Matthew

Chapters

1. 1
2. 2
3. 3
4. 4
5. 5
6. 6
7. 7
8. 8
9. 9
10. 10
11. 11
12. 12
13. 13
14. 14
15. 15
16. 16
17. 17
18. 18
19. 19
20. 20
21. 21
22. 22
23. 23
24. 24
25. 25
26. 26
27. 27
28. 28

In the maps

• Matthew 1:1

  The New Testament opens by calling Jesus 'the son of David.' Pitre begins the queen-mother chapter here (pp 66–67, 74): the gospel is the arrival of a kingdom, and Jesus is not only a new Adam and a new Moses but a new David. If he is the Davidic king, then the Davidic kingdom's queen — the king's mother — must be found too.

• Matthew 1:16

  Matthew's genealogy of the kings of Judah ends by naming Mary. Pitre answers the objection that women were not normally listed in genealogies (pp 74–75): in the books of Kings one woman is always named when a king comes to the throne — his mother, the queen mother. Mary's name at the end of the royal line is queen-mother language, and as the legal wife of Joseph 'son of David' and the mother of Immanuel she holds the office.

• Matthew 1:19

  Joseph is 'a just man,' one who keeps the Law. Pitre uses this to close his Numbers 30 argument (p 100): the Law says a husband who breaks a vow he had accepted 'shall bear her iniquity' (30:15), so a righteous Joseph who had accepted Mary's vow of abstinence was bound to honour it. His silence is consent, and his abstinence is obedience.

• Matthew 1:23

  Matthew declares that the virgin's child is Emmanuel, 'God with us.' Pitre's argument for calling Mary 'Mother of God' runs straight through this verse: if her son is God-with-us, she is the mother of God-with-us. The title protects the identity of Jesus, and honouring Mary because of it is not worship — Epiphanius condemned those who worshiped her while insisting she be honoured.

• Matthew 1:25

  Joseph and Mary abstain from relations throughout the pregnancy. Pitre's third evidence for a vow of virginity is this abstinence even on the wedding night, unusual for a newly married couple unless a prior resolution was in place. He also answers the standard objection: 'until' in biblical Greek and Hebrew does not imply a change afterward, and 'firstborn' is a legal status that does not require later siblings.

• Matthew 2:16

  Herod slaughters the male children of Bethlehem, and Matthew immediately quotes Jeremiah's Rachel weeping for her children (v. 18). Pitre asks why Matthew places Rachel's lament here: because Rachel's tomb stands at Bethlehem and because Mary, the mother from Bethlehem, now takes up Rachel's role of weeping for and interceding for her children.

• Matthew 2:18

  Matthew applies Jeremiah's picture of Rachel weeping for her children to the massacre at Bethlehem. Pitre reads this as the New Testament's cue for the New Rachel typology: the beloved mother of sorrows tied to Bethlehem is now Mary, whose weeping for her children, like Rachel's, is answered by God with hope (Jeremiah 31:16–17).

• Matthew 3:17

  At the baptism the Father names Jesus his beloved Son. Pitre's chart begins with this parallel (p 140): Joseph, the beloved son of his father, is hated and betrayed by his brothers; Jesus, the beloved Son of God, is betrayed by one of his own. The beloved son is also the son of the beloved wife — Rachel, and the New Rachel.

• Matthew 13:55

  The people of Nazareth name Jesus' 'brethren' and 'sisters.' Pitre lists this verse in the Introduction among the texts that seem flatly to contradict Mary's perpetual virginity (p 13) and answers it in chapter 5: James and Joses have a different mother, 'the other Mary' (Matthew 27:56, 61), and Semitic 'brother' covers cousins. The objection is stated here so the reader knows exactly what must be explained.

• Matthew 19:12

  Jesus praises those who make themselves 'eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven,' commending lifelong celibacy for God. Pitre uses this to rebut the claim that a first-century Jewish woman would never have vowed virginity: consecrated celibacy was known in Mary's world (the Essenes, the prophetess Anna) and endorsed by her own Son. Her vow fits her Judaism rather than contradicting it.

• Matthew 22:44

  Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1: sit at my right hand 'until' I put your enemies under your feet. Pitre offers this as one of three parallels showing that 'until' in biblical language marks a period of time without implying a change afterward (p 101). So Matthew 1:25 — Joseph 'knew her not until' the birth — says nothing about what happened later, a point Protestant and Catholic scholars alike accept.

• Matthew 26:15

  Judas sells Jesus to the chief priests for thirty pieces of silver. Pitre sets this beside Joseph, sold for twenty pieces of silver by his brothers on Judah's suggestion: the beloved son betrayed and sold by his own. If Jesus is the new Joseph, then Mary, the mother of the betrayed son, is the New Rachel.

• Matthew 27:56

  Among the women at the cross Matthew names 'Mary the mother of James and Joses,' and in 27:61 and 28:1 he calls her simply 'the other Mary.' Pitre's lead argument on the 'brothers of Jesus' rests here: James and Joses have a mother who is not the mother of Jesus, and Matthew distinguishes her from Jesus' mother by name. The 'brothers' are therefore kinsmen, not sons of the Virgin.

• Matthew 27:61

  Matthew calls the woman he had just named 'the mother of James and Joses' simply 'the other Mary.' Pitre's lead argument on the brothers of Jesus rests on this identification (pp 105–106): the mother of the first two 'brothers' is a Mary who is not the mother of Jesus, alive at the tomb on Easter morning. She cannot be a dead first wife of Joseph, and her sons are Jesus' kinsmen.

• Matthew 27:66

  The tomb is sealed and guarded, and on Easter morning the stone is still in place when the angel arrives (28:2). Pitre draws on Ephrem, who saw the sealed tomb as a witness to the sealed womb (p 137): Jesus passed out of the closed tomb as he came out of the virginal womb. The resurrection is a kind of birth, and the virgin birth a sign of the resurrection.

• Matthew 28:2

  The angel rolls back the stone only after the women arrive, so the tomb was still sealed when Jesus rose; the stone is moved to let witnesses in, not to let him out. Pitre draws on Ephrem the Syrian, who saw the sealed tomb as a witness to the sealed womb: as Jesus rose from a closed tomb, he was born from a virginal womb. The virgin birth and the resurrection are two signs of the same power.

• Matthew 28:20

  Jesus promises to be with his disciples 'until the end of the age.' No one concludes he abandons them after that. Pitre uses the verse with Matthew 22:44 and 2 Samuel 6:23 to show what 'until' does and does not mean (p 101), and so to disarm the reading of Matthew 1:25 that has Joseph and Mary beginning marital relations after Jesus' birth.