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You can find previous episodes of “The Stone Chapel Podcast” at Lanier Theological Library.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity and space.
David Capes
Dr. Nancy Dawson, good to see you. Welcome back to The Stone Chapel Podcast.
Nancy Dawson
Thank you so much for having me.
David Capes
You have been here before. We’re going to put information in the show notes about that earlier podcast. You wrote a book that has done quite well and is already in its third printing. It’s called “All the Genealogies of the Bible” with Zondervan Academic.
Nancy Dawson
It came out last October and was just a joy to have it finished. It took about 20 years to do the research.
David Capes
Now you’re working on a book about all the women of the Bible, and you’re going to do that in two years!
Nancy Dawson
We’ll see.
David Capes
Hopefully they’ll be patient if it takes a little bit longer. That’s a huge topic.
Nancy Dawson
There are about 350 women, maybe even more. We have the major women, and there’s a lot of minor women too. They’re found throughout scripture. And if you study all of them, you’re sure to see the right way to view them, their roles, how God used them providentially in his plan of redemption. It’s a wonderful topic, and one that I just feel privileged to write on.
David Capes
Yes, we’re going to be talking about some women in the next couple of podcasts, and we’re looking at the genealogy of Matthew, in the opening chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. And there are five interesting women who are going to be referred to there. Now, in other genealogies I’ve read, women aren’t even mentioned. How frequent is it that women are mentioned in genealogies in the Bible, or in Jewish genealogies in general?
Nancy Dawson
Well, the short answer is that it’s not very common, because genealogies are traced patrilineal through scripture. But this does not mean that women are not talked about. You have someone like Dinah, who is a daughter of Jacob, or you see someone named Sheerah that builds a whole city or several cities. And when you find the names of the women they are typically found in biblical narratives that accompany stories about the men.
Here in Matthew, it is highly unusual, because he is digressing from a strictly linear genealogy that you assume is father-son succession. But in this case, he diverges. He is like a great scribe scholar. He interjects these short, segmented genealogical trees, if you will, that explain these five women. And those five women will be Tamar at the time of the patriarchs, Rahab at the time of the conquest of the Promised Land, Ruth, which will be in the latter period of the judges. And then you have Bathsheba at the time of the kings. And you have, of course, Mary at the time of King Herod and the birth of Christ, which is the pinnacle and the climax.
David Capes
The genealogy in Matthew starts with Abraham. It goes through King David, then it takes another turn at the exile because that’s such a significant moment. And then it finally comes to Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. Between Abraham and David, several of these women are listed. Let’s look at those stories that you’re going to read from the New International Version.
Nancy Dawson
This is found, of course, in the very opening of the whole New Testament. This is like a new beginning, a new Genesis, because it’s saying God is going to do something new. There’s going to be a new covenant between God and man. This isn’t something that Jeremiah was stating. Now there’s this fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies that’s going to come about through the birth of the Messiah.
What happens is that Matthew structures the genealogy in these three parts. He goes back to Abraham and you see that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenants. That’s the first 14 generations. Then the second set is from the time of David. This is saying that Jesus is the Son of David. And these are the beginning and ending literary markers for all of the genealogy that are found in Matthew 1.
David Capes
And “Son of David” was a messianic title at the time. so the Gospel begins. It’s a little bit debated, but my translation of the gospel begins “A book of the genesis of Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham”. So really, he’s the Messiah. And as Messiah, he is the “Son of David”, because that messianic promise goes back to King David in 2 Samuel 7:12-16, somewhere in there.
