¹ Apart from the commentaries, the wider studies of the Infancy narratives, and the studies of the Matthean genealogy which generally give some attention to the place of the women, see especially Spitta, F., ‘Die Frauen in der Genealogie des Matthäus’, ZWT 54 (1912) 1–8Google Scholar; Heffern, A. D., ‘The Four Women in St Matthew's Genealogy of Christ’, JBL 31 (1912) 68–81Google Scholar; Bloch, R., ‘“Juda engendra Pharès et Zara, de Thamar” (Matt 1,3)’, Mélanges bibliques rédigés en l'honneur de André Robert (Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1957) 381–9Google Scholar; Stegemann, H., ‘“Die des Una”: Zur Bedeutung der Frauennamen in der Genealogie von Matthäus, 1,1–;17’, in Tradition und Glaube (FS Kuhn, K. G., ed. Jeremias, G. et al. ; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971) 246–76Google Scholar; Zakowitch, Y., ‘Rahab als Mutter des Boas in der Jesus–Genealogie (Matth. I 5)’, NovT 17 (1975) 1–5Google Scholar; Hanson, A. T., ‘Rahab the Harlot in Early Christian Tradition’, JSNT 1 (1978) 53–60Google Scholar; Schnider, F., and Stenger, W., ‘Die Frauen im Stammbaum Jesu nach Matthäus: Strukturale Beobachtungen zu Mt 1,1–17’, BZ 23 (1979) 187–96Google Scholar; Quinn, J. D., ‘Is PAXÁB in Mt 1,5 Rahab of Jericho?;’, Bib 62 (1981) 225–8Google Scholar; Brown, R. E., ‘Rachab in Mt 1,5 Probably is Rahab of Jericho’, Bib 63 (1982) 79–80Google Scholar; Freed, E. D., ‘The Women in Matthew's Genealogy’, JSNT 29 (1987) 3–19Google Scholar; Schaberg, J., ‘The Foremothers and the Mother of Jesus’, Concil 206 (1989) 112–19Google Scholar; Blomberg, C. L., ‘The Liberation of Illegitimacy: Women and Rulers in Matthew 1–2’, BTB 21 (1991) 145–50Google Scholar; Heil, J. P., ‘The Narrative Roles of Women in Matthew's Genealogy’, Bib 72 (1991) 538–45Google Scholar; Wainwright, E. M., Towards a Feminist Critical Reading of the Gospel according to Matthew (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1991) 61–9, 156–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bauckham, R., ‘Tamar's Ancestry and Rahab's Marriage: Two Problems in the Matthean Genealogy’, NovT 37 (1995) 313–29.Google Scholar

² For this particular form of the apologetic view see Blomberg, ‘Liberation’, 147.

³ Levine, A.-J., The Social and Ethnic Dimension of Matthean Salvation History: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles…’ (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 14; Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1988) 81.Google Scholar

⁴ See Concil, 206 (1989) 112–19Google Scholar and The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Introduction to the Infancy Narratives (New York: Crossroads, 1990) esp. 32–3Google Scholar. A number of the features of Schaberg's view are also found already in Levine, Social and Ethnic Dimension, 62, 81.

⁵ In Illegitimacy, Schaberg sets this against the background of what she takes to be existing reader knowledge that Mary was pregnant by another man (probably as a result of rape).

⁶ If the ‘irregularity’ of the marriage unions is defined widely enough, then each of the four (and Mary) can be made to fit, but the looser the definition of irregularity the less powerfully this commonality is able to make a useful point. To make Ruth's marriage to Boaz very irregular requires either a quite unlikely interpretation of the text of Ruth (she seduced him on the threshing floor – speaking loosely this may be true, but Ruth 3.4 comes at the wrong point in the narrative for it to suggest that sexual intimacy actually takes place on the threshing floor) or appeal to Jewish tradition of doubtful relevance (she was probably raped in Moab before coming with her mother–in–law to Israel), or, even more remotely, to her incestuous origins as a descendant of Lot (Gen 19.30–8). While Ruth and Rahab are clearly Gentile women, Tamar is likely to be considered Aramean like the Matriarchs before her (see at note 26) and Bathshebah is sometimes identified as Israelite on the basis of identification of her father Eliam (2 Sam 11.3) with the son of Ahithophel the Gilonite in 2 Sam 23.34 (e.g. this identification is assumed in b. San. 101b). Ruth is best seen as a former Gentile, who has found shelter under the wings of the God of Israel. Rahab fits the same pattern and Tamar fits it in a modified form. (See further below.)

⁷ The elements of annotation in the genealogy are the following: ‘and his brothers’ in v. 2; ‘and Zerah by Tamar’ in v. 3; ‘by Rahab’ and ‘by Ruth’ in v. 5; ‘the king’ and ‘by the wife of Uriah’ in v. 6; ‘and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon’ in v. 11; ‘after the deportation to Babylon’ in v. 12; ‘the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ’ in v. 16. Outside the genealogy proper, w. 1 and 17 can be thought of as annotations. Vv. 18–25 fall into a somewhat different category as explanation and expansion of v. 16.

⁸ The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (New Updated Edn. New York: Doubleday, 1993).Google Scholar

⁹ The name Matthew is used in the conventional manner of the unknown author of the gospel of Matthew.

¹⁰ In ‘Genealogical Annotation in Genesis as Background for the Matthean Geneaology of Jesus’ (forthcoming in Tyndale Bulletin) I have identified the similarity between the role of annotation in the genealogies of Genesis and in Matthew's genealogy and argued that Matthew learned his craft for the creation of an annotated genealogy from the genealogical material he was able to examine in Genesis. The comparison with Genesis strengthens the claim that the Matthean genealogy is intended to be read as a compressed telling of the history of God's dealings with his people which preceded the birth of Jesus.

¹¹ ‘Son of David’ and ‘son of Abraham’ certainly relate to the genealogy to come, but there are those who doubt whether βιβλоς γην⋯σηως does so. The matter is not of decisive importance for the present discussion, but I have argued at length that the sense of βιβλоς γην⋯σηως is ‘record of the origin’ in ‘What Kind of Genesis Do We Have in Matt 1.1?’, NTS 42 (1996) 463–71.Google Scholar

¹² See further Acts 7.2; 1 Mace 2.51–60; cf. 2 Bar. 57. Some have argued for a beginning of the genealogy with Abraham on the basis that Abraham is thought of as ‘the father of many nations’ (Gen 17.4–5), but this is very unlikely in a trio which runs: Abraham, David, Christ, and is not encouraged by the Jewish history which provides the scope of the genealogy. Even if the strongest possible role is given to the women as Gentiles, their role in the genealogy is sufficiently different from that of the men for this not to add significantly to the case for taking Abraham in a universalistic way – the most we could have in this direction is a possible secondary interest via Gen 17.4–5 in non–Jews finding shelter under the wings of the God of Israel. See further below. ‘Children of Abraham’ is a category into which Christians will place Gentile as well as Jewish believers, but this is a deliberate development of a more fundamental recognition that God's choice is focused upon the children of Abraham, that descent from him marked the boundaries of the people of God (see Matt 3.9; Luke 1.55; John 8.33; Rom 4.1; 2 Cor 11.22; Gal 6.7; Heb 2.16; Jub. 12.24; 13.3; 2 Esdr 3.13–15).

¹³ I take ‘Christ’ in v. 1 as titular (‘Record of the origin of Jesus: Christ, son of David, son of Abraham’). In v. 17 there can be no doubt that it is titular, and with the three key names repeated there in reverse order w. 1 and 17 form a chiasm around the genealogy. In v. 18 ‘Jesus Christ’ is probably a double name, but after v. 16 (‘Jesus who is called Christ’) and v. 17 the name is not used without reference to its titular origins (the phenomenon is not dissimilar to the use of places of origin or other descriptive designations in double names).

¹⁴ The information here could also be gleaned from 1 Chron 2.5–13. For Ruth as the more likely source see at note 20.

¹⁵ But something more is offered by the absence of the three generations of kings between Joram and Uzziah. By taking advantage of the near identity of the names ‘Uzziah’ and ‘Ahaziah’ in parts of the Greek Old Testament textual tradition, Matthew has, by his placing of Uzziah immediately after Joram, been able not only to ensure the symmetry of his fourteen generation pattern (implying the unfolding of the well ordered purposes of God), but also to evoke the curse on the household of Ahab to the third generation (1 Kings 21.21–4, 29) which engulfed, as well, these three generations of the kings of Judah. Details and supporting argumentation are provided in the article mentioned in the following note.

¹⁶ I have discussed in detail the issues involved in providing a satisfactory reading of this annotation in an article forthcoming in BBR under the title ‘Jechoniah and His Brothers (Matthew 1:11)’.

¹⁷ The significance of the former has already been somewhat anticipated in the above discussion of‘Jehoiachim and his brothers’.

¹⁸ So much of the OT materials in some way reflect the Exilic context that there is little point in seeking to list texts.

¹⁹ In the perspective of the genealogy the deportation is likely to mark the demise of authentic kingship in Judah until the coming of the messiah. Note the continuing verses (w. 38–51) of Ps 89.

²⁰ The ‘A begat B’ pattern is also to be found in some generational lists in Genesis (and note the list in Neh 12.10–11), but not in connection with any of the generational sequences in Matthew's genealogy. The pattern does occur in connection with a sequence of names used in Matthew's genealogy for seven generations in 1 Chron 2.10–13 (Ram to Jesse), but this is less likely to be Matthew's source because (i) it comes as part of a more extended genealogy which does not conform to this pattern before or after (whereas the whole of the Ruth genealogy uses the pattern and is found in Matthew); and (ii) it includes an annotation concerning Nahshon which Matthew fails to use (whereas the context for the genealogy in Ruth has available the names of two of the women whose names are included in the Matthean genealogy in this section – neither Ruth nor 1 Chronicles includes women's names immediately in the genealogy). It is however, true that for some of the name forms Matthew is closer to 1 Chronicles.

²¹ A fact which counts against any close linking of Mary with the other women.

²² Schaberg, , Illegitimacy, 28Google Scholar, identifies the parallels as trickery, levirate obligation and taint of scandal, but a less slanted formulation is possible, and to be preferred.

²³ Not exactly a Gentile (see note 26), but certainly outside the people of God.

²⁴ Thus, among other things, the mention of Ruth reinforces the sharp focus in this part of the genealogy (as noted above) on the place of these men in the ancestry of David.

²⁵ Ruth 2.11 ‘You left your father and mother and your native land and came to a people that you did not know before.’ Gen 12.1 ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.’ Alter, R., The World of Biblical Literature (New York: Basic Books, 1992) 51–2,Google Scholar has drawn attention to the allusion.

²⁶ Judah's failure to give Tamar to his third son Shelah effectively excluded her from Israel (Gen 38.11, 14); Tamar's drastic action secures her re–inclusion. Scholarship often assumes that Tamar is a Canaanite (Philo, Virtues, 221 identifies Tamar's origins as from among idolatrous peoples in Palestinian Syria), but Jub. 41.1; Test. Jud. 10.1 identify her as of the ancestry of Aram and this view provides a better fit for the role of Tamar in the Matthean genealogy. As an Aramean during the Patriarchal period (Bauckham, , NovT 37 [1995] 314–18Google Scholar, has recently argued forcefully that the reference is to the Aram of Gen 22.21 and not to the Aram of Gen 10.22, but in any case the point of importance here is the ancestral link with the family of Abraham [cf. Deut 26.6]) she would not be thought of as, strictly speaking, a Gentile (any more than Rebecca or Rachael), but would, nonetheless, have been understood to have been drawn into the chosen people of God through marriage.

²⁷ As an Aramean (see previous note), Tamar can naturally be compared to the earlier Matriarchs.

²⁸ Though in the unfolding genealogy many are likely to be so, it is hard to find a definite firstborn of the father anywhere. Isaac is firstborn of Sarah, but not of Abraham; Jacob supplants the place of the firstborn; Perez is firstborn of Tamar, but not of Judah.

²⁹ See Josh 2 and 6.17, 23, 25. The spelling ‘Pαχ⋯β is not, however, that of the LXX and other NT uses (Heb 11.31; Jas 2.25). These have ⋯Pα⋯β. Josephus uses a spelling related to that in Matthew: ‘Pαχ⋯βη. In b. Meg. 14b–15a Rahab is said to have become the wife of Joshua.

³⁰ See Num 1.7; 2.3; 7.12,17; 10.14 and possibly Exod 6.23.

³¹ See Zakowitch, ‘Rahab’, 4.

³² To Rahab also in Midr. Sipre Num 78; b. Meg. 14b.

³³ Her marriage and subsequent generations of descendants is implied by Josh 6.25.

³⁴ Bauckham, , NouT 37 (1995) 320–9Google Scholar, offers a useful discussion of the kind of exegetical considerations which may have led to Jewish identification of Rahab as wife of Salmon.

³⁵ Schaberg, , Illegitimacy, 22–3Google Scholar, suggests that the symmetry of two sons for two dead husbands = sons of Judah, along with the language of acknowledgement in Gen 38.26 imply the replacement of the dead sons. Coming after 2 Sam 12.14–23, vv. 24–5 suggest a replacement for the dead son.

³⁶ 2 Sam 11.1; b. Meg. 15a; b. Zeb. 116b.

³⁷ The bald phrase ‘wife of Uriah’ might at first seem to emphasise the initial adultery, but to see the conception of Solomon as adulterous, though not impossible, would be to fly in the face of 1 Sam 12.24–5 (after vv. 15–23). The parable in 2 Sam 12 emphasises the taking of another man's wife and v. 10 talks about the marriage as a taking of‘the wife of Uriah’.

³⁸ For a text–critical discussion of the variant readings of this verse see Nolland, , ‘A Text–critical Discussion of Matthew 1:16’, CBQ, forthcoming.Google Scholar

³⁹ The same verb (γηνν⋯ω) is used, but now in the passive, and there is the same use of ⋯κ in connection with the role of the woman as found with the other women.

⁴⁰ It would be tempting to find some deliberate contrast expressed by ‘wife of Uriah’ and ‘husband of Mary’, but there is no adequate basis for deciding what this might be. The formal relationship may only be fortuitous.