Most people, who are related at least tangentially to the Christian faith, assume that Jesus was a miracle worker. By this they mean that he possessed the ability to …
The audience for which Matthew wrote was conversant with the Jewish Scriptures, so when he mentions Tamar in the genealogy, they would know her story. The Torah (Genesis, Exodus, …
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” — that is how the gospel of Matthew begins. The word “ …
I return to Matthew’s gospel today to lay out the case for its basic Jewishness. As I suggested in the opening column in this series last week, we must …
In order to understand the birth narratives found in Matthew and Luke, we need to embrace the fact that there is no way these stories were intended to be …
Somewhere six to ten years after the Gospel of Matthew was written, another gospel, the one we call Luke, makes its appearance. Both Matthew and Luke had Mark as …
Having now described the miraculous birth of Jesus in chapter one of his gospel, Matthew turns next to his account of how the birth of Jesus was divinely “rolled …
Christianity was born in the synagogue and the original followers of Jesus were primarily observant Jews. They gathered in the synagogue regularly on the Sabbath for worship. A major …
The prologue to Mathew’s gospel, which also serves to introduce the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth, is now complete. Matthew writing as he does to the members of a …
The fourth and final woman included in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus with which he opens his gospel and simultaneously introduces into the Christian tradition the story of the …