I was really interested in Slate.com’s feature called “Blogging the Bible” which just recounts a writer’s thoughts after reading each chapter of the Bible, starting from Genesis. I thought, this is a great idea. We should all share our thoughts and feelings about the Bible and furthermore, we should refresh our memory of the Bible in the order that it was written.

Well I can’t start from Genesis because I know my reading would be tainted by what’s already been done so I’m starting from Matthew.

Matthew 1
Matthew starts off with a genealogy and it seems like just a review of all the celebrities of the Old Testament. There is a lot of discussion as to why this genealogy does not match up to the one in Luke and well, I don’t even want to touch that because I don’t have the tools to do it. But I’ll take it at face value and this Matthew genealogy shows that 1) Jesus really did have monarchy in his heritage and 2) not everyone in Jesus’ family tree were good, wholesome people.

Consider:
Jacob tricked his brother and father multiple times for blessings.
Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute to sleep with her father-in-law, Judah (and notably, Jesus didn’t come from Joseph, the “good brother”)
David committed adultery and had a man killed.
King Asa was so wicked he introduced numerous idols to his kingdom and was not buried in the sepulchre of the kings
etc etc

However, it is of great note that there are 4 women mentioned in the genealogy- a practice very uncommon in writing genealogies during that time. Even though these women weren’t all Jewish (Moabite, Canaanite, some other non-Jewish origin), weren’t all noble (a harlots, an adulteress), I think Matthew is propagating Jesus’ women’s rights activist side, not to mention extending the right to Gentiles. NOW would be proud.

Another thing NOW would be proud of is Joseph. Joseph isn’t hailed as any kind of feminist, even for his day (I mean, he’s a man after all). But Mary is pregnant and she and Joseph aren’t even married yet. In verse 19 it says that “[Mary’s] husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly”. It’s interesting that Joseph is described as “righteous” because I would think that “righteous” would mean following the law- particularly the law coming from God. And God’s law concerning adultery:

“And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. “(Leviticus 20:10)

So many “righteous” men had put their wives to death. Noah was a righteous man and he sailed away on an ark while the Earth’s population died. Lot was a pretty righteous man who ran away as Sodom and Gomorroah burned away. Abraham was a righteous man who almost killed his own son. Righteousness is almost equivalent with death or the willingness to murder in the Old Testament.

But in the New Testament, Joseph is righteous and he doesn’t want to even tarnish his bride-to-be’s reputation, let alone kill her. It seems that Joseph cares more about Mary’s reputation than his own because he would surely be justified by putting Mary to death, according to Levitical law.

In any case, an angel of the Lord appears to Joseph just in time to prevent any reputation stain or bloodshed and tells Joseph, hey she’s still a virgin. Don’t be afraid because she was conceived through the Holy Spirit (yeah, doesn’t sound any less scary or weird to me). Stay with her- though that would probably hurt both their reputations since they weren’t married yet- and name the boy Jesus.

And then it says that Joseph didn’t have marital relations with Mary until she gave birth, some say to show that Mary was indeed a virgin when Jesus was born or maybe just to show that Joseph practiced good hygiene in case the angel of the Lord was wrong. That Mary ought to have gotten tested.