Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy. Why does he do this? The reason is to show that Jesus was descended, in human terms, from key people in the Old Testament, especially Abraham and David. Note that the genealogy is different from the one in Luke, and is not complete (nor is the one in Luke). Matthew's purpose was not to present a complete family tree, but to show that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Old Testament promises. As he states in the opening line, Jesus is the Messiah, and is descended from Abraham and David. Both of these are key characters in the Old Testament. It was to Abraham that God gave the promise that through him all peoples would be blessed, and the Messiah was seen as being a Davidic king.
Five women are mentioned in the genealogy (Bathsheeba only indirectly in v7). Three of these, Tamar, Ruth and Rahab were Gentiles.
The list is divided into three parts, each of fourteen. Fourteen may have been chosen as it is twice seven, the number of completeness. The fact that the lists are not complete (in the sense of including everyone in the family tree) should be a warning to us in the way we interpret the Bible. We sometimes read it as if the writers were writing a book or article such as one that might appear in an academic journal today. They were not doing this (thank goodness). This has two consequences. One, many of the criticisms of sceptics are unfounded. Secondly, people who believe the Bible sometimes draw unwarranted conclusions from the Bible. Many years ago I completed my PhD and had to write a thesis. The thesis did not describe everything that I had done over the preceding three years, nor did it record everything in the same chronological order as they actually happened. Rather it was arranged to give a logical and clear fashion to present the findings. Nevertheless it was all true. In a sense, the gospel writers are doing the same.
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