"After the Deportation"

I commonly say that the most exciting sentence in the history of human literature is Matthew 1:1. Some are surprised to hear this considering that Matt 1:1 is the beginning of a genealogy: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” How can a genealogy be “exciting?” Well, considering the kinds of biblical and cultural anticipation that surrounded the ideas of “David” and “Abraham” in the first century, this sentence amounts to a promise wherein Matthew says to readers, “You have waited long enough; I will now tell you how our covenant God has brought to fruition the great hopes of our people through David and Abraham’s seed!”

A few years ago I published an article in the Bulletin for Biblical Research 25.2 (2015) called “‘After the Deportation’: Observations in Matthew’s Apocalyptic Genealogy” that explores just these things. I’m happy to share that article on our blog. You can read it here.

This article is used by permission of The Pennsylvania State University Press. © Copyright 2015 Eisenbrauns. All rights reserved.

• Dr. Nicholas G. Piotrowski is a the President & Academic Dean at ITS.