Why did Christ's ancestry matter to the first Jewish readers of Matthew's gospel?

Answer 1

Christ's ancestry mattered to the first Jewish readers of Matthew's gospel because it established Jesus' lineage as fulfilling the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, particularly those related to the line of David. By tracing Jesus' genealogy back to Abraham and David, Matthew was emphasizing Jesus' rightful claim to the title of Messiah. This genealogy also served to authenticate Jesus' Jewish identity and solidify his connection to the covenant promises made to the Jewish people.

Answer 2

The author of Matthew's Gospel sought, in two different ways in his genealogy of Jesus, to prove that Jesus was destined for greatness. The first way was to demonstrate that Jesus was descended from the great Zorobabel, son of Salathiel, and also from King David. The second was to use numerology to show that great people and momentous events occurred every fourteen generations in Jewish history, and that Jesus was fourteen generations removed from Josiah and was also was destined to be great.

The author demonstrated that there were 14 generations: from Abraham to David; from David to Josiah; from Josiah to Jesus. To do this, he had to ignore 3 kings in the Old Testament and have David in the preceding (as 14) and following (as 1) groups, but not so Josiah. Then, we have no possible way of verifying Matthew'slist of Jesus' ancestors from the time of the Exile.

The author of Luke's Gospel, knowing nothing of Matthew, also wrote a genealogy for Jesus, but placed completely different people in the same ancestry. Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says that while Luke's list is less classically monarchical than Matthew's, there is little likelihood that either is strictly historical. Nevertheless, the readers were no doubt impressed by the evidence that either of them purported to provide.