Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 1]
here in 1:16 must merely mean line of descent or the text has
been tampered with in order to get rid of the Virgin Birth idea,
but it was left untouched in 1:18-25. I have a full discussion
of the problem in chapter XIV of _Studies in the Text of the New
Testament_. The evidence as it now stands does not justify
changing the text of the Greek uncials to suit the Sinaitic
Syriac. The Virgin Birth of Jesus remains in 1:16. The spelling
of these Hebrew names in English is usually according to the
Hebrew form, not the Greek. In the Greek itself the Hebrew
spelling is often observed in violation of the Greek rules for
the ending of words with no consonants save _n,r,s_. But the list
is not spelled consistently in the Greek, now like the Hebrew as
in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, now like the Greek as in Judah,
Solomon, Hezekiah, though the Hebrew style prevails.
1:18 {The birth of Jesus Christ} (\tou [I•sou] Christou h•
genesis\). In the Greek Jesus Christ comes before birth as the
important matter after 1:16. It is not certain whether "Jesus"
is here a part of the text as it is absent in the old Syriac and
the Old Latin while the Washington Codex has only "Christ." The
Vatican Codex has "Christ Jesus." But it is plain that the story
of the birth of Jesus Christ is to be told briefly as follows,
"on this wise" (\hout•s\), the usual Greek idiom. The oldest and
best manuscripts have the same word genealogy (\genesis\) used in
1:1, not the word for birth (begotten) as in 1:16
(\genn•sis\). "It is in fact the word Genesis. The evangelist is
about to describe, not the genesis of the heaven and the earth,
but the genesis of Him who made the heaven and the earth, and who
will yet make a new heaven and a new earth" (Morison).
{Betrothed to Joseph} (\Mn•steutheis•s t•i I•s•ph\). Matthew
proceeds to explain his statement in 1:16 which implied that
Joseph, though the legal father of Jesus in the royal line, was
not the actual father of Mary's Son. Betrothal with the Jews was
a serious matter, not lightly entered into and not lightly
broken. The man who betrothed a maiden was legally husband (Ge
29:21; De 22:23f.) and "an informal cancelling of betrothal was
impossible" (McNeile). Though they did not live together as
husband and wife till actual marriage, breach of faithfulness on
the part of the betrothed was treated as adultery and punished
with death. _The New Testament in Braid Scots_ actually has
"mairry't till Joseph" for "betrothed to Joseph." Matthew uses
the genitive absolute construction here, a very common Greek
http://www.ccel.org/r/robertson_at/wordpictures/htm/MT1.RWP.html (3 of 9) [28/08/2004 09:02:52 a.m.]