How Is Joseph the Father of Jesus?
That Jesus is the “son of David” is among the most attested points of New Testament history (e.g., Matthew 1:1; Mark 10:47-48; Luke 18:38-39; Hebrews 7:14; Revelation 5:5). According to many texts, Yeshua is heir to this Davidic descent through his father, Joseph (see Matt 13:55; Luke 4:22; John 1:45). At the same time, the Messiah is born of the Holy Spirit and, therefore, is the son of God. The Gospel of Matthew makes both of these points in succession: the Messiah is both within the genealogy of Joseph (1:16) and born of God (1:18). Yet if Matthew sees Jesus’s birth as an act of Heaven, how can Jesus claim earthly descent from David through Joseph?
One answer resides in Matthew’s modeling of Jesus on Moses. Yeshua escapes death at the hands of Herod just as Moses survives Pharaoh’s massacre of Hebrew babies (Matt 2:13-15 // Exodus 1:22-2:4); Jesus goes to Egypt and leaves it for Israel, which reruns Moses’s stint in Egypt enroute to Canaan; the son of God is tested after forty days in the wilderness just as Moses led God’s “son” Israel through a wilderness test for forty years (Matt 4:1-11 // Exodus 4:22; Deuteronomy 1:31; 8:2-6); and Jesus ascends a mountain to discuss the Torah, which recapitulates Moses ascending Sinai to receive God’s Law (Matt 5:-7 // Exodus 19-20). The Messiah’s links to Moses can also explain how Jesus is both the son of God and the son of Joseph.
After Moses’s mother sends her child down the Nile, Pharaoh’s daughter finds him in the midst of the reeds. Once Moses is weaned, he returns to Pharaoh’s daughter: “The boy grew and [his mother] brought him to the daughter of Pharaoh, and he became her son, and she called his name ‘Moses’ (מֹשֶׁה; Moshe) and she said, ‘Because from the water I drew him (מְשִׁיתִהוּ; meshitihu)” (Exodus 2:10). When Pharaoh’s daughter “called his name” (וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ; vatiqra shemo), she adopted Moses into her family and pharaonic line. Similarly, the angel of the Lord tells Joseph in a dream, “You shall call his name Jesus” (καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, Matt 1:20) and, after the son of God was born, Joseph “called his name Jesus” (ἐκάλεσεν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, 1:25). By naming the child and taking him into his home—like Pharaoh’s daughter did with Moses—Joseph adopts Jesus into the Davidic line and Yeshua becomes his son. Since God specifies the name from heaven and Joseph bestows that name on earth, Matthew shows that Jesus is both a true son of David and a true son of God.
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