Why are the women in Matthew's genealogy included?

There are ongoing disagreements about why Matthew refers to Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in Matthew 1:3-6. It's sometimes suggested that they're included because of the theme of God's acceptance of Gentiles. That theme is prominent in early Christianity, including in the gospel of Matthew, as the magi in chapter 2 illustrate. But Bathsheba apparently was Jewish. She lived in Isarael. In 2 Samuel 11:3, her father is referred to as Eliam, with no further qualifier, whereas the same verse qualifies Uriah as "the Hittite". See, also, 2 Samuel 23:34. If Ahithophel was the grandfather of Bathsheba, which would be further evidence of her Jewishness, that would help explain why Ahithophel betrayed David (because of what David did to Bathsheba). Matthew 1:16 includes Mary, who was Jewish, in a way similar to how the other women are included earlier. Furthermore, when Bathsheba is referred to in verse 6, she's identified as the wife of Uriah, not "the wife of a Hittite", "the wife of Uriah the Hittite", or some other such thing. And she's referred to as Uriah's wife in a context about giving birth to Solomon after marrying David. She wasn't Uriah's wife at the time, yet Matthew chose to mention that she had been Uriah's wife. The focus seems to be on the adulterous origins of her relationship with David, not any connection to Gentiles. Matthew probably didn't think Ruth was guilty of sexual sin, and he didn't think Mary was, so he didn't think the women had sexual sin in common. Even the women who were sexually immoral were so in significantly different ways. For example, Rahab's background as a prostitute is substantially different than conceiving the child mentioned in the genealogy by means of sexual immorality. It also seems unlikely that the women were all thought to have had a low social status independent of issues like sexual immorality (being born into a disreputable family, being of low economic status, etc.). As explained above, Matthew highlight's Bathsheba's involvement in adultery, which is distinct from the sort of social status issues I just referred to. What's the common thread with these women, then?

I suspect what Matthew had in mind was that all of the women, the first four mentioned and Mary, were in some way beneath what was thought appropriate for somebody in the Messianic line. The women had different problems, but they were all problematic in some way. The existence of other women with problematic characteristics provided precedent for Mary's inclusion.

And there could easily be more than one problem with Mary. At least some of the Old Testament women referred to are likely to have been considered beneath the dignity of the Messianic line in multiple ways, such as Tamar's being a Gentile and being sexually immoral.

It's likely that people were objecting to Mary's inclusion in the Messianic line for more than one reason. She was of a low social status (e.g., Luke 2:24), she was from a disreputable town (John 1:46), her pregnancy was premarital, and there were allegations of sexual immorality on her part. Matthew may have only been responding to one of those problems with Mary, but I suspect he was responding to more than one.

What should we make of the possibility that the critics Matthew was responding to were only addressing later aspects of Mary's life, things they had more evidence for, like her low social status and association with Nazareth in her later years? It makes more sense to think that the interest in such things would go back to matters involved in Jesus' childhood, earlier in Mary's life, not just Jesus' adulthood. Childhood, like adulthood, is part of life, people are typically interested in childhood issues (a person's birthplace, what family he was part of, how he was educated in his youth, etc.), and the Old Testament discusses some aspects of the Messiah's childhood. The widespread interest we see in Jesus' childhood among non-Christians in other first-century contexts and among the second-century sources and beyond makes the most sense if there was a significant amount of interest in the context Matthew was addressing as well. He's placing his response to the objections under consideration in a genealogy, a context involving Jesus' childhood, with the context that follows the genealogy being about other childhood issues. A genealogy involves birth, and three of the four Old Testament women mentioned by Matthew were well known for being involved in sexual immorality. So, not only the genealogical setting, but also the nature of the women he highlighted make more sense if earlier aspects of Mary's life, including issues pertaining to Jesus' childhood, are being included. Mary is present in the genealogy because of the birth of Jesus, not just later events in his life. And Matthew's interest in responding to the objections under consideration and the extent he goes to in responding to them (departing from genealogical norms and adding the names of women and other additional content in a few different places in the genealogy) make more sense if he was addressing a higher rather than lower quantity and quality of objections.

Regarding Mary's association with Nazareth, see my post about Matthew 2:23 here. For a discussion of more of the evidence for the bad reputation of Nazareth and Galilee more broadly, go here. I'll return to the subject later in this post.

The premarital timing of the pregnancy goes against the traditional Jewish view that pregnancy is to occur within marriage, a tradition that continued in Christianity, and opens the door to the charge that the claim of a virgin birth was fabricated to cover for premarital sex. Matthew didn't think Mary was sexually immoral, but he knew that the pregnancy was premarital and, therefore, problematic.

It's unlikely that he included the other women with Mary in the genealogy to suggest that even if Mary had been immoral, that would be a problem God could overcome. That would be a weak response to the sexual immorality accusation, since the ability of God to work through such a significant problem wouldn't change the fact that it's such a significant problem in other ways. Under a scenario in which Mary was sexually immoral, she wouldn't have had the sort of mitigating factors involved in her situation that the other women had. The precedence of less significant problems among the four Old Testament women wouldn't do a lot to address the more significant problem of having the Messiah conceived under such bad circumstances. Not only did the other women have mitigating factors involved that Mary wouldn't have had if she'd been sexually immoral, but there would be higher expectations for her, since she was supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, not just a more distant relative. It's more likely that Matthew is addressing, among other problems with Mary, the allegation of sexual immorality, not the truthfulness of the allegation. There probably was a sentiment going around to the effect that somebody who was supposed to be the mother of the Messiah should be above reproach, that she shouldn't have the sort of cloud of suspicion hanging over her that Mary had. She shouldn't even be suspected of sexual immorality. But Mary was suspected of it. Matthew is addressing that fact rather than responding to what we should make of the allegation if it were true.

But what if nobody had raised these objections to Mary? What if Matthew was just anticipating one or more potential future objections? It's very likely that the objections he had in mind were already circulating. As my material on Matthew 2:23 linked above discusses, Matthew seems to have been interacting with objections that were already circulating when he composed that passage. And the objections are widespread elsewhere in the New Testament and in other early Christian and non-Christian sources. Or think of the discussion of the empty tomb in Matthew 28:11-15. There had been many years of back-and-forth between Christians and their Jewish critics leading up to the time when Matthew's gospel was published. Most likely, the inclusion of the women in the genealogy is doing the same kind of thing we see in 2:23 and 28:11-15. And in principle, apart from passages like the ones just mentioned, it's likely that people would have easily noticed the problematic nature of Mary's social status, her associations with Nazareth and Galilee, the timing of her pregnancy, and the potential that she had been sexually immoral. The idea that people would have needed decades or longer to recognize such things is absurd. They would have been recognized easily, early, and widely. As I've argued elsewhere, like here, here, and here, the objections I'm suggesting Matthew was addressing in his genealogy seem to be present in Mark 6:3, Epictetus, Celsus, and many other sources in the earliest generations of Christianity. A widespread recognition and discussion of those problems during the time leading up to the publication of the gospel of Matthew makes more sense of how widespread the objections are in other sources contemporary with Matthew and shortly after his time.

Most likely, what Matthew is doing with the women in the genealogy is similar to what he's doing with Jesus in 2:23. The same objection to being associated with Nazareth that was raised against Jesus would have been raised against his mother as well. In both contexts, Matthew appeals to the Old Testament to justify what's being objected to. He's likely addressing more than just the Nazareth objection to Mary, but that objection is part of what he's responding to. What he does in 2:23 offers partial corroboration of what I'm arguing he was doing in chapter 1.

Similarly, what's said of Jesus in other places has a secondary application to Mary. The derogatory "son of Mary" in Mark 6:3 is primarily about the son, but also involves Mary. The dismissive "carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55) has implications for being the wife of a carpenter. Both involve a low social status. Referring negatively to Christians in general as "the sect of the Nazarenes" (Acts 24:5) applies to Mary, both as a Christian and to a higher degree as somebody who lived part of her life in Nazareth and lived there with Jesus. Just as there was reason to defend Jesus against such criticisms, there would have been reason to defend Mary in a context like the genealogy of Matthew 1.

What Matthew does with the women in his genealogy illustrates that the early Christians weren't just writing on a blank slate and making up whatever stories they wanted to make up to further their movement. It illustrates how self-critical the early Christians were and how aware they were of how others perceived them and the value of interacting with those perceptions. It illustrates how opponents of Christianity, including Jewish ones operating in the area where Christianity originated, were observing the movement and interacting with it early on. Issues like the premarital timing of Mary's pregnancy and whether Mary was immoral in the context surrounding Jesus' conception, which are likely to be among the issues Matthew was addressing in response to these critics, are matters that go back to the earliest days of Jesus' life. The early concern about such issues, on the part of both Christians and non-Christians, opens the door wider to the preservation of historically reliable information about Jesus' childhood.