Internalise the Law as in the Gospel of Matthew

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The first section in Matthew is considered in the Reality Search analysis as belonging to a “child section” of the gospels. The same holds for the first chapters in Luke’s gospel. It is claimed that the “child” sections of the gospels do not follow the ‘hook’ patterns that can be found in the remaining parts of the Gospel. They are therefore presented in a straight prose form here without any effort to detect patterns within them.

Section A

Intro. Call to Teaching

1:1-17...... Genealogy
1:18-25 ....Jesus' birth
2:1-12 ......Magi
2:13-15 ....Egypt
2:16-18 ....Boy children killed
2:18-23 ....Joseph to Nazareth
3:1-12 ......John baptising
3:13-17 ....Jesus' baptism
4:1-11 ......wilderness / temptation
4:12-17 ....Jesus starts preaching
4:18-22 ....Disciples called
4:23-25 ....Jesus preaching all over

1:1-17...... Genealogy

1:1-17 This is the book of the generations of Jesus Christ, son of David and son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac and Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot Judas and his brothers. Judas was the father of Phares and Zara. Thamar was their mother. Phares was the father of Esrom and Esrom the father of Aram. Aram fathered Aminadab who in turn fathered Naasson. Naasson was the father of Samon and Samon the father of Booz. Rachab was his mother. Booz married Ruth and they were the parents of Obed. Obed begot Jesse who begot David the King.

David fathered Solomon. His mother had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon was the father of Roboam who was the father of Abia. Abia begot Asaph who begot Josaphat who in turn begot Joram who begot Ozias. Ozias was the father of Joatham who was the father of Achaz who in turn was the father of Hezekias. Hezekias was the father of Manasses who was the father of Amos. Amos begot Josias who in turn begot Jechonias and his brothers at the deportation of the people (Note: Text is mainly a paraphrase of the Literal translation in the RSV Interlinear Greek-English New Testament, 1988)

to Babylon. After the deportation of Babylon Jechonias begot Salathiel who begot Zorobabel who begot Abiud who begot Eliakim who begot Azor who begot Sadoc who begot Achim who father of begot Eliud who begot Eleazar who begot Matthan who begot Jacob. Now Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary of

whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. All the generations from Abraham until David made up fourteen generations. From David until the deportation of Babylon there were fourteen generations. From the deportation of Babylon until the Christ there were also fourteen generations.

1:18-25 ....Jesus' birth

1:18-25 The birth of Jesus Christ took place as follows. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph. But before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Now Joseph her husband was a just man and did not wish to hold her up as a public example. He resolved to dismiss her secretly. But while he was thinking about this, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him through a dream saying to him. “Joseph, son of David. Do not fear to take Mary as you wife. For what has been begotten in her is of

the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you will call him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.” Now all this occurred so that the things spoken by the Lord through the prophet may be fulfilled. “Behold the virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son and they will call him Emmanuel which is understood as meaning God is with us.” When Joseph woke up from this sleep he did as the angel had bid him. He took his wife and did not know her until she bore a son. He gave him the name of Jesus.

A point people like to argue about is whether or not Mary remained a virgin even after marriage. A C20th visionary called Catherine Emerich claimed that Joseph and Mary belonged to a group within Judaism called Essenes. These were extremely strict and formed a basis for monastic-type communities. Some of the married Essenes practised celibacy for periods of time or permanently. The visions of Catherine Emerich and her references to Essenes were dismissed for much of the C20th. But references to Essenes which matched the visions of Emerich (to some degree) turned up in the Dead Sea scrolls found in the late 1940’s. It took a long time for all the scrolls to be translated and made available to the public. Recently Pope John Paul II canonised Catherine Emerich. Consider this in terms of the time/place and law/order analysis presented in Reality Search. If the family of Jesus did indeed belong to the Essenes it would help explain the fierce hostility which some of the family felt when Jesus was moving outside this purist group and appearing to adopt views and practices held by Gentile or pagan people.