on.The women in Matthew’s genealogy were: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth. Each of these women either had kept the covenant or had entered into the covenant by an act of faith. Their names remind us also that the covenant is a covenant of grace. They’re not moral saints but forgiven sinners (Balmer 171).Furthermore the angel made obvious reverence to the gracious act of the gift of a son to Sarah; this was not only to encourage Mary’s faith but to indicate that her child was to be the final fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham, that by him “all the families of the earth will be blessed”(Gen 12:3). Jesus is the culmination of all that God has been doing since the days of Abraham (Layman). Borg–Wright discussionN.T. Wright says: “One can be justified by faith with no knowledge of it.” “The God of the bible is not a normally absent God who sometimes intervenes. This God is always present and active, often surprisingly so.” Likewise if one believes that the bible is true, then the story of the birth is true (Wright).Wright’s argument develops in three stages: oWhat matters is the powerful, mysterious presence of the God of Israel, the creator God, bringing the story of creation to its height by new creation from the womb of the old.oThere is no pre-Christian Jewish tradition suggesting that the messiah would be born of a virgin. So why would Matthew and Luke invent the theory and take a risk of having many arguments.oIf the evangelist believed them to be true, when and by whom were they invented? Why two different but compatible stories were in circulationWhile Marcus Borg started by saying: “They are not history remembered but rather metaphorical narratives using ancient religious imagery to express central truths about Jesus’ significance. Borg was arguing by analyzing contradictions in the bible. His arguments were:1.In Matthews, Jesus’ origins came fro...
