Matthew had experienced a “God presence” in Jesus of Nazareth. He was convinced that Jesus’ origins were of God and were therefore holy. He knew, as a scribe, that the text he used from Isaiah, and on the basis of which he had asserted the holiness of Jesus, was a weak one that really did not support his contention. So he introduced in this very creative way the story of Jesus’ virgin birth, a narrative which he knew had nothing to do with biology. He prefaced it with a genealogical chart of Jesus’ ancestors. He obviously also knew that this genealogy was not literal history. When the two are
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