Jan 16, 2011

The Fourteen Generations in Matthew's Presentation of Jesus' Genealogy



I am currently working through Robert Gundry’s Commentary on the New Testament (Hendrickson, 2010) for an upcoming journal review. Concerning Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew’s Gospel, Gundry writes,

“That Matthew constructs three sets of fourteen also corresponds to the spelling of David’s name in Hebrew with three consonants and puts triple emphasis on Jesus’ Davidic ancestry. So the first set ended with royal power (‘David the king’), the second with loss of royal power (‘the deportation to Babylon’), and the third with a revival of royal power (‘the Christ’)” (p. 3).

The idea that Matthew uses fourteen generations to correspond to the spelling of David’s name is nothing new, but I am intrigued with Gundry’s other suggestion that the fourteens also serve to emphasize royal power established, lost, and revived is intriguing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Be careful what you admit with your dissertation readers online!

Charles Savelle said...

In that case, let me hasten to say that Gundry also has a nice discussion on Acts 15 in this commentary.