Genealogy of Jesus: Where are the women?

Genealogy of Jesus: Where are the women?

Can we really make a human genealogy of Jesus?

Two evangelists trace the genealogy of Jesus, the long list of his ancestors : Saint Luke, chapter 3, verses 23 to 38 and Saint Matthew, Chapter 1, verses 1 to 16
According to these gospels, Jesus is the son of Joseph and therefore heir to a royal family.
In fact, this long genealogy of Jesus corresponds to the paternal branch of his family, that is to say his ancestors on the side of Joseph.

But how can we attribute this ancestry to Jesus when he was conceived by the intervention of the Holy Spirit and a mother who remained a virgin? If Joseph is not the biological father of Jesus, how can he transmit his family tree to him?
In the Jewish culture of the time, adoption was enough to confer all hereditary rights on the child. Thus, this genealogy has all its legitimacy. Matthew presents Joseph as a descendant of King David. Jesus is therefore of royal ancestry through Joseph!

A very masculine genealogy

The time was different and the concern for the lineage was transmitted by the father’s name.
In the long list of Jesus’ ancestors in the Gospel of St. Matthew, which spans 40 generations, Matthew shows that Jesus fits into a genealogy with a real human family. And his ancestors are not exactly perfect examples of holy or impeccable living!
We notice that only 5 women in the genealogy of Jesus, each of them experiences a tormented story with a scent of scandal and danger.

Tamar, Rahab , Ruth, Bathsheba and Mary

  • Tamar, the double widow who dresses as a prostitute to offer herself to the desired man – incidentally her father-in-law, Judah.
  • Rahab , the prostitute of Jericho who betrays her people and saves two Israelites pursued by Canaanite soldiers.
  • Ruth the Moabitess, the faithful daughter-in-law of her mother-in-law Naomi, who one night slipped into Boaz’s bed and got himself married by him.
  • Bathsheba , the wife of Uriah the Hittite, implicitly evoked by the words ” Uriah ‘s wife “. King David had Uriah , the husband, assassinated and married the widow Bathsheba. Ironically , from this blood-stained union Solomon was born, whose Hebrew root means “peace”.
  • Mary , the mother of Jesus, mysteriously pregnant before the wedding with a child who is not her husband Joseph’s.

With the exception of Bathsheba and Mary, Tamar, Rahab and Ruth have in common their foreign origin. Indeed, they come from peoples who are neighbors or enemies of Israel. They distinguished in this respect by the strength and grace that lead them to take their place among the chosen people.

By naming Jesus’ ancestors in this way, the evangelists Luke and Matthew show how fully Jesus is a man. And it is revolutionary! Because to emphasize that Jesus is fully a man is to assume what is most basic, namely the memory and heritage received from his ancestors.

To conclude, here is a quote from Erri De Luca, The Saints of Scandal
“Even the Messiah is of mixed race. This is a great lesson, little known and little repeated. […] The history of Israel will be like an accordion, it will oscillate between attachment and abjuration. Now the foreign women, Tamar, Rahab , Ruth, have in common the opposite journey, they choose to belong to Israel. They abandon their religion and their people without changing their minds. They choose the one God who rose from the desert, they want to fertilize their womb with the seed of the bearers of the new and visionary announcement: a single divinity author of the world.”

Leave a Reply