Thursday, May 06, 2010

The radical gospel of Matthew's Jesus part 1



Matthew 1:1-17 the geneology.

Let me please apologize for a mistake in the recording, which I can't easily fix as I don't have an editing program and record these straight through

When I said that the name david equaled the number fourteen that wasn't exactly correct. If you take the numerical value of d v d and add them together they equal 14.

Anyways hope to stir up some discussion

rev

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey Rev, RoR here.

I think your analysis of the supplied genealogy is probably pretty on the mark.

in both Roman and Christian genealogy of the nobility and the powerful, inconvenient ancestors tended to quietly disappear from the family-provided genealogies if it was possible, and it quite often was.

the only general exception were for those that were slightly more famous than infamous - it's hard for me to judge what the Hebrews, Romans, and other Gentiles of the time would have considered what in that regard, but it seems that besides Ruth, many of the ancestors might have been kept silent in a lot of accounts or even omitted from a short formal genealogy that wasn't considered official.

Jamie Arpin-Ricci said...

While the exceptions in the genealogy might arguably be noted because of their notable place in Jewish history, I think the emphasis on Jesus right as King of Israel over-shadows this, highlighting the point you are making here. So very helpful, thanks!

yván said...

Thx John,

I personally have started to study this gospel and I hope to accompany you through this journey.

I think it would be good to shed some light on the "d v d = 14" issue:

What you mention or are using to get to d+v+d = 14 is called Gematria*, and is basically assigning a numeric value for each letter in an alphabet. In Hebrew we get:

1 Aleph - א
2 Bet - ב
3 Gimel - ג
4 Daled - ד
5 He - ה
6 vav - ו
...and so on.

Since vowels are not independent letters* in Hebrew, we only take D (Daled = 4), V (vav = 6) and D again, then we have 4+6+4=14

I don't pretend to correct you, but only bring light to future readers/watchers of this blog.

However, I didn't quite get why the other kings were not included/mentioned, maybe I should watch it again. But it seems that Matthew was focused on using or highlight the use of 14, for the reason you expain.

Thank again, and wait for the next video.

Pax

Yvan
Seville - Spain

PS: Got to your blog from Alan Hirsch's comment. Should pay a commision to him for advertising... ;-)

*If you would like to inquire more on these subjects, just google search it or wikipedia it.

john jensen said...

yes, my point was that the author intentionally left people out in order to create the repeating of the fourteen. This goes along with Matthews focus on the kingship of Jesus.

rev

luke said...

i read once that the number 14 has to do with eschatological interpretations of history. Ill see if there is an internet link available for this interpretation.
God Bless

luke said...

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=30