Commenting on
the three Gentile women mentioned in Matthew’s genealogy for Jesus (Tamar;
Rahab; Ruth), Chris Bruno et al wrote that:
Matthew is not simply highlighting the
inclusion of the Gentiles or women in his genealogy of Jesus, but is rather
insisting that the Gentile women play a significant role in the preservation of
the line of a promise and in the story of Israel itself . . . While
interpreters who see the Gentile women in the genealogy foreshadowing the
commission in the Gentiles in Matthew 28 are correct, this foreshadowing is
found not only in their Gentile identity, but also in their direct actions that
preserve the line of promise. Thus in the first section of the genealogy
Matthew highlights that through these three saviour figures – Gentile woman no
less – God keeps his covenant promises to Abraham. (Chris Bruno, Jared
Compton, and Kevin McFadden, Biblical
Theology According to the Apostles: How the Earliest Christians Told the Story
of the Old Testament [New Studies in Biblical Theology 52; [London:
Apollos, 2020], 17-19, 21-22)
Commenting on Rahab (who
is mentioned with Abraham in Jas 2 on the topic of justification, something
that disproves the lame Protestant understanding of “justification” in Jas 2),
the authors write:
Assuming that the
Rahab in Matthew’s genealogy is the prostitute of Jericho, what, then, might be
the significance of including her in the genealogy? When seen in the light of
the sexual improprieties that surround the incident with Judah and Tamar, some
have argued that Matthew sees Tamar as a hint at the ‘holy irregularity’ of the
virgin birth late in Matthew 1. While these incidents are certainly part of the
larger ‘holy irregularity’ that is the history of Israel writ large, Matthew’s purpose
is likely not tracing a line of scandalous events that eventually led to the
Messiah, as Stendahl argues (‘Quis et Unde? An Analysis of Matthew 1-2,’ 73-74).
Rather, like Tamar, Rahab, a Gentile woman, encountered the line of promise at
a moment of threat and danger . . . this is also the case with the birth of the
Messiah, Jesus.
In Rahab’s case the
direct threat was against the spies Joshua and Caleb (Josh. 2:1-21). It was
commonly recognized that Rahab played a decisive role in protecting the spies.
Josephus portrays Rahab as speaking of her ‘preservation’ of the spies (Jewish Antiquities 5.11). Additionally,
one might even say that just as these men were representatives of the nation as
a whole, by extension they were representatives of Israel’s God. Thus, Rahab’s
preservation of the spies was indeed protection of the line of promise when
under threat. Significantly, the incident with Rahab came just as the Hebrews
were about to enter the land promised to Abraham. The intervention of Rahab the
Gentile prostitute became the means that God used to preserve the line of promise
and grant the Hebrews access to the land. Moreover, through her preservation of
Israel, she also saved herself, which surprisingly became a means of preserving
the messianic line (it is possible that Matthew is rooting the marriage of
Rahab and Salma/Salmon in the genealogical lists in 1 Chr. 2). (Ibid., 19-20)