¹ ‘Matthew’ is used conventionally of the unknown author of Matthew.

² Zahn, T., Das Evangelium des Matthäus (4th ed.; Leipzig: Deichert, 1922) 39–44Google Scholar; Klostermann, E., Das Matthäusevangelium (HNT 4, 2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1927) 1Google Scholar; Leuba, J.-L., ‘Note exégétique sur Matthieu 1,1a’, RHPR 22 (1942) 56–61Google Scholar; Beare, F. W., The Earliest Records of Jesus (New York: Abingdon, 1962) 30Google Scholar; Gaechter, P., Das Matthäus-Evangelium: Ein Kommentar (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1963) 34–5Google Scholar; Fenton, J. C., Saint Matthew (Pelican New Testament Commentaries; Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1963) 35–6Google Scholar; Davies, W. D., The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: University, 1964) 67–72Google Scholar; Grundmann, W., Das Evangelium nach Matthäus (THKNT; Berlin: Evangelische, 1968) 61Google Scholar; Schniewind, J., Das Evangelium nach. Matthäus (NTD, 12th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968) 9Google Scholar; Paul, A., L‘Évangile de I‘enfance selon saint Matthieu (Paris: Cerf, 1968) 36–41, 46–8Google Scholar; Bonnard, J. P., L‘Évangile selon saint Matthieu (2nd ed.; Neuchâtel: Niestlé, 1970) 16Google Scholar; Hill, D., The Gospel of Matthew (NCB; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1972) 74–5Google Scholar; Davis, C. T., ‘The Fulfilment of Creation. A Study of Matthew's Genealogy’, JAAR 41 (1973) 520–35Google Scholar; Waetjen, H. C., ‘The Genealogy as the Key to the Gospel according to Matthew’, JBL 95 (1976) 205–30, here 215Google Scholar; Beare, F. W., The Gospel according to St Matthew (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) 64Google Scholar; Frankemölle, H., Jahwehbund und Kirche Christi (NTAbh N.F. 10, 2nd ed.; Münster: Aschendorf, 1984) 360–5Google Scholar; Paul, A., ‘Matthieu 1 comme écriture apocalyptique. Le récit véritable de la ‘crucifixion’ de l'ἔρως’, ANRW 2.25.3 (1984) 1952–68Google Scholar; France, R. T., Matthew (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Leicester: Inter-varsity, 1985) 73Google Scholar; Davies, W. D. and Allison, D. C. Jr, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew Vol. 1 (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988) 149–54Google Scholar; Viviano, B. T., ‘The Genres of Matthew 1–2: Light from 1 Timothy 1:4’, RB 97 (1990) 31–53Google Scholar, esp. 50–2; L. Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Leicester: Intervarsity, 1992) 18–19Google Scholar; Moloney, F. J., ‘Beginning the Gospel of Matthew. Reading Matthew 1:1–2:23’, Salesianum 54 (1992) 341–59Google Scholar, here 347; Dormeyer, D., ‘Mt 1,1 als Überschrift zur Gattung und Christologie des Matthäus-Evangeliums’, in The Four Gospels 1992 (3 vols.; FS F. Neirynck; ed. Segbroeck, F. van; Leuven: University/Peeters, 1992) 2.1361–83Google Scholar. This listing is far from exhaustive.

³ Fenton, Matthew, 36, offers a nice articulation of this maximum possibility:

The title is … telescopic. It can be extended to include more and more of what Matthew is beginning to write about. First, it can cover the genealogy which immediately follows it; then, it can refer to the account of the birth of Jesus …; thirdly, it can mean ‘history’, or ‘life-story’; and finally, it can refer to the whole new creation which begins at the conception of Jesus and will be completed at his second coming.

⁴ See Rom 5.12–21; 1 Cor 15.42–50; 2 Cor 5.17; Gal 6.15. John 1.1–18 is also regularly, and with some justice, cited in this connection (the incarnation is a climactic implementation of a pattern already operative from creation), but John 1.1–18 is actually beginning the story of Jesus (or to be more exact of the ‘Word’) from the time prior to creation. Judaism could certainly conceive of the eschatological period as a replay of the creation beginning, and there is little doubt that these ideas stand in the background of New Testament interest in connecting Jesus with a new creation.

⁵ PhiloPost. C. 127;Abr. I; Act. Mundi 19.

⁶ The phrase is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament. The only difference in Matthew is that the phrase is anarthrous.

⁷ The anarthrous and verbless form of Matt 1.1 stands in favour of identifying it as some form of heading.

⁸ Davies and Allison, Saint Matthew, 1.152

⁹ Nah 1.1; Tob 1.1; Bar 1.1; T. Job 1.1; Apoc Abr, title; 2 Esdr 1.1–3; Sepher Ha-Razim, preface; cf. 4Q‘Amram^b 1.1.

¹⁰ A survey of the range of meanings to be attributed to γένεσις may be found below.

¹¹ There is no close Semitic equivalent to παλτγγενεσία. In Stoic teaching the universe was understood to be periodically dissolved and renewed in a fiery conflagration (e.g. Diogenes Laertes 7.134; Cicero De Nat. Deorum 2.118), spoken of at times as a παλιγγενεσία (see Marcus Aurelius 11.1.3; Philo Aet. Mundi 47, 76). It is primarily against this Stoic background (as a Jewish/Christian alternative) that the choice of παλιγγενεσία in Matt 19.28 is best understood, but this background may already be linked with a second strand of tradition. Philo Moses 2.65 applies παλιγγενεσία to the Flood period, an application also found in 1 Clem 9.4. This is likely to point to the merging together of this Stoic background with another background based on a Jewish (and Christian) response to the ancient myth which envisaged the world as undergoing recurrent and alternating destructions by flood and fire (with subsequent regeneration) – παλιγγενεσία was not used in this connection. For the myth see Plato Timaeus 22C–E; Seneca Quaest. Nat. 3.28; 3.29.1; Lucretius De Nat. Rerum 5. For the Jewish and Christian alternative see 2 Pet 3.5–7; Josephus Ant. 1.70–1; Adam and Eve 49.3; Mek. Amalek 3.14. This Jewish/Christian response may build on what was already recognised in apocalyptic texts as a typological correspondence between Flood and eschato-logical judgment (see 1 Enoch 10.22–11.2; 93.4; cf. Sib. Or. 1.195; 7.11).

¹² Matthew does not share Luke's delight in synonyms. He is, however, capable of appreciating the shared γενεσι between 1.1 and 19.28 (cf. the link between the γεν of γέυεσις and the γεν of ⋯γ⋯ννησεν in Matt 1.1–17). It is possible, therefore, that Matthew would have us see, instead of a shared new creation motif, a subtle contrast between the interest in origins in Matt 1.1 and the focus on the end goal in 19.28 (cf. the likely contrast between γένεσις in 1.1 and συντελεία in 28.20).

¹³ Otherwise the strongest case for the presence of a new creation motif can be made in terms of a link between the dove in Matt 3.16 and the Spirit at creation, but even if there is a link, and this remains quite uncertain, a link in terms of eschatological new creation is not thereby established. There is nothing in the text to support a new creation view for the role of the Spirit in the birth of Jesus (Matt 1.18, 20). Matt 8.27 certainly links Jesus, by means of Old Testament echoes, with the authority of God over the forces of nature and therefore, indirectly, to God as creator, but this is not to introduce a new creation motif. Similarly, while it is true that Jewish tradition, beginning from Isa 43.16–20; 51.9–10; Ps 89.10, at times saw the Exodus in quasi-new-creation terms, this provides no basis for finding a new-creation motif in the Exodus typology which is undoubtedly to be found in Matthew.

¹⁴ Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R., A Greek-English Lexicon (rev. ed.; ed. Jones, H. S. and McKenzie, R.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1968)Google Scholar report the meaning ‘all created things’ in Plato, Idomeneus, and Philo. See below for a survey of the semantic range of γένεσις.

¹⁵ E.g. Deut 24.1, 3 of a bill of divorce; 3 Kgdms 20.8–9 [= ET 21.8–9] of a letter; 2 Esdras 17.5 [= Neh 7.5] of a register of genealogical family links.

¹⁶ Most such uses relate to material which has had an independent existence (often as part of another larger whole) prior to incorporation in the present text (e.g. Num 21.14; 3 Kgdms 8.53).

¹⁷ One could think in terms of a new creation that begins with Jesus (but this produces a difficult sense – ‘having its origin in’ – for the genitive of 'Iησο⋯ Xριστο⋯), but hardly of a reference to a creation of Jesus. One of the difficulties that has beset the discussion of the role of γένεσις in Matt 1.1 is the tendency to claim a sense for the word without working through the implications of this in terms of the construal of the syntax.

¹⁸ The chiastic relationship between vv. 1 and 17 suggests the possibility of taking Xριστο⋯ in v. 1 as also titular and translating, ‘Record of the origin of Jesus: Christ, son of David, son of Abraham’, but this forms no integral part of the present argument. If Matt 1.1 is at all under the influence of Mark 1.1 (which seems likely) then the functioning of the genitives there would seem to support my claim that the genitives in Matt 1.1 are best understood as functioning in some kind of parallel fashion. Since the relationship between Mark 1.1 and 8.29; 15.39 supports taking Xριστο⋯ as titular in Mark 1.1 (‘[The] beginning of the gospel of Jesus: Christ, Son of God.’), a link between Mark and Matthew here would provide further support for taking ‘Christ’ as titular in Matt 1.1.

¹⁹ Note especially the brief but well-chosen elements which evocatively take us beyond the merely genealogical: ‘and his brothers’ in v. 2; ‘and Zerah by Tamar’ in v. 3; ‘by Rahab’ and ‘by Ruth’ in v. 5; ‘the king’ and ‘by the wife of Uriah’ in v. 6; ‘and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon’ in v. 11; ‘after the deportation to Babylon’ in v. 12; ‘the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ’ in v. 16. The role of these elements in evoking salvation-history is the subject of another article, to be published separately.

²⁰ A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Based on the First, Second, and Third Editions of the Koehler-Baumgartner Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros) (ed. W. L. Holladay; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/Leiden: Brill, 1988) 387,Google Scholar offers the translation options ‘(line) of descent’, ‘generation’, ‘contemporaries’, ‘history’, ‘origin’, ‘order of birth’, of which I would dispute only ‘origin’. Nothing corresponds to this last in Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexicon zum Alten Testament (ed. L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, 3rd ed.; vol. 4 ed. J. J. Stamm et al.; Leiden: Brill, 1990) 1566–77.Google Scholar

²¹ There is no word corresponding to βίβλος in the Hebrew here. There is at 5.1, and this has clearly influenced the translator at 2.4 as well.

²² Despite the scholarly consensus it is certainly possible to read the Hebrew text as intending to refer to the preceding sections. On such a reading (which I am suggesting is the translator's reading) the only difference between the Hebrew and the Greek is that the Hebrew text invites the reader to review the preceding text once again from the beginning forward: a development from one generation/stage to another; while the Greek text invites the reader to review the text backwards: a trail through ancestors/stages to first origins.

²³ This fresh appraisal of the LXX usage of γένεσις enables us to resolve a difficulty encountered by Luz, U., Matthew 1–7. A Commentary (tr. Linss, W. C.; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989)Google Scholar. Luz acknowledges the allusion to Gen 2.4; 5.1 (p. 103), but notes that βίβλος γενέσεως 'Іησο⋯ Xριστο⋯ does not correspond with the language usage of the LXX (p. 104 n. 5). Our conclusion will be that Matthew's usage conforms closely to the LXX usage, and especially to that in Gen 2.4; 5.1.

²⁴ Though it is likely that the translator fixed his approach on the basis of 2.4 and 5.1 (and possibly 6.9), almost all of the subsequent uses of γένεσις give a satisfactory sense if taken as referring to what precedes (the cases which are at all difficult are likely to be no more than an oversight on the part of a translator, who having settled on γένεσις as a fixed translation equivalent for – only in Gen 25.13 does he depart from this translation, and this is the one case where carries a pronominal suffix – failed to notice that just occasionally the back reference which he is presupposing does not fit as well): for Gen 6.9 ‘the origin of Noah’ is well documented in 5.1–6.8; for 10.1 the ‘origins [plural from here on] of the sons of Noah’ involves the next stage of the story from 6.9–9.29 which takes their story through to a post-flood role, but does not yet introduce their children; in 10.32 the reference comes in a more complex form (‘these are the families [φυλσί] of the sons of Noah, according to their γενέσεις, according to their nations [ἕθνη]’), but we have just had genealogies for all three sons in 10.2–31; 11.10 is difficult, since for ‘the origins of Shem’ we have to reach back rather earlier than the immediately preceding text; in 11.27 ‘the origins of Terah’ have just been given to us in 11.10–26; in 25.12 and 19 ‘the origins of Ishmael’ and ‘the origins of Isaac’ respectively point back to the preceding narrative which brings the story up to the point where Isaac and Ishmael bury their father in the cave of Machpelah; in 36.1 the reference back is sustained similarly by the reference in 35.28 to the burial of their father by Esau and Jacob; 36.9, not very logically, repeats the language of verse 1 (but the translation is sustained by the repetition); 37.2 is the Jacob parallel to 36.1. (Гένεσις is used as well in 31.13 and 32.10 in the phrase ‘land of your γένεσις’ and in 40.20 ‘day of γένεσις’ means ‘birthday’, but different Hebrew terms are involved.) Outside Genesis, γένεσις (always in the plural, but with some textual variants) represents in twelve other places. Of these, only in Ruth 4.17(18) do we seem to have a mechanical use of γένεσις as a translation equivalent for in which a satisfactory natural sense seems impossible (it probably should still be construed – unlike the Hebrew – as referring to what precedes, rather than to what follows, but the reference has to be to descendants of Perez, not to ancestors; Num 3.1 might also be thought a little awkward, but the antecedent is probably understood to be the unnumbered Levites of 2.33 (perhaps in the wider setting of the numbered Israelites of the other tribes), and the sense moves in the direction of ‘the people out of whom one comes’). Apart from a string of uses in Num 1, three in 1 Chron 7, two in Exod 6 and Gen 25.13 mentioned above (all cases where carries a pronominal suffix, but some uses of with suffix become γένεσις), γένεσις is the constant LXX rendering of .

²⁵ If βίβλος γενέσεως in Matt 1.1 had meant ‘book of Genesis’ (but it has become clear above that it does not) then the reason for its use would be to imply that telling the story of Jesus is like providing a new Genesis account, that is, since creation is the origin to which Genesis traces things, that a new (eschatological) creation comes into being with Jesus. Only in the loosest possible sense could this be said to give γένεσις the meaning ‘creation’. The transfer of meaning involved in giving γένεσις the meaning ‘creation’ is of a kind that is linguistically possible, but there does not appear to be, in the literature, any serious attempt to offer evidence in favour of such a transfer having taken place in the case of γένεσις.

²⁶ The γεν which γένεσις shares with all the uses of ⋯γέννησεν bridges between the first use of γένεσις and the second. Cf. note 12.

²⁷ 1.18–25 offers an explanation of the rather puzzling manner of expression adopted in v. 16: the wide-angle-lens view of vv. 1–17 gives way to the close up camera work of w. 18ff., and Matthew's story is up and running. (It is this double role of vv. 18–23, as footnote to v. 16 and as the beginning of the consecutive story which carries on in 2.1, which lies behind the dispute over whether a major section break should be placed between vv. 17 and 18 or between 1.25 and 2.1.)

²⁸ Although Matthew seems to be aware of other text types than the Septuagintal (including the Masoretic), there is no real likelihood of an allusion to the Hebrew text of Gen 2.4 rather than the Greek, since (i) the Hebrew text lacks any equivalent to βίβλος and (ii) γένεσις would not suggest (not being a natural rendering) apart from the broader structuring and translation considerations which, it has been suggested above, produced the Septuagintal usage.

²⁹ If it were not for the unnaturalness of rendering as γένεσις (cf. note 28), an allusion to the Hebrew text could be claimed for the sake of retaining an Adam link.

³⁰ Even if Abraham is thought of as ‘the father of many nations’ (Gen 17.4–5), which is highly unlikely in the present context, it is still difficult to bring together the disparate starting points.