The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament (23 page)

The Journeys of Jesus' Birth.
The decree of Caesar Augustus required Mary and Joseph, who were from Nazareth, to register for the census in the Judean city of Bethlehem (Lk 2:1-5). After the wise men from the East had visited to worship the Child, Joseph heeded the warning of the angel of the Lord and took his family to Egypt, where they remained until the death of Herod the Great. 
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Is Matthew's Infancy Narrative Historical?

T
HE
historical trustworthiness of the Christian Gospels is an important issue for the Church. Vatican II restated (1965) the Church's enduring conviction: the NT Gospels faithfully transmit the historical truth about Jesus, his teaching, and his mighty works (
Dei Verbum,
19). Nevertheless, scholars sometimes question whether the Gospel writers intended to record history at all. Some claim that Matthew's Infancy Narrative (chaps. 1-2) is a prime example of this. Matthew, it is said, did not recount the events of Jesus' birth in the strict sense—he instead composed a
midrash
on the OT.

The word
midrash
is a Hebrew noun meaning "interpretation" or "commentary". The term has various meanings today. Sometimes it denotes ancient Jewish writings—common after
A.D.
200—that use OT stories to teach religious truths. It can also describe the methods of OT interpretation found in these writings. Most notably,
midrash
is notorious for retelling biblical stories and embellishing them with fictional details. One
midrash
on the birth of Moses imaginatively expands the story found in Ex 2, describing how Moses' father had a dream predicting his birth, an Egyptian scribe informed Pharaoh of his birth, and the scribe himself later sought to kill the young Moses. These details add color to Moses' earliest years, but no such detail is found in the Bible. Matthew 1-2 is thought to fit in a similar category of pious reflection; the evangelist is thus charged with fabricating events related to OT passages but having no real basis in history. A response to this claim may be outlined in several points.

1. Matthew 1-2 is stylistically different from
midrash.
Unlike
midrash,
the evangelist's story of Jesus is not founded on an OT text. Whereas
midrash
seeks to mine deeper meanings of the OT, Matthew does not seek to interpret the OT for its own sake. More to the point, Matthew is not retelling OT episodes but is telling an entirely new story! It is a story with new characters and events; it is a story that could stand on its own apart from his OT citations. Matthew employs the OT to illuminate the significance of Jesus' birth, not to determine in advance its plot and outcome.

2. Matthew sees Jesus as the fulfillment of OT promises. He draws from Scripture to support Jesus' qualifications as Israel's Messiah by linking important episodes (virginal conception, flight to Egypt, massacre of the Innocents, etc.) with ancient oracles. Unless these
events
are anchored in history in the first place, it seems unlikely that Matthew would fabricate stories
as if
Jesus fulfilled the OT. Scripture was never really fulfilled if the events Matthew narrates never happened. In this case, Matthew's exegesis of the OT would amount to little more than an exercise in self-delusion. Besides, were it Matthew's tendency to invent stories out of OT texts, it is likely his narrative would have turned out differently. For example, Ps 72:10 and Is 60:3-6 clearly stand behind Matthew's story of the wise men in Mt 2. Were Matthew writing
midrash,
these OT verses would probably exert greater control in shaping his story: Jesus would then receive only "two gifts" (gold and frankincense) instead of three, and "kings", instead of Persian astrologers, would pay him homage.

3. Matthew does not regard the OT as a simple, pre-written script of Jesus' life. With the exception of Mic 5:2 (Mt 2:6), Matthew's OT citations appear to be unlikely candidates for messianic prophesies, were he not peering at deeper mysteries within their literal meaning. For example, Is 7:14 (Mt 1:23) was first spoken about the birth of king Hezekiah; Hosea 11:1 (Mt 2:15) was originally looking backward to Israel's Exodus from Egypt; Jer 31:15 (Mt 2:18) describes the tragedy of the Jewish Exile in 586
B.C.
; and Matthew's reference to the "Nazarene" (Mt 2:23) is difficult even to locate. Thus Matthew is not assembling the most obvious OT prophesies about the Messiah and neatly attaching them to Jesus. His use of the OT is legitimate and spiritual but not artificial. That Matthew gathers obscure texts to interpret Jesus' infancy suggests that history is controlling his story, not the OT.

4. Matthew 1-2 coheres well with our knowledge of history from extrabiblical sources. First, the Holy Family's flight to Egypt (Mt 2:13) squares with known historical circumstances: Egypt at this time was the home of large Jewish colonies (e.g., Alexandria, Elephantine). Second, the role of the wise men in Mt 2 corresponds with our knowledge of Persian sages from the ancient East. Their interests in astrology naturally link them with stellar phenomena (i.e., the star of Bethlehem). Third, the moral character of Herod the Great known from other sources is consistent with his actions in Mt 2. Having murdered many suspected adversaries—and even family members—it is reasonable to think Herod would execute young Bethlehemites (Mt 2:16) as a preemptive strike against future threats to his crown.

5. Of some relevance: the Pontifical Biblical Commission addressed the issue of historicity in Matthew's Infancy Narrative at the turn of the twentieth century. This commission was instituted by Pope Leo XIII (1902) to examine select biblical questions related to the Catholic faith. Though not infallible declarations of faith, the early decisions and decrees of this commission may be taken as authoritative guidance. After careful study of this issue, weighing both ancient and modern interpretive traditions, the commission concluded on June 19, 1911, that contemporary challenges to the historical authenticity of Mt 1-2 are devoid of solid foundation.

In summary, Matthew's Infancy Narrative is both theological and historical. Matthew cites the OT as
confirmation
of his story, not as its
foundation.
He intends readers to view Jesus' early life as real events with real characters. For Matthew, Jesus himself holds the key to the OT, and his coming marks a new era in salvation history that gathers up all of God's promises and brings them to fulfillment. The historical reliability of Mt 1-2, then, is consistent with Catholic tradition and the sound principles of biblical and historical study. « 
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2:18 A voice was heard:
A citation from Jer 31:15. • Jeremiah looks to
Ramah,
a city five miles north of Jerusalem, as a place of sorrow and exile. The Assyrians first devastated northern Israel in the eighth century
B.C.
by sweeping through the land and engulfing the city (Is 10:29; Hos 5:8); later the Babylonians conquered the southern tribes in the sixth century
B.C.
, and Ramah became the assembly point for hauling away captives (Jer 40:1). In both cases, some Israelites were killed, and others were carried into exile. Matthew sees Bethlehem as a new city of sorrow where many are killed and the young Jesus, representing Israel, is carried away. These two sites are linked with the burial place of
Rachel:
one tradition puts her tomb on the outskirts of Bethlehem, where she gave birth to Benjamin in sorrow (Gen 35:17-19), while another locates it in the tribal territory of Benjamin near Ramah (1 Sam 10:2; cf. Josh 18:25). 
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2:22 Archelaus:
Son of Herod the Great. After Herod's death, the Roman emperor Augustus divided his kingdom among his three sons. Archelaus was given the title "ethnarch" of Judea, Idumea, and Samaria. He quickly acquired a reputation like his father's, governing with a ruthless and heavy hand. He was eventually banished by Augustus to Gaul in
A.D.
6. Joseph took Mary and the Child north to the
district of Galilee,
where Archelaus' younger brother, Herod Antipas, ruled as tetrarch until
A.D.
39. 
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2:23 Nazareth:
An obscure Galilean village nowhere mentioned in the OT. It was insignificant in the eyes of many Jews (cf. Jn 1:46).
He shall be called a Nazarene:
No OT prophecy corresponds to this exact wording. Matthew apparently paraphrases the message of several
prophets
into a summary statement about the Messiah. • The paraphrase is based on a word association between Jesus' home of Nazareth and the Hebrew word
netser,
translated as "branch" in Is 11:1. Isaiah used the image of a branch growing from a stump to signify hope for the kingdom of David. The great Davidic tree (dynasty) had been cut off since the Exile, but the sprouting branch indicated that God would raise up another king from the hopeless situation. Later prophets used this same image to signify the Messiah-king (Jer 23:5, 33:14-16) who would build the Temple (Zech 3:8, 6:11-13). See notes on
Mt 1:17
and
16:18
. 
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3:1 John the Baptist:
The forerunner to the Messiah. A Levite (Lk 1:5) and relative of Jesus (Lk 1:36), John was considered a prophet by many Jews (21:26) and even by Jesus himself (11:9). His message was accompanied by an austere life of penance and self-denial (CCC 523). • John's clothing (3:4) recalls the OT prophet Elijah who "wore a garment of haircloth, with a belt of leather about his loins" (2 Kings 1:8). A figure like Elijah was expected to return before the Messiah (Mal 4:5) to begin restoring the tribes of Israel (Sir 48:10). 
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3:2 kingdom of heaven:
The overarching theme of Matthew's Gospel. The expression appears 32 times in the Gospel and is equivalent in meaning to "the kingdom of God" (see, e.g., 19:23-24). In their original Jewish context, the words "of heaven" helped to distinguish the kingdom proclaimed by John (3:2) and Jesus (4:17) from popular hopes for a literal restoration of Israel's political empire (cf. Acts 1:6). Instead, it is a kingdom that comes from the Father in heaven (Mt 6:10). The presence of the kingdom is mediated through the Church in history (16:18-19); its full manifestation, however, awaits the coming of Christ in glory (25:31-46) (CCC 541, 669-71). See introduction to Matthew:
Themes.
 
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3:3 The voice of one crying:
A quotation from Is 40:3. • Isaiah's oracle outlines John's mission: he is the important figure who prepares the
way of the Lord.
All four Gospels connect Isaiah's words with John's ministry (Mk 1:3; Lk 3:4; Jn 1:23).
See note on Lk 3:4-6
. 
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