narrative composed in the light of the Scriptures,
a demonstration that the history of salvation is recapitulated
in Christ.
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