Matthew 1
A genealogy from Abraham, counted in three sets of fourteen. Then Joseph hears in a dream and takes Mary as his wife.
Genesis (γένεσις, genesis) is kept rather than turned into “genealogy” — it is the same word as the title of the first book of the Greek Old Testament, and it comes back at verse 18. It shares its root with “fathered” (γεννάω) through the chapter, which English cannot show.
Why this rendering
Matt.1.1 Observation
Syntactic observation
The book's first two words are Βίβλος γενέσεως — a book of genesis. γένεσις is the Greek name of Genesis, and the Septuagint is reported to open genealogies with the same phrase at Genesis 2:4 and 5:1 — the Septuagint is not among this project's collated sources, so here we follow the lexica and commentaries. Matthew sets it at the head of his own book. The word returns at v.18 — Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ χριστοῦ ἡ γένεσις οὕτως ἦν, the γένεσις of Jesus Christ was thus. At v.1 it opens a genealogy; at v.18 it opens a birth; one word carries both. In the four Gospels γένεσις stands in only three places — here, v.18, and Luke 1:14, of John's birth, where SBLGNT marks a variant. Only Matthew sets it at the head of a book. The sentence has no verb — it is a title, not a statement. And two genitives υἱοῦ pile up: son of David, son of Abraham — in reverse chronological order, the king first and the ancestor after.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders γένεσις with one word in both places so they stay joined, and keeps it a verbless title.
Basis Specifies v.1 as a genealogy heading and completes the sentence.
Rejected Narrowed to genealogy, it parts from the same word at v.18 and takes a different rendering there, so the structure by which Matthew opens both descent and birth with one word disappears — and the echo of Genesis with it.
Lost in translation
That γένεσις is the name of Genesis rings at once only for a reader of the Greek Bible. Whatever rendering is chosen, that resonance moves to a footnote.
Fathered renders γεννάω (gennaō), which shares its root with genesis in verse 1. English can only spell the join out.
By Tamar — the first of four women named in a list of fathers.
The names are given as the Greek writes them, not as English Bibles usually spell them.
Rahab and Ruth — the second and third women, and both are from outside Israel.
The wife of Uriah — the fourth woman is named by her husband, not by her name.
Why this rendering
Matt.1.6 Observation
Syntactic observation
The genealogy repeats X fathered Y thirty-nine times, and breaks that rule four times to insert a woman — Tamar at v.3 (ἐκ τῆς Θαμάρ), Rahab and Ruth at v.5, and at v.6 the wife of Uriah (ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου). The first three are named; only the fourth is not. ἐκ τῆς τοῦ Οὐρίου is literally from the [woman] of Uriah — she is designated solely by whose wife she was, her husband's name standing where hers would. And the phrase immediately before is τὸν Δαυὶδ τὸν βασιλέα, David the king — the only title in the genealogy — so the title is followed at once by a man's name — who he was the text does not say; only the name stands. The last woman is Mary at v.16, where the verb of the chain turns from active to passive. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸀δὲ).
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders the designation the text uses. The absence of a name is the content of the place.
Basis Supplies who she was, by name.
Rejected The name is not in the text. Supplying it erases the contrast — three women named, one designated by her husband — and fills a place where the text leaves only a husband's name.
Lost in translation
A feminine article stands alone for the woman, followed only by the husband's genitive. English must supply the word wife to make a sentence, and so the blank in the text gets filled.
Asaph — the base text writes the name of the psalmist here, not the king Asa. This edition follows the base text.
Why this rendering
Matt.1.7 Observation
Syntactic observation
SBLGNT prints Ἀσάφ. But the king of Judah is Asa (Ἀσά); Asaph (Ἀσάφ) is, as the lexica record, the temple musician named in the psalm titles. The same happens at v.10 — SBLGNT prints Ἀμώς, where the king is Amon (Ἀμών) and Amos (Ἀμώς) is the prophet. Both places carry SBLGNT's ⸂⸃ marks, and Tischendorf prints the same forms. The Textus Receptus prints Ἀσά and Ἀμών, the kings' spellings. Of the twenty-nine versions compared, only ESV carries the base text's spellings through (Asaph, Amos); the other twenty-eight all print the kings' names. Among the Greek editions, Tischendorf prints Ἀσάφ and Ἀμώς with SBLGNT, the Textus Receptus Ἀσά and Ἀμών. By the direction of copying, a prophet's or musician's name standing in a list of kings is the harder reading, and correcting it to the king's name is the easy move for a copyist. This project follows the base text, so we render Asaph and Amos and record here that they differ from the kings' names. SBLGNT marks a variant in this verse (⸂Ἀσάφ,).
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders the spellings the base text prints, recording in the analysis that they diverge from the king list.
Basis Conforms to the Old Testament list of kings.
Rejected By our base-text decision we follow SBLGNT. And conforming is the direction the copyists already took; a translation repeating it keeps the divergence in the text from reaching the reader.
Three kings between Joram and Uzziah are not in the list; the text is left as it stands.
The list runs on without comment.
Amos — the base text writes the name of the prophet here, not the king Amon.
Deportation (μετοικεσία, metoikesia) is a change of dwelling — the word stands four times in this chapter and nowhere else in the four Gospels.
The second set of fourteen ends and the third begins on the same name.
From here the names are not known from the Old Testament.
The list runs on to its close.
Jacob — the name of verse 2 comes round again at the end.
Of whom was born — the Greek relative is feminine, so it points to Mary, not to Joseph, and the chain of “fathered” breaks here into a passive.
Fourteen three times — but the names counted come to forty-one, not forty-two. The text is left as it stands.
Why this rendering
Matt.1.17 Observation
Syntactic observation
The author counts his own list for us — fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. But count the list and it does not come out. ἐγέννησεν (active aorist) occurs 39 times; the chain from Abraham to Joseph holds 40 names, 41 with Jesus. Fourteen times three is 42. For each group to be fourteen, one man must be counted twice: ① Abraham…David, 14; ② Solomon…Jechoniah, 14; ③ Shealtiel…Jesus, 13 — putting Jechoniah into ③ as well makes it 14, but then he belongs to two groups. The text does not explain the arithmetic. And the verse's own word doubles the point: γενεά, generation, appears four times here, sharing its root with the γένεσις of v.1 and the ἐγέννησεν running from v.2 — the whole chapter stands on one root.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Renders the number the author wrote and records in the analysis that it does not match the list. The translation does not correct the arithmetic.
Basis Lets the reader reconcile the count.
Rejected Not the translation's task: Matthew wrote fourteen, so the translation says fourteen. Recording the discrepancy in the analysis is this project's way, so the reader can keep text and judgement apart.
Lost in translation
The title (γένεσις), the chain's verb (ἐγέννησεν) and the unit of counting (γενεά) are bound by one root. English scatters it — genesis, father, generation are three words from three places. Only the Greek binds all three at the root.
Genesis again, the word of verse 1 — the second beginning.
Righteous and not wanting to expose her are joined by “and”, so the second is not set against the first.
In a dream — the first of five dreams in these two chapters, and all of them come to Joseph or the magi.
Jesus is the Greek form of a name that means “the Lord saves”, and he will save is the sentence that explains it. The play is in Hebrew and does not carry into Greek — or into any of the nine locales of this edition.
So that it might be fulfilled — the first of ten such formulas in this book.
Virgin renders παρθένος (parthenos), the word the Greek Old Testament uses at Isaiah 7:14 for a Hebrew word that means a young woman. Immanuel is kept as sound and translated in the same line.
Why this rendering
Matt.1.23 Observation
Syntactic observation
ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον — the author translates a Semitic name. In the four Gospels μεθερμηνεύω occurs at Mark 5:41 (Talitha koum), 15:22 (Golgotha), 15:34 (Eloi), John 1:38 and 41, and here. Mark and Matthew use the same device, and Matthew hangs it on a name. Ἐμμανουήλ transliterates the Hebrew Immanu-El, with-us God, and the gloss Μεθ’ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός repeats those two pieces in Greek. Yet at v.21 the angel directed a different name — καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν, you shall call his name Jesus. The quotation at v.23 has καλέσουσιν, they shall call, and the name Joseph actually gives at v.25 is Jesus. Three namings are set down (Jesus, Immanuel, Jesus) and the text explains nothing between them. The article on ἡ παρθένος is worth noting too: the quotation says the virgin, not a virgin.
Rendering options · 2
Basis Keeps the transliteration and sets the gloss as running text, as already fixed for the four Gospels (John 1:38, 41; Mark 5:41).
Basis Renders the name by its meaning.
Rejected The double structure — a name kept and glossed by the author — disappears. It is the same structure as Mark's Korban, Talitha koum and Golgotha, handled one way across the four Gospels.
Lost in translation
The name directed, the name quoted and the name actually given are different, and the text says nothing about the relation. A translation can do nothing but set all three down.
Did as the angel had directed — Joseph never speaks in this book.
Did not know her until — the Greek says only what happened up to the birth, and no further.