Monday, June 12, 2023

Chris Keith on Matthew 1:1 and "βίβλος γενέσεως ‘Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ"

  

The γένεσις of Jesus Christ

 

The first sentence of Matthew’s Gospel exhibits textual self- consciousness and competitive textualization. Both matters are clear when Matt 1:1 is viewed alongside Mark 1:1.

 

Mark 1:1: ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγέλιου ‘Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ
“The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ”

 

Matt 1:1: βίβλος γενέσεως ‘Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ
“The book of the beginning/ origin of Jesus Christ”

 

Matthew makes two alterations to Mark’s incipit. First, he exchanges Mark’s reference to the εὐαγγέλιον with a reference to his βίβλος: instead of Mark’s “the beginning of the gospel,” we have Matthew’s “book of the beginning.” Second, Matt 1:1 uses γένεσις for “beginning” (or “origin”) instead of Mark 1:1’s ἀρχή (cf. John 1:1). Although still an allusion to Genesis, the Matthean phrase is likely drawing upon Gen 2:4 and 5:1 LXX, where the phrase βίβλος γενέσεως also occurs. Since Matthew’s Gospel includes a genealogy of Jesus in Matt 1:2– 17, some scholars argue that Matt 1:1 functions as a formal introduction only to the genealogy of Matt 1:2– 17 or only the birth narrative in Matt 1– 2, and thus that βίβλος γενέσεως should be translated as “a record of the genealogy” or “an account of the origin,” even while admitting that the phrase literally means “book of the genesis” or “book of the origin.”

 

One can rather easily dismiss the idea that Matt 1:1 clearly introduces only the genealogy of Matt 1:2– 17. Genesis 5:1 LXX indicates that βίβλος γενέσεως can refer to a listing of lineage, but Gen 2:4 LXX shows equally that it does not necessarily have to, since it here refers to an account of origins that does not include a family lineage. Furthermore, although one can read Matt 1:18— “The beginning (γένεσις) of Jesus Christ was thus”— as a closing to the preceding sense unit or as a seamless transition between the genealogy and subsequent narrative, it was often taken as an introduction to the following sense unit, in which case the γένεσις of Jesus includes what occurs subsequently in the narrative. Fourth-century Sinaiticus (א) and fifth- century Vaticanus (B) both present this reading by placing Matt 1:18 in a sense unit with Matt 1:19, separated from the close of the genealogy of Matt 1:17. Whatever Matthew means by Jesus’s γένεσις, it is not clear that scholars should restrict it to Jesus’s lineage.

 

Due to the flexibility of the phrase and the narrative connection between Matt 1:1 and 1:18, it may be that Matt 1:1 has in its immediate purview the wider birth narrative of Matt 1:1– 2:23. Without denying this possibility, there are several reasons that scholars nevertheless should not limit the purview of Matt 1:1’s βίβλος γενέσεως to Matt 1:1– 2:23. First, and perhaps to state the obvious, there is no known evidence that the incipit (Matt 1:1), genealogy (Matt 1:1– 17), or Matthean infancy narrative (Matt 1:18– 2:23) ever circulated without the rest of the Gospel.

 

Second, interpreting βίβλος γενέσεως as “a record of the genealogy” or “an account of the origin” misses a larger connection that Matthew is likely making with inherited Jewish tradition. As has been already observed, the phrase βίβλος γενέσεως occurs already in Gen 2:4 and 5:1 LXX. It is highly unlikely that Matthew is unaware of these texts. Two- thirds of the other firstcentury Jesus books also begin their narratives with allusions to Genesis. The author of Mark’s Gospel and the author John’s Gospel open their accounts of Jesus with ἀρχή and ἐν ἀρχῇ, respectively, the latter of which is a verbatim citation of Gen 1:1 LXX. Furthermore, as Davies and Allison observe, “Genesis was a βίβλος, and its name was Γένεσις.” They follow this observation to its logical conclusion: “One is therefore led to ask whether the introductory use of βίβλος γενέσεως would not have caused Matthew’s readers to think of the Torah’s first book and to anticipate that some sort of ‘new genesis,’ a genesis of Jesus Christ, would follow. It is difficult to think otherwise.” I am in agreement, and in the very least it is clear that Matthew is following Mark’s practice of opening his Jesus book with an allusion to Genesis. If βίβλος γενέσεως is a purposeful allusion to the Book of Genesis as the first book of Torah, the phrase’s hermeneutical significance extends far beyond referring only to Jesus’s genealogy— the author is claiming that with Jesus a new creation or “origin” begins, but one that should be thought of in connection to the origin story in the book of Genesis. More important, this reference is an instance of soft competitive textuality— Matthew’s Gospel is parasitically relying upon the authority of Genesis and Torah to undergird its presentation of a written narrative about Jesus.

 

These observations gain even more force if the narrative structure of the five major discourses in Matthew’s Gospel (cf. the formulae at 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1) mimics the five books of Torah. If that is the case, which is far from certain but also not impossible, Matthew’s Gospel would be presenting itself even more thoroughly as a new Torah, perhaps even a rival to Torah. The concept of a new or updated Torah is not entirely out of place within the narrative of Matthew’s Gospel, which presents Jesus’s “antitheses” on Torah (5:17– 48), placing him on the mountain while giving them, like Moses when he received the law (Matt 5:1; 8:1; cf. Exod 19:3– 25; 24:1– 18; 31:18; 32:15; 34:2– 29). Since Jesus is the new Moses for Matthew’s Gospel, does the author intend to suggest that the Gospel’s narrative itself contains the new law, beginning with the βίβλος γενέσεως? Regardless of how one answers that question, the likelihood of Matthew drawing upon the symbolic significance of Torah, and Genesis as its first scroll, at Matt 1:1 remains. (Chris Keith, The Gospel as Manuscript: An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020], 115-18)