The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

The New Testament includes four Gospels that encompass a variety of narrative accounts relating to Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Matthew; is sequentially placed as the first book within the New Testament. Furthermore, it is a canonical account of the life of Jesus, and is recognized as one of the synoptic Gospels. These accounts are divided into twenty eight chapters that appear in the form of a parable, proverb, law, or miracle story found within modern day poetry, letters, or literary tracts. Moreover, each narrative account possesses influential and intellectual material that attracts readers to examine it further. However, out of the four Gospels, Matthew’s is the one that encompasses the most amount of text that bestows an array of narrative accounts of Jesus to observe. In Matthew’s scriptures he takes Jesus’ fulfillments of the Jewish prophecies into consideration and uses it to refute the Jewish belief that Jesus of Nazareth is not the Messiah. This paper will explore the pericope found in Matthew 1:2-17 that illustrates the genealogy of Jesus Christ. The purpose of the passage is to demonstrate that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, which is a dominant theme throughout this particular Gospel.

The above passage was chosen to obtain a greater perspective on the genealogy of Jesus Christ, through further examining Matthew’s tactic of incorporating Jesus into various Jewish traditions and prophecies. This passage is particularly interesting because Matthew functions as a bridge between the two Testaments, by showing how prophetic “fulfillment citations” from the Hebrew Bible were fulfilled, in the person of Jesus therefore proving he is the Messiah .The book of Matthew is a complicated Gospel; as a result, it is vital for its ...

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...s view Jesus as the Messiah and continue to worship him as the foundation of Christianity. As a result, it is evident that Christianity and Judaism possess different beliefs. Perhaps over time the two faiths will fuse together and allow the people to become unified and share the same beliefs towards the true Messiah.

Bibliography

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Coogan, Michael D. The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford, 2007.

Filson ,V. Floyd The Gospel According to St. Matthew. London: A. and C. Black Limited, 1960.

Keener, Craig S. A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 1999. Print.

Saldarini, Anthony Commentary On The Bible. Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans: 2003.