The following Scripture passages are offered to aid beginning fellowships. The readings and commentary for this week are more in line with what has become usual; for the following will most likely be familiar observations. The concept behind this Sabbath’s selection is genealogy of Joseph in Matthew.
Weekly Readings
For the Sabbath of May 26, 2012
The person conducting the Sabbath service should open services with two or three hymns, or psalms, followed by an opening prayer acknowledging that two or three (or more) are gathered together in Christ Jesus’ name, and inviting the Lord to be with them.
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The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (Matt 1:1–17 highlighting added)
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5.
Continuing the premise of last Sabbath’s Reading, Bible study is not simply reading the Bible: if it were, Christians would know who the father of Joseph, husband of Mary, mother of Jesus was … Matthew tells Christians who was the father of Joseph: Jacob, son of Matthan.
But consider what the author of Luke’s Gospel—having assembled the best evidence available to him, and apparently the testimony of Mary, mother of Jesus (how else would Luke know what he has written in chapters one and two of his Gospel)—writes,
Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. (Luke 3:23–38 highlighting added)
Within the Sabbatarian Churches of God, the means by which the obvious discrepancy in the genealogy of Joseph, husband and presumed father of Jesus, has been explained is that Matthew’s genealogy is of Joseph, but Luke’s genealogy is actually of Mary—but that isn’t what the author of Luke’s Gospel claims. The neatly—in English—inserted parenthetical clause <as was supposed [ώς ένομιζετο]> could be interpreted as calling into question the validity of the entirety of the genealogy, as in saying that Joseph was not really Jesus’ father, meaning that although a genealogy has been included for legal reasons, a necessity in oral cultures or in cultures that retain a high element of orality, the genealogy isn’t of Jesus. But Luke’s genealogy cannot legitimately be interpreted as meaning that Heli [Ήλι] wasn’t the father of Joseph, or that Joseph wasn’t the descendant of Zerubbabel through his son Rhesa, or that Joseph wasn’t descended from David through David’s son Nathan.
In both genealogies—Matthew’s and Luke’s—Joseph, Jesus’ presumed natural father, was of ancient King David and of Zerubbabel who was to rebuild the temple: in both genealogies, Joseph was of the house of Judah and of the kingly line anointed by Samuel. And by the testimony of two or three witnesses, a thing is established … Jesus is born in this world in the household of blood descendants of ancient King David. However, beyond this what can be said about Joseph’s lineage? We can say that Joseph’s ancestors went to Babylon and were captives in Babylon and returned to Jerusalem in the forefront of the returning exiles. For theological reasons, Zerubbabel’s importance is as great as David’s: from David will come the Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords, but from Zerubbabel will come the temple of God, expanded into New Jerusalem, with disciples being living stones forming the temple of God and by extension, heavenly Jerusalem.
But if the Bible is the word of God—and it is!—and if both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke are included in the Bible, and if Matthew and Luke do not—and they don’t—agree as to whose son Joseph was, with Joseph being the presumed father of Jesus, then what is a Christian to make of what cannot be an accidental discrepancy? And it will here be asserted that Luke’s genealogy is more likely to be Joseph’s actual lineage than is Matthew’s, with again, Mary, mother of Jesus, being a prime source for Luke’s compilation of material:
Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. (Luke 1:1–4)
Who would be more of an eyewitness than Mary, mother of Jesus? And who would be less able to speak and to tell her story than Mary? And who would know what occurred between Gabriel and Zechariah except someone who had actually spent time with Zechariah and Elizabeth?
Now, assuming that Matthew didn’t make a mistake when he inscribed Jesus’ lineage through the kings of the House of Judah—assuming that Matthew, by placing his genealogy at the beginning of his Gospel where a person would expect to find a genealogy in an oral narrative that has been committed to inscription—has altered Joseph’s genealogy for legal reasons that are essential to the case he makes for Jesus in his Gospel, the endtime Christian with the analytical precision that characterizes a fully literate culture that has low residual orality must temporary set aside his or her narrative expectations and turn inward to a realm of metaphorical speech in which the truth is not necessarily what is true, but the unveiling or revealing of what has been concealed, with the tool used for the unveiling of what was previously concealed not at all looking like any tool the reader (as opposed to the hearer) has ever used before …
The testimony of Luke is that Peter and John, at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, were illiterate workmen [uneducated, common fishermen] (Acts 4:13), with John’s testimony being that the Twelve were chosen by the Father and given to Jesus (John 17:6), with Judas Iscariot having been chosen in advance to betray Jesus (v. 12). This would mean that the Father chose the first disciples knowing that they were illiterate and most likely chose them because they were illiterate, which doesn’t mean they were not intelligent but means that they functioned in an oral culture where speech was an event that could not be recreated, even when repeating oneself.
The above is central to all study of Scripture as opposed to simply reading Scripture: the act of speaking—an utterance—is an event that cannot be recreated. To speak the world into existence is an act that cannot be recreated: if this cosmos is destroyed and another created, that cosmos will be different from this one. It can be similar, but it will not be the same creation. Yet if I commit my words to inscription, they can be copied an endless number of times, appearing either on printed pages or on computer screens exactly how I composed them initially, complete with dashes and other punctuation irregularities. And this can never be the case for spoken words in any lengthy passage unless the person reads aloud written words. It is largely for this reason that President Obama relies on his teleprompter: the White House Press Secretary has far less explaining of what the President meant the following day when the President reads already written words that have been focus-group tested beforehand. When he goes off-script, he is less able to hide who he is.
As stated previously, Sabbath Readings are not Bible studies, but are readings of Scripture that on occasion edge towards a Bible study—this will be one of those occasions when the Reading pushes a little closer to a Bible study; for the Sabbatarian Churches of God since the late 19th-Century have not prepared disciples to interface with academia and those who study the Bible as their vocation … perhaps the largest splinter of Herbert W. Armstrong’s former Worldwide Church of God (WCG), itself a branch sport of the Church of God, Seventh Day, is the United Church of God (UCG), which has as its logo, Preaching the Gospel, Preparing a People. Yet for all of the millions of dollars that were spent by first WCG that had annual revenues of $80 million-plus forty years ago, and UCG since 1995, Sabbatarian disciples are no better prepared to address the questions raised in serious Bible studies than Sabbatarian disciples were a century ago. If anything, Sabbatarian Christians are less prepared; for a century ago academia asked fewer questions that needed to be addressed through Bible study. A greater assumption existed in even academia that the Bible was the inspired word of God.
Again, so there is never any mistake: the Bible is the inspired word of God, but inspired doesn’t mean infallible. Those two words are not corollaries; for inspired addresses the state of production and infallibility addresses the state of receipt.
To read an inscribed text or communication, the reader visually produces a secondary text in the reader’s mind: it cannot be otherwise. If a secondary text is not produced in the mind, the inscription remains nothing more that black marks on a white page, or chiseled lines on a bronze sculpture. Without producing a secondary text in the reader’s mind, the inscribed text is not intelligible. Therefore the nature of interpretation lies at the heart of reading: what sort of a text will the person produce in his or her mind when an inscribed text is encountered? Will the person strive to produce a text that mimics the one being read, or will the reader add everything the reader knows about the subject of the text to what the inscription that forms the text to generate a hypertext that is not either the text being read or any other text that has ever existed? And what the critical reader will find is that he or she cannot truly suppress all that the reader knows but adds what the reader knows to the text to produce a supra-hypertext that can be compared to overfilling a wineglass with red wine that spills out of the glass to strain the white linen tablecloth on which the wineglass sets, with the shape of this spill being determined not by design but by the information base that the reader brings to the text being read.
I bring to the Gospel of Matthew a different information base than does, say, Professor Bart Ehrman: I have lived for more than forty years in a Sabbatarian culture with a high oral residue. My first acquaintance with Sabbath observance as a way of life was in October 1959, and I resisted keeping the Sabbath. But by October 1972, I not only kept the weekly Sabbath but also the high Sabbaths—I have intentionally eaten pork one time since 1959, and that was in 1966. So I come to Matthew’s Gospel as a person who seeks to understand why Matthew declares a thing to be true that obviously isn’t true:
So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (Matt 1:17)
According to Luke, how many generations of descendants were born to the patriarch Jacob through Judah and through Perez in Egypt: (1) Hezron, (2) Ami, (3) Admin, (4) Amminadab, and (5) Nahshon, who represented the tribe of Judah in the census of the second month of the second year Israel was in the wilderness (Num 1:7) … Nahshon would have died in the wilderness, but his son Salmon or Sala did not die in the wilderness; thus Salmon was not numbered in the census of the second year.
In Matthew’s accounting of the generation’s between Perez and Nahshon, we have: (1) Hezron, (2) Ram, (3) Amminadab, and (4) Nahshon, four instead of five generations to span 430 years … either Luke made a mistake and misidentified Ami and Admin, transforming one generation into two, or Matthew has deliberately left out a generation in getting to David, a generation that would have made what he wrote about there being fourteen generations between Abraham and David not true.
Perhaps Luke is wrong, or perhaps Matthew didn’t have access to the same records that Luke had and Matthew made a simple mistake, suppose?
Look now at the Matthew’s fourteen generations between David and the deportation:
1. Solomon
2. Rehoboam
3. Abijab
4. Asaph
5. Jehoshaphat
6. Joram
7. Urriah
8. Jotham
9. Ahaz
10.Hezekiah
11. Manasseh
12. Amos
13. Josiah
14. Jechoniah
David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. (Matt 1:7–11)
But now look at what is found in Scripture:
1. “Then Solomon sat on the throne of the LORD as king in place of David his father. And he prospered, and all Israel obeyed him.” (1 Chron 29:23)
2. “Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city that the LORD had chosen out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there. His mother's name was Naamah the Ammonite.” (2 Chron 12:13)
3. “In the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, Abijah began to reign over Judah. He reigned for three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. Now there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.” (2 Chron 13:1–2)
4. “Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 14:1)
5. “Jehoshaphat his son [Asa’s] reigned in his place and strengthened himself against Israel.” (2 Chron 17:1)
6. “Jehoshaphat slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David, and Jehoram his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 21:1)
7. “And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, his youngest son, king in his place, for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned. Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Athaliah, the granddaughter of Omri.” (2 Chron 22:1–2)
8. “But it was ordained by God that the downfall of Ahaziah should come about through his going to visit Joram. For when he came there, he went out with Jehoram to meet Jehu the son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab. And when Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he met the princes of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah's brothers, who attended Ahaziah, and he killed them. He searched for Ahaziah, and he was captured while hiding in Samaria, and he was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, ‘He is the grandson of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart.’ And the house of Ahaziah had no one able to rule the kingdom. Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal family of the house of Judah. But Jehoshabeath, the daughter of the king, took Joash the son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the king's sons who were about to be put to death, and she put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Thus Jehoshabeath, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of Jehoiada the priest, because she was a sister of Ahaziah, hid him from Athaliah, so that she did not put him to death. And he remained with them six years, hidden in the house of God, while Athaliah reigned over the land.” (2 Chron 22:7–12 emphasis added) … “Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zibiah of Beersheba.” (2 Chron 24:1)
9. “And Amaziah his son [Joash’s son] reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 24:27)
10.“Amaziah the son of Joash, king of Judah, lived fifteen years after the death of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, king of Israel.” (2 Chron 25:25) … “And all the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king instead of his father Amaziah.” (2 Chron 26:1)
11. “And Uzziah slept with his fathers, and they buried him with his fathers in the burial field that belonged to the kings, for they said, ‘He is a leper.’ And Jotham his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 26:23)
12. “And Jotham slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David, and Ahaz his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 27:9)
13. “And Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, in Jerusalem, for they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel. And Hezekiah his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 28:27)
14. “And Hezekiah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the upper part of the tombs of the sons of David, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem did him honor at his death. And Manasseh his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 32:33)
15. “So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his house, and Amon his son reigned in his place.” (2 Chron 33:20)
16. “Amon was twenty-two years old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem. And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, as Manasseh his father had done. Amon sacrificed to all the images that Manasseh his father had made, and served them. And he did not humble himself before the LORD, as Manasseh his father had humbled himself, but this Amon incurred guilt more and more. And his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his house. But the people of the land struck down all those who had conspired against King Amon. And the people of the land made Josiah his son king in his place.” (2 Chron 33:21–25 emphasis added)
17. Jehoiakim was born Eliakim, son of Josiah, and was made king when the Pharaoh carried his brother Jehoahaz off to Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar carried Jehoiakin off to Babylon (2 Chron 36:10), and made his brother Zedekiah king of Judah.
Matthew’s genealogy of Joseph, the presumed father of Jesus simply isn’t factual—and if it isn’t factual, why isn’t it? This is the question that must be answered.
6.
In an oral narrative, the purpose of a genealogy isn’t to actually trace ancestors but to establish the basis for making a legal claim—a claim that has the authority of Law. If ancestors have to be left out or if the ancestry has to be modified to make the legal claim, both actions are [in a primarily oral culture] perfectly acceptable, not how modern readers in an inscribed culture think … Jesus is not the son of Joseph, the given that comes when creating a hypertext gospel in the minds of Believers. And if Jesus is not the son of Joseph, the exactness of Joseph’s ancestry is not a thing to be considered; so it truly doesn’t matter who beget whom. What matters is that Jesus as the Christ is of the kingly line of Israel, this line beginning with Abraham who was a prince of God (Gen 23:6) and with this line extending through David, a man after God’s own heart. Therefore, with God, human birth has no real relevance so human fathers and human generations truly don’t matter—and how better for Matthew to convey this unimportance of human birth than to give Jesus a genealogy that will cause every astute Bible reader to stumble. It is only the novice that is unable to read who will not notice that Matthew’s genealogy is false, is merely the legal basis for making the claim that Jesus is the Messiah and was the Son of God, not the son of men—a metaphorical claim that cannot be well translated when moving from an Aramaic oral narrative to an inscribed Greek text.
Again, it is only the spiritual infant who does not realize that what Matthew writes (made plain by how Matthew introduces his Gospel) cannot be read literally. The infant that attempts to read Matthew’s Gospel literally is really unable to read; is an uneducated person, an illiterate, and this includes scholars such a Professor Bart D. Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who notice the problems with Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus but who don’t know to make the transition from literal to metaphorical.
Leaving Scripture for a moment, Walter J. Ong in Orality and Literacy (New Accents paperback edition, 1982) writes,
Interaction between such a chirographically controlled language as Learned Latin and the various vernaculars (mother tongues) is still far from being completely understood. There is no way simply to ‘translate’ a language such as Learned Latin into languages like the vernaculars. Translation was transformation. Interaction produced all sorts of special results. Bäuml (1980, p. 264) has called attention, for example, to some of the effects when metaphors from a consciously metaphorical Latin were shifted into less metaphoricized mother tongues. (p. 114 emphasis added—and the Bäuml reference is to Franz H. Bäuml’s article “Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy.” Speculum, 55, 237–65).
Translation is transformation … to take an inscribed language such as Learned Latin, the language in which Affairs of State, science, and theology were presented for a millennium, and to transfer its metaphors into the vulgar tongues of the common folk caused these metaphors to lose their metaphoricalness: the translations were literal. When the sense of a word in one language meant two or more things in that language, all but one meaning had to be left behind in making a translation of the word into another language. And this is the problem English speakers have when reading Don Quixote in translation; for only one of the several meanings of an episode can be translated from early 17th-Century Spanish into modern English. All of the remaining meanings must be left behind. Thus, the act of translating the text transforms the text through shrinking the text so that the novel English readers receive is at best a gaunt shadow of a living skeleton jousting with giants.
Such is the problem of the Synoptic Gospels—
Jesus called men who were not literate for theological reasons that will be discussed in a future Reading. These men, mostly fishermen, were Aramaic speakers, with Aramaic being a Semitic language that constructs words by inserting vowel sounds between consonants as Hebrew does and as Arabic does. The same consonants will support many differing words, usually related to one another. Thus, since Jesus only spoke to His disciples in figures of speech—in metaphorical or metonymical language—the sayings of Jesus were all metaphors that have words possessing one common referent being used to address a second, heavenly referent. Hence, nothing that Jesus told His disciples was literally what He told them. And Jesus’ disciples really were not particularly good at decoding His speech, separating metaphorical referents from literal referents. It was for this reason as much as any other that Paul was called.
But in moving Jesus’ use of metaphorical speech from Aramaic into Greek required that one or more meanings of Jesus’ spoken words were left behind. So the foremost question is how can Jesus’ disciples get the multiple referents for the words Jesus spoken out of Aramaic and into Greek: Ala, the Synoptic Gospels, where three Gospels convey one story, one set of words, thereby returning in the form of a hyper-Gospel the words of Jesus to their original fullness as metaphorical speech.
For Jesus’ first disciples, Koine Greek was like Learned Latin: Koine Greek would have been a language they learned later in life, and they would have known how to read the language and write in the language before they could speak the language. They would be somewhat as I am, able to read Greek words that I have never heard uttered. … I learned as a schoolboy to read English words that I could not utter and never heard uttered because of a hearing deficiency inherited from my father. The written language is a silent language, and a democratic language, not at all requiring that the person be able to hear and speak the language but only to be able to sight-read the words on the page. The written word does not occupy intangible verbal space but physical space on a page. Inscription transforms what is by nature ephemeral into a tangible thing—an utterance made with the mouth becomes a word or words made with the hand, or by a machine. And when words become things, not happenings, meaning is sacrificed for precision.
What is important about Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus is the three “fourteens” that disclose a third Passover liberation of Israel, with this third Passover-type liberation occurring in the great White Throne Judgment. But this, too, is the subject of another Reading.
For this Sabbath, it is enough to show that Matthew’s genealogy of Joseph, who is not the father of Jesus, is not literally true, but must be considered as the presentation of a metaphor that has not been well understood.
This will be continued—
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The person conducting the Sabbath service should close services with two hymns, or psalms, followed by a prayer asking God’s dismissal.
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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."