Matthew 1:1 | The Art of Opening

In this video I look at the first verse in Matthew's Gospel, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham." I explore the subtle allusions Matthew chooses to begin his great masterpiece.

The Bible is the greatest work of literary genius. And The Bible is Art is a YouTube Channel devoted to explaining this literary art in all its sophistication, elegance, and design.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thebibleisart

website: https://www.thebibleisart.com
email: thisdivineart@gmail.com
twitter: @johnbhiggins
music: Kai Engel, "Coelum" (https://www.kai-engel.com)

| How to Learn to Read the Bible as Literary Art |
Reading Biblical Narrative: An Introductory Guide (https://amzn.to/30LzaRa)
Narrative Art in the Bible (https://amzn.to/30RVGIb)
The Art of Biblical Narrative (https://amzn.to/3aDrIfk)
Old Testament Narrative: A Guide to Interpretation (https://amzn.to/38rcE2C)
The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (https://amzn.to/2Gh4cqE)

| Literary Structure |
Literary Structure of the Old Testament (https://amzn.to/30Jdm8X)
Style And Structure In Biblical Hebrew Narrative (https://amzn.to/2RDTTlQ)

| Genesis |
Creation: The Story of Beginnings - Grossman (https://amzn.to/2GlPwq9)
Abram to Abraham: A Literary Analysis of the Abraham Narrative - Grossman (https://amzn.to/2v7id7Z)
Narrative Art in Genesis - Fokkelman (https://amzn.to/2ulmd4t)
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Part I) - Cassuto (https://amzn.to/2NOAhdt)
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Part II) - Cassuto (https://amzn.to/2Gcuk6d)
Genesis: A Commentary - Waltke (https://amzn.to/2vaBvt7)
The Gospel of Genesis: Studies in Protology and Eschatology - Gage (https://amzn.to/2RGjRFo)
Abraham and All the Families of the Earth: A Commentary on the Book of Genesis 12-50 - Janzen (https://amzn.to/2TVyCqJ)
Genesis 1-15, Volume 1 - Wenham (https://amzn.to/2TQnYRO)
Genesis 16-50, Volume 2 - Wenham (https://amzn.to/3aDY21J)

| Transcription |
The first sentence in Matthew’s Gospel is this, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.” Why start this way?

By the time we get to Matthew’s Gospel, we’re in the fifth act of a five act play, we’re at the end of the story, so where are we in the story, what’s happening?

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And he created man and woman and designed a home for them in the Garden of Eden and gave them jobs to do to expand God’s kingdom of Eden to the whole wild world. And they had 1 rule, but Adam and Eve broke it. So they were kicked out, exiled from the garden.

No the interesting thing about the rest of the story in Genesis is that the book of Genesis is organized around 10 genealogies. And these genealogies start with the phrase “The book of the genealogy of” some person. So the first book in the Bible has 10 genealogies and this is very different from every other book in the Old Testament.

Well the story goes on and that same story that happened in the garden will happen again with Israel writ large. That is God will make another special place and bring his people Israel into this place and give them rules again. And once again they will disobey and be kicked out, exiled from the land.

And this is the grand story of the Old Testament. It starts high and it ends low, we start with God in God’s place and we end up without God out of God’s place. That’s the story until Matthew.

Now, what if you were Matthew and you wanted to communicate that something different, something new was going to happen how would you communicate it. Well, Matthew goes back to the first book of the Bible, and uses that same phrase that was used 10 times in the beginning. “The book of the genealogy”, and he uses it as the first thing, the first phrase in the book. Matthew is saying that what’s happening with Jesus is so fundamentally different and new that it’s like having a whole new Genesis.

And this whole new thing, this new creation starts with Jesus Christ. Now Matthew has done some subtle things here and it’s easy to miss. But to understand what he’s doing we have to compare this genealogy to the genealogies is in Genesis.
Now, the purpose of this genealogy is to tell us about Who Jesus is. For instance, right at the beginning it says Jesus is the son of David which means that he is in the kingly line and he’s the son of Abraham so he’s in the line of the covenant. But the way that Matthew structures this first sentence hints at something even deeper about who Jesus is. Look at this.

In the genealogies in Genesis they will say that it is the genealogy of a certain person. For instance Adam and then the rest of the genealogy will tell us all the people Who came from, who were generated from Adam.