Matthew 1:8
Encyclopedia
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
in the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. The verse is part of the section where the genealogy
Genealogy
Genealogy is the study of families and the tracing of their lineages and history. Genealogists use oral traditions, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members...
of Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
, the legal father of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
, is listed.
In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:
- And Asa begat Josaphat;
- and Josaphat begat Joram;
- and Joram begat Ozias;
The World English Bible
World English Bible
The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...
translates the passage as:
- Asa became the father of Jehoshaphat.
- Jehoshaphat became the father of Joram.
- Joram became the father of Uzziah.
For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 1:8
This first part this verse coincides with the list of the Kings of Judah
Kings of Judah
The Kings of Judah ruled the ancient Kingdom of Judah after the death of Saul, when the tribe of Judah elevated David to rule over it. After seven years, David became king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel. However, in about 930 BC the united kingdom split, with ten of the twelve Tribes of Israel...
that is present in a number of other parts of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
. According to W.F. Albright Asa of Judah
Asa of Judah
Asa was the third king of the Kingdom of Judah and the fifth king of the House of David. He was the son of Abijam, grandson of Rehoboam, and great-grandson of Solomon. The Hebrew Bible gives the period of his reign as 41 years. His reign is dated between 913-910 BCE to 873-869 BCE. He was...
ruled from 913 BC to 873 BC. His son Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat was the fourth king of the The Kingdom of Judah, and successor of his father Asa. His children included Jehoram, who succeeded him as king...
ruled from 873 BC to 849 BC. His son Jehoram
Jehoram of Judah
Jehoram of Judah was the king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the son of Jehoshaphat .According to , Jehoram became king of Judah in the fifth year of Jehoram of Israel, when his father Jehoshaphat was king of Judah, indicating a co-regency. The author of Kings also speaks of both Jehoram...
ruled from Jehoshaphat's death until 842 BC. However the other lists have Jehoram's son being Ahaziah
Ahaziah of Judah
Ahaziah of Judah was king of Judah, and the son of Jehoram and Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab of Israel. He is also called Jehoahaz ....
while Uzziah
Uzziah
Uzziah , also known as Azariah , was the king of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, and one of Amaziah's sons, whom the people appointed to replace his father...
is a monarch who comes several generations later.
This means that Matthew's genealogy skips Ahaziah, Athaliah
Athaliah
Athaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
, Jehoash
Jehoash of Judah
Jehoash or Joas , sometimes written Joash or Joás , was the eighth king of the southern Kingdom of Judah, and the sole surviving son of Ahaziah. His mother was Zibiah of Beersheba ....
, and Amaziah
Amaziah of Judah
Amaziah of Judah, Amasias , pronounced , and Amatzyah was the king of Judah, the son and successor of Joash. His mother was Jehoaddan and his son was Uzziah . He took the throne at the age of 25...
. Those who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible contend that the genealogy was never meant to be complete and the author of Matthew deliberately dropped those who were not needed from the list. Simply dropping unnecessary figures from genealogies was a common practice, and this is also done in several points in the Old Testament. One theory is that they were dropped because of their wickedness, but the even more unpleasant Manasseh
Manasseh of Judah
Manasseh was a king of the Kingdom of Judah. He was the only son of Hezekiah with Hephzi-bah. He became king at an age 12 years and reigned for 55 years. Edwin Thiele has concluded that he commenced his reign as co-regent with his father Hezekiah in 697/696 BC, with his sole reign beginning in...
is left in the list. All four were also murdered, but so was Amon
Amon of Judah
Amon was the king of Judah who succeeded his father Manasseh of Judah on the throne according to the Bible. His mother was Meshullemeth, daughter of Haruz of Jotbah. He was married to Jedidah, the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath....
, who also remains in place. Their reigns were also relatively short, but again there are other monarchs with shorter reigns included.
Gundry
Robert H. Gundry
Robert Horton Gundry is a Biblical scholar. He received a B.A. and a B.D. degree from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Manchester University in Manchester, England in 1961 and has taught for several decades at Westmont College in California...
supports the popular theory that these monarchs were left out because they were all descendants of Ahab
Ahab
Ahab or Ach'av or Achab in Douay-Rheims was king of Israel and the son and successor of Omri according to the Hebrew Bible. His wife was Jezebel....
, through his daughter Athaliah
Athaliah
Athaliah was the queen of Judah during the reign of King Jehoram, and later became sole ruler of Judah for six years. William F. Albright has dated her reign to 842–837 BC, while Edwin R. Thiele's dates, as taken from the third edition of his magnum opus, were 842/841 to 836/835 BC...
. Ahab's decedents were said to have been punished for four generations. Gundry also believes their removal was because the author was trying to divide the genealogy into the three lists of fourteen as mentioned in Matthew 1:17
Matthew 1:17
Matthew 1:17 is the seventeenth verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. The verse is the conclusion to the section where the genealogy of Joseph, the father of Jesus, is listed.-Text:...
.
Albright and Mann have a different theory. They believe that the author, or a later scribe, confused Achaziah and Uzziah due to the similarity of the two rulers' names. In a common scribal transcription error, known as homoioteleuton, Uzziah was given Achaziah's position as the son of Jehoram but remained as father of Jotham
Jotham of Judah
Jotham or Yotam was the king of Judah, and son of Uzziah with Jerusha, daughter of Zadok.He took the throne at the age of twenty-five and reigned for sixteen years. William F. Albright dated his reign to 742 – 735 BC. Edwin R...
. Under this theory the triple-fourteen parallelism was only created after this error appeared. Thus the comment in Matthew 1:17 would have had to have been added by a later editor and not the original author. Fowler rejects this view, arguing that the error was so obvious when checked against the Old Testament that if the change would quickly have been reversed if it were not deliberate.