The Generation(s) of Jesus

Matthew’s genealogy in Matthew chapter 1 raises several questions, one of the most common concerning the inclusion of women. This was not a common practice in the patrilineal society of the ancient world. I have heard many explanations for this, which I do agree with. I think it is true that Matthew has something to say about the inclusion of sinners and Gentiles in the line of Jesus. However, I want to tackle this question from a textual standpoint. I would say that Matthew includes women in his genealogy to establish a linguistic pattern, which is then broken when we get to Jesus and Mary at the end.

The word Matthew uses throughout the genealogy is γεννάω (gennao), whereas the word he uses in the second part of chapter one to describe the virgin giving birth is τίκτω (tikto). The two terms are related, but not equal. The former is used mostly of men; the latter, mostly of women.

The first term, γεννάω (gennao), is a term that doesn’t translate perfectly into English. It basically means “to produce.” Most of the time it’s in the context of birth, but the term can also be used to describe other kinds of produce, such as fruit. In the rare case that this word is applied to a woman, we translate it into English idiom with the phrase “she bore” or “she gave birth,” but that isn’t technically what the word means in the original language

On the other hand, “she bore” or “she gave birth” would be a great translation of the word τίκτω, which is another term that could be applied to birth or to a field bearing crops.

The ancient understanding of the birds and the bees can be seen as an extended farming metaphor. The language used to describe the process may sound very sexist to a reader from the modern west where bilateral descent is the norm — this means both the father’s side and the mother’s side of the family tree are equally important. However, to a patrilineal society, such as those found in the Bible, only the father’s branches counted. It was just the way the world worked. Ironically, even in our bilateral societies, we still often use the same language.

The metaphor goes something like this: the man plants his seed, which in the Greek is σπέρμα (sperma). The woman is simply the field — barren or fertile — in which the seed is planted. The Greek idiom for pregnancy is ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα (en gastri echousa) which means “having” or “holding in the womb.”

The man’s seed, then, is what is important in procreation. He is the one who “produces” or “generates” (γεννάω, gennao) the child. The woman, after merely “holding” the seed, then “gives birth” (τίκτω, tikto) to the child. Therefore, the essence of the child’s identity, what we would call the DNA, came solely from the father.

This places a great importance on having sons. If all of one’s children were girls, then there would be no one to carry on his “seed.”

Now, whether or not the ancients actually believed this to be true physiologically is unimportant, for their patrilineal society functioned as if it were true. For people in the biblical times, there wasn’t really much of a difference between the way things functioned and the way things actually were.

Now, back to Matthew’s genealogy and the linguistic pattern mentioned earlier. This pattern can be seen at the first mention of a woman, Tamar, in Matthew 1:3: And Judah “produced” or “fathered” (γεννάω, gennao) Perez and Zerah “out of” Tamar.

The same pattern is seen twice in verse 5, when Salmon fathered Boaz “out of” Rahab, and Boaz in turn fathered Obed “out of” Ruth.

The same pattern is repeated every time a woman is mentioned in the genealogy.

That is, until we get to Mary, in verse 16.

“And Jacob fathered Joseph, the husband of Mary, out of whom was fathered Jesus, who is called the Messiah.”

Now when Matthew gets to Jesus, he uses the same verb that he has been using (γεννάω, gennao), only it is in the passive voice. Jesus “was produced” or “was fathered” out of Mary.

It’s hard to reflect the Greek in an English translation. The NASB uses the passive “was born” to translate every occurrence of the word, so there isn’t a change at all in verse 16.

The ESV translates this verb as an adjective throughout the genealogy — “Abraham was the father of Isaac, etc.” — and in verse 16 they translate it as a passive verb.

The NIV also translates this as an adjective, but in verse 16 they merely change the phrase from “the father of” to “the mother of.”

In each case, something has to be sacrificed in order to make sense of it in English. But I think in this context, it is clear that Matthew chose to use the same verb that he had been using, only in the passive voice instead of the active voice. I think a proper English translation should reflect this change.

But it’s also important to understand that Mary’s role in birthing Jesus was the same role as that of Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, etc. Jesus was not “produced” or “generated” by Mary, but rather “out of” Mary. Mary, like the other women in the genealogy, was just the field.

I would argue for a use of the divine passive here, which simply means that God was doing the generating. That’s not a stretch, because the context of the birth narrative in the following verses makes this apparent: the angel tells Joseph that what is conceived (or produced, fathered, generated, etc.) in Mary is from the Holy Spirit.

To a western audience, a virgin birth is miraculous enough. But to the patrilineal society in which Jesus was born, it really would not have meant much for a woman to give birth without a man’s seed. So the point in Matthew chapter 1 is not only that the Holy Spirit caused a virgin to conceive and give birth to a child. More than that, the child was fathered, produced, and generated from the seed of God himself. From the perspective of Matthew and his original readers, the very essence of who Jesus was — his entire identity — was given to him by God.