What does Joseph bring to the story of Jesus’ origins in Matthew 1?
This Sunday’s lectionary reading for Advent 4 in Year A is Matt 1.18–25. It is a short reading, but laden with significance as Matthew gives his distinctive account of Jesus’ origins.
(The epistle is Romans 1.1–7, in which Paul introduces all the main ideas of his whole letter! See the video discussion of that here, and see the video discussion of this passage here. Both are also linked below.)
One of the presenting issues in engaging in the two narratives of Jesus’ birth in Luke and Matthew is their very distinctive perspectives, leading to the question of whether they are compatible—and therefore whether they are ‘history’ or ‘myth’. But it is worth noting that, although the two accounts have almost zero overlap in wording or concerns, they nevertheless agree about the main elements of the story:
A betrothed couple name Mary and Joseph;
Joseph is of Davidic descent;
Mary conceives through the power of the Holy Spirit without human intercourse;
Jesus’ name is determined by angelic revelation;
Jesus is born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod the Great;
he is brought up in Nazareth. (see R T France Matthew NICNT p 42)
That is a good deal of agreement! Beyond this main storyline, the accounts simply do not overlap, with Luke focussing on the experiences of Mary and the events seen through her eyes, whilst Matthew focuses on Joseph and the other male actors in the drama. (The main apparent discrepancy is Luke’s depiction of the story beginning in Nazareth, with Matthew offering no awareness that this was Mary’s home in Matt 2.22–23).
There are two important clues in Matthew’s wording which point to his concern in this passage, and they are mostly smoothed over by English translations.
