{"id":794,"date":"2005-01-25T01:07:53","date_gmt":"2005-01-24T12:07:53","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=794"},"modified":"2005-01-25T09:32:18","modified_gmt":"2005-01-24T20:32:18","slug":"gospel-of-matthew-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/archives\/794","title":{"rendered":"Gospel of Matthew (1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to figure out the Gospel of Matthew at the moment. One thing I’m doing is trying to understand how St Matthew uses the quotations from Moses & the prophets. Here is what I have for the ‘as it was written’ quotations in the first four chapters:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. “Behold, a virgin shall be with child …” — the child was a sign that Israel\u2019s enemies were about to be defeated, though no thanks to Israel itself (Isaiah 7)<\/li>\n
  2. “And thou Bethlehem … art not the least … for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel” — enemies surround what\u2019s left of Israel, but this one will come and the scattered of Israel will return. He will bring peace. (Micah 5)<\/li>\n
  3. “Out of Egypt have I called my son” — Jesus is equated with Israel (Hosea 11)<\/li>\n
  4. “Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted …” — who knows? (Jeremiah 31)<\/li>\n
  5. “He shall be called a Nazarene\u201d — who knows? I can’t even find the reference.<\/li>\n
  6. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness …” — peace & pardon are coming, God the shepherd & creator, is returning. (Isaiah 40)<\/li>\n
  7. “Man shall not live by bread alone …” — Jesus is being Israel in the wilderness. (Deuteronomy 8)<\/li>\n
  8. “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” — Israel demanded water at Massah, rather than trusting that God would provide. Jesus passes the test Israel failed. (Deuteronomy 6)<\/li>\n
  9. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” — when Israel gets rich, it must remember where it came from, and not turn away from God. (Deuteronomy 6)<\/li>\n
  10. “The people which sat in darkness saw great light …” — a child comes to bring peace & justice, break the back of oppression. (Isaiah 9)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    I think paying attention to the background texts like this pins down the interpretation of the book, like putting rocks on the corners of a tarpaulin to stop it blowing away. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m trying to figure out the Gospel of Matthew at the moment. One thing I’m doing is trying to understand how St Matthew uses the quotations from Moses & the prophets. Here is what I have for the ‘as it was written’ quotations in the first four chapters: “Behold, a virgin shall be with child […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mhjb.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}