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I'm preaching the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew this Sunday. In addition to the themes of God's faithfulness in spite of human failure and God's grace to include "sinners such as I" in Jesus' family, there's also a fantastic clue that Jesus is the fulfillment of the OT:
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Compare Matt 1:7b-8a in the ESV and any other translation and you'll note that one records the name of "Asaph" (ESV) while the other records "Asa" (NIV).
Asaph = a psalmist (Ps 50, 73–83)
Asa = a king in Judah (1 Kings 15:9ff)
So which is right? And how can we know?
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Asaph = a psalmist (Ps 50, 73–83)
Asa = a king in Judah (1 Kings 15:9ff)
So which is right? And how can we know?
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Text critical guru Bruce Metzger notes "Asaph" is the name preserved in our earliest and best manuscripts (א, B, Caesarean witnesses, cop, arm, eth, geo, the Old Latin mss, and D in Luke).
This is another way of saying Matthew almost certainly wrote "Asaph."
So why Asa?
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This is another way of saying Matthew almost certainly wrote "Asaph."
So why Asa?
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It's because "Asaph" wasn't a king, while "Asa" was, and this part of Matthew's genealogy ostensibly lists the kings of Judah (cf. Matt 1:6b-11).
The theory is that later scribes assumed that a copyist made an error, accidentally adding a φ to Ἀσά, creating Ἀσάφ instead.
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The theory is that later scribes assumed that a copyist made an error, accidentally adding a φ to Ἀσά, creating Ἀσάφ instead.
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HOWEVER
The same thing happens again in Matt 1:10 with "Amos" (ESV) and "Amon" (NIV).
Again—as in Matt 1:7-8—we have a non-king, Amos the prophet (Amos 1:1), written in the place of a known king of Judah with a similar-sounding name, Amon the son of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:18).
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The same thing happens again in Matt 1:10 with "Amos" (ESV) and "Amon" (NIV).
Again—as in Matt 1:7-8—we have a non-king, Amos the prophet (Amos 1:1), written in the place of a known king of Judah with a similar-sounding name, Amon the son of Manasseh (2 Kgs 21:18).
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And guess what? Metzger says the text critical evidence for "Amos" in Mt 1:10 is "nearly the same at that which reads Ἀσάφ in verses 7 and 8."
IOW, Matthew almost certainly wrote "Amos" here just as he wrote "Asaph" earlier, despite the fact that neither were Judean kings.
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IOW, Matthew almost certainly wrote "Amos" here just as he wrote "Asaph" earlier, despite the fact that neither were Judean kings.
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Yet if we consider where these two non-king characters come from, we realize that one (Amos) is from the part of the OT called the Prophets, while the other is from the Writings (Asaph)—being the latter two parts of the tripartite division of the Tanak.
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So, where is the Law (Pentateuch)?
It might be tempting to point to Abraham here (Mt 1:1-2), but David is in the Prophets and the Writings as well, so their presence in each part wouldn't explain the deliberate deviations of Asaph & Amos.
Is there another connection then?
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It might be tempting to point to Abraham here (Mt 1:1-2), but David is in the Prophets and the Writings as well, so their presence in each part wouldn't explain the deliberate deviations of Asaph & Amos.
Is there another connection then?
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There is! At the end of the genealogy we read that Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, was the son of a man named Jacob (Mt 1:16), just as the Joseph we first meet in Genesis was also born to the patriarch Jacob (Gen 30:24).
Consider what we know of the first Joseph:
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Consider what we know of the first Joseph:
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He proved to be righteous in response to the temptation of Potiphar's wife (Gen 39). And he was famous for his meaningful dreams, which frequently warned of looming danger (Gen 37, 40, 41).
And what are the first two things we learn of Jospeh, the adoptive father of Jesus?
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And what are the first two things we learn of Jospeh, the adoptive father of Jesus?
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"Jospeh, being a just/righteous man..." (Mt 1:19)
"[A]n angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream" (Mt 1:20), which happens again, warning of danger (Mt 2:13).
Thus Joseph, son of Jacob and the adoptive father of Jesus, is like the "first" Joseph we meet in the Law.
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"[A]n angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream" (Mt 1:20), which happens again, warning of danger (Mt 2:13).
Thus Joseph, son of Jacob and the adoptive father of Jesus, is like the "first" Joseph we meet in the Law.
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Jospeh the dreamer
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Amos the prophet (not Amon the king)
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Asaph the psalmist (not Asa the king)
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Matthew's ingenious way of showing that Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament, i.e., the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
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Amos the prophet (not Amon the king)
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Asaph the psalmist (not Asa the king)
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Matthew's ingenious way of showing that Jesus the Messiah is the fulfillment of the whole Old Testament, i.e., the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms.
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And this is not the only such hint, of course. Commenting on Matt 1:1 @pj_schreiner notes Abraham is first mentioned in Genesis, which contains 10 genealogies, while David is last mentioned in the book of Chronicles (final book of the Tanak), which contains 9 genealogies.
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Thus Matthew's genealogy, which opens his Gospel and the whole New Testament, functions as the "missing" tenth genealogy of Chronicles, suggesting that what God began in Genesis and continued through Chronicles he has now come to fulfill in the person of Jesus Christ.
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@JustinFordinal, @JoshuaDRowland, @Pete_J_Walsh, @seerobdesign, @meetjoshjones, @jonwtts, @jonathan_nagle, @themikegeorge, @NathanLSelko, @Gtodd79, @BradHillman4, @joe_byler, @LorenzoElizondo, @JonBibbs
You may appreciate this thread combining text criticism & biblical theology
You may appreciate this thread combining text criticism & biblical theology
