Compare and contrast the birth stories in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. How do the differences set up distinct theological emphases in each Gospel?
The foundation of the Christian faith is cradled within truth of the virgin birth, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As diverse as the world-wide Christian culture is, the truth in the birth and life of Jesus stands without border and language limitations. Just as each individual life story can be adapted to be relevant for a variety of audiences, the birth story of the Messiah was also. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are an example of the well-rounded and diverse narration of the birth story of Jesus—Matthew’s narration spoke to the history of the Jewish people and Luke presented to the citizen of Rome.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the focus on the Jewish genealogy of Jesus played a significant role in the birth story. To fully understand Jesus, it was imperative to first acknowledge who Jesus was within Jewish ancestry and his subsequent position as King of the Jews. Jewish tradition passed down the oral and written story of Messianic prophecies for generations. To provide the correlation between the anticipated Messiah and the fulfillment through Jesus, Matthew affirmed prophecies throughout the birth story with two significant fulfillments—Abraham’s promised seed [offspring] and the virgin birth.
Matthew, a man of Jewish descent, connects a direct ancestral line from Jesus to the patriarch of the Hebrew
Matthew and Luke each contain short but elaborate birth narratives concerning Jesus’. Within each of their narratives,both Matthew and Luke mention the genealogies of Jesus which when compared to each other are quite different. In Matthews gospel he traces Jesus’ ancestry back to that “of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1). While in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is traced back through David and Abraham to Adam and God. Now, even though both Matthew and Luke’s genealogies are not the same, what is even more concerning is that neither is overly correct. In regards to Matthews take on Jesus’ genealogy, one can see that his “genealogy suggests — indeed, it almost demonstrates— that the entire course of Israel’s history has proceed according to divine providence” (116). However, historians today know about two thirds of
Throughout the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, it is apparent that there are similarities as well as differences when it comes to portraying the life and times of Jesus the Christ, the general descriptions of who Jesus was, and the sayings and deeds of Jesus during his short stay on this earth. Scripture scholars highlight that each Gospel writer viewed Jesus from a different perspective.
Instead, the Jews seem to be more prominence with Matthew trying to portray Messiah since they consider Matthew the most Jewish out of the other four Gospels. Matthew started to unveil the genealogy of Jesus, and started with Abraham and started to trace the father and son relationships, it started with Isaac and it ended with the husband of Mary who Jesus was born and he is called Christ. Matthew portrays as the “New Moses” for the Israel people.
Notable in Matthew is its emphasis on Jesus as the promised Messiah and on matters pertaining to the church. Evidence that it probably was written for Jewish Christians may be found which is concerned with representing Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. The deep interest in the disciples is emphasized in Matthew. Matthew gives the fullest account of how Jesus called them, how he instructed them, how they failed him, and
When studying the Gospel of Matthew, Scholars have dated the book to be written sometime between the ages of 80 and 90 CE. Scholars have also estimated the book to have been written somewhere outside of Palestine, potentially in Antioch, Syria. Antioch was a very wealthy and educated area with a large Jewish community (Study Bible, 1665-1667). From what evidence permits, it’s estimated that the whole purpose of the gospel was meant as a means of correcting the Gospel of Mark by emphasizing the Jewishness of Jesus as the glorious Messiah of the Jews. There is also a stress to all the followers
The infancy narratives introduce us to Jesus of Nazareth. They are the stories of Jesus’ conception and birth according to the canonical gospels. The stories comprise that Jesus is a man of God, in-fact, God’s son. The story tells readers that Jesus was from God at conception, sent to deliver salvation to his followers. Of the four canonical gospels, the only authors who tell the story are Matthew and Luke. Matthew and Luke are speculated to have written their versions of the gospels during different times, but rely on the same sources for their information. While both stories have many similarities and are assumed to use the same sources for their composition, they have significant differences. Both gospels are shown to consist of redaction
Matthew’s Christology is one that emphasises to a Jewish audience the Jewishness of Jesus. It will be the purpose of this paper to argue that the raison d’etre of Matthew’s Christology is to portray Jesus as entirely compatible if not with the Judaism of his day then with ancient Judaic tradition, namely the Old Testament. Whilst there are numerous titles given to Jesus that are exclusive/predominant within the Matthean account, such as that of Son of God, it is the writer’s assertion that these merely complement Matthew’s central theses; this being the portrayal of Jesus as Messiah and so, as such, will not be investigated except where they promote this conclusion. This fulfilment of Judaic tradition will be
There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding the differences in the accounts of the birth and up through the early years of Jesus’ life in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Of course, one of the greatest points of controversy is the difference in the genealogies in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. It is vitally important to remember that the two accounts are written to two different people groups and focuses on two different ‘faces’ or distinctions of the life of Jesus. Matthew is written to the Jews with a focus on Jesus as King of the Jews, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Luke is written to the Gentiles with a focus on Jesus as the Son of Man, or the Prophet emphasizing his humanity.
The only differences within the stories are some words within some sentences. For example, in the first sentence in Matthew’s version of the Last Supper it says,“ While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his
While numerous scholars say that John is the Gospel to the world (and Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, and Luke to the Greeks), a Jewish scholar such as Israel Abrahams might very well believe that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish Gospel of the four by the way it reflects Jewish traditions and symbolisms. According to David Wenham[i], there is more attention given to Jesus as the Messiah in the Gospel of John than in any of other Gospels. In John, from chapter one onwards people are directly talking about Jesus as Messiah, and then there is intense public debate about whether Jesus is Messiah or not in John 7:25-31, 41-44[ii], which indicates that John is quite mindful of Jewish issues.
An example of these conflicts has been previously discussed, in both texts providing differing genealogies at the discussion of Jesus’ birth. Matthew traces Jesus’ blood line back to that of Abraham and King David, whereas Luke aligns Jesus’ heritage as far back as Adam. These conflicting accounts, as aforementioned, are for differing purposes and convey different messages to the reader. Matthew’s purpose is
Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are genealogies of Jesus. Why two of them? Well, in ancient times it was allowed to have genealogies from each of the parents. We must not forget that Joseph is not a biological father of Jesus but, legal, while Mary was His biological mother. That could explain why are both, different.
The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and Luke are very different which can be confusing to many people because at first glance, it does not look like any of the names are the same. When I look at the names, I cannot find any of them that are alike because they are not in the same order and they do not end on the same person. In Matthew, he lists names of women while Luke does not list a single women’s name. There are, however, several different reasons from people like scholars on why this could be possible. For example, some scholars think that one book is about Josephs ancestry and the other about Mary’s ancestry. This could be true, but there are many other arguments for this subject.
important and who are wondering how Jesus fits into history of the Jewish people. This problems means that Matthew’s community was largely Jewish Christian and needed to be reassured that being a Christian did not separate then from the Jewish heritage.
It can be argued that the similarities and differences of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke can cause the reader to either see both of these accounts to complement one another with their different perspectives or that they contradict one another by certain events being mentioned in one birth narrative but not the other. Different aspects of both of these birth narratives such as the way Matthew and Luke treat Mary, the extent to which they use the Old Testament and the audience to whom they are writing to reveals the authors’ agenda as they allow their culture and own personal beliefs to influence what they write. These factors could be argued to have an effect on the historical authenticity of these texts as it could be possible that they could have caused the authors to twist the truth to fit in with their own beliefs.