Faith from the Beginning (Matt 1:18-24)

Reading the Advent & Christmas Stories (with a Bible Scholar)

I’m kicking off a series for Advent, walking briefly through the Advent and Christmas stories of Matthew and Luke, helping everyday readers “see” in these texts what Bible scholars (like me) notice. The goal is not to upend the precious stories we grew up with, but rather to enhance and nuance them.

Matthew 1:18-24

Matt. 1:18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.

Matt. 1:20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. ²¹ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Matt. 1:22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:

Matt. 1:23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child!

She will give birth to a son,

and they will call him Immanuel,

which means ‘God is with us.’”

Matt. 1:24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus. (NLT)

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Faith from the Beginning

Matthew’s genealogy (Matt 1:1-17) hinted at an unexpected heritage of the great royal Messiah. There were men and women in his past of, shall we say, questionable sexual purity and character. As Matthew turns to the special pregnancy of Mary, again there are questions about how this happened; was Mary unfaithful to Joseph?

Did you know that the 2nd century AD critic of Christianity, Celsus, repeats a rumor that Mary (the mother of Jesus) cheated on Joseph with a Roman soldier by the name of Panthera? Celsus argues:

It was Jesus himself who fabricated the story that he had been born of a virgin. In fact, however, his mother was a poor country woman who earned her living by spinning. She had been driven out by her carpenter-husband when she was convicted of adultery with a soldier named Panthera. She then wandered about and secretly gave birth to Jesus. (Origen, Against Celsus 1.28, 32, 69)

Celsus was probably not the first person to make this claim, but he is our earliest source. It comes up again and again later on, especially in Jewish literature where Jesus is sometimes referred to as “the son of Panthera” (Jeshu ben Pantera). The most common theory for how this legend developed is confusion over Mary being a virgin who became pregnant. The word virgin in Greek is parthenos, which could have been mistaken for the popular Roman soldier name panthera. The innocent virgin and devoted wife gets twisted into the conniving adulteress.

Why would God allow Mary to be subject to rumors of infidelity? Why would God send an angel to appear privately to Mary and Joseph (and some shepherds), rather than make some blanket announcement to the world to clear up any confusion? The only answer that makes sense to me is a call to faith. From the start, Joseph and Mary had to trust God alone, and cling to God when nosy neighbors dropped by or gossip was spread in hushed tones and whispers. Sadly, Mary would have to live with the rumors her whole life (and they carried on far beyond her death). But in the moment, Joseph did the right thing: he obeyed the angel and stuck by his woman.

The miracle of the Incarnation is a quiet one, and God called upon a humble couple to participate in this divine gift of salvation by obeying Him rather than letting fear and uncertainty prevail.

Advent is a good time for us to reflect, not just on the first coming of Jesus, but also his second coming, and meditate on the question Jesus asks in Luke 18:8: “when the Son of Man comes, will be find faith on earth?” (NIV)—the same bold faith of Mary and Joseph?

**If you want to learn about the Pantera myth, look at the relevant sections of Raymond Brown’s Birth of the Messiah; for a quick read, James Tabor covers the history of the ancient discussion in a blog post (I don’t necessarily agree with everything Tabor says btw, but he cites the sources).