KJV
19Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
20But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
RSV
[19] and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
[20] But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit;
[21] she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
There's poor Joseph, always so worried about what people will think of him, trying to make everybody happy... it's so easy to read so much into these words... I feel like a preacher. But Joseph is consoled by an angel. I can't help but think of the angel as representing historical revisionism. "Fear not..." they say, "for we will rewrite history and make everything shiny."
But it's not as simple as that. I feel like there's this moderate path many people take of believing Jesus's life, just without the supernatural bits. But why would only the supernatural bits be false? That's like believing that Persephone really did eat 6 pomegranate seeds, but she did it in the cellar, not in Hell.
I don't believe in any of the birth narrative. None of it. Not the place of birth, not the flight to Egypt, not Mary, not Joseph. For me, this is the easiest part of the story to dismiss. As I've said before, it is well beyond the purview of any eyewitness to relate. Instead, it's all reverse engineered from the verses that follow:
KJV
22Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
In fact, it's even stranger than that, because I don't think there was an expectation among Jews for a virgin-born Messiah. I actually think this notion was coming from somewhere else, like Egyptian cults and/or the Greeks with their randy gods inseminating maidens left and right.
And btw, what's with the Emmanuel? I don't see them calling him Emmanuel. What's up with that?
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I don't see them calling him Emmanuel.
ReplyDeleteSo you think they should have called him "Rahm"?
You posted this some time ago so I don't know if you will ever be back to look at this particular section of you journey or not.
ReplyDeleteYou are in fact right, the Jews were not looking for a virgin born messiah and they were certainly not looking for Emmanuel (God with us). They were looking for a military commander with such strength and genius that he would be able to conquer and subject all other nations besides the Jews and restore a David type world domination era again to the Jewish people.
This was not what God had in mind and if you search the Old Testament scriptures you will see that the profits often mention God's plan to "bless all nations through the Jews". Either most Jewish scholars overlook these texts or they view them in such a way that the believe Nations will be blessed by being under Jewish rule.
The importance of this realization is to point out that God had no such intention of subjecting the world to the the Jews. His plan was to have mercy on the whole earth including the Jews. Stop for a minute, think of the worst thing you have ever done to anyone in your life. Is there anyway to fix that? To make that person a whole person again without the scar of that event? No, there isn't and God being a just God requires punishment for wrong doing. But instead of punishing all of humanity like we deserve he took our place on death row and died for our sins if we would only believe what he has done. That's why he is called Emmanuel.
The importance of this passage is to let the world know where Jesus came from. Of course there are no eye witnesses of Joseph having a dream. No one can watch dreams in someones head. The worth while thing to bring up and think about is that this information about Jesus' birth benefits the author (Matthew) In no way at all. So why would he make it up? Do you know that all the guys who were following Jesus died horrible deaths by people who didn't want to hear the news for some reason and no they were not fighting back? God loves you Don and I hope you at some point acknowledge him and love him, and know him as your friend, Savior and Lord.