She is the woman whose adulterous affair with King David led not only to her pregnancy, but also to the calculated murder of her husband, Uriah, while he served in King David’s army. The line that produced Jesus, Matthew was saying, flowed through the adultery of Bathsheba. Does it not strike you as strange that Matthew, who was the first to relate the narrative of the virgin birth, chose to introduce that narrative by suggesting that incest, prostitution, seduction and adultery are all in the line that produced Jesus? Is this not an unusual way to defend one’s founder against the charge of
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