József, Jézus atyja és József, Jákób fia

Joseph, the father of Jesus, and Joseph, the son of Jacob. Observations on the Joseph figure in the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew (Mt) connects his texts with the Old Testament in various ways. Beyond the so-called reflexive quotations, Mt alludes to several Old Testament books and episodes with keywords, motifs, and compositional arrangement. This article investigates whether Mt uses a Joseph typology from Genesis in shaping his portrayal of Joseph, the father of Jesus. After a brief survey of the suggested links in this regard, the paper defines the concept of intertextuality at play here and evaluates the alleged parallels between the Joseph of Genesis and the Joseph of Mt. It seems that in the prelude, Mt presents his gospel as “the Book of the Genesis of Jesus Christ”, akin to a second Genesis. Matthew strategically selects a genealogy where Jesus’ father is depicted as the son of a man named Jacob, aiming to draw closer parallels between the Old and New Testament Josephs. Both Josephs communicate with God through dreams, both journey to Egypt for the survival of their kin, reside there with their families, give their children symbolic names, and in both cases, Joseph receives homage from travellers from distant lands. In the first three instances, we can likely speak of intentional usage of the Joseph typology, while Genesis might have had a much more indirect impact on the episodes of naming and homage, where these elements are incorporated more as general literary influences from Old Testament motifs. However, Joseph of Matthew also resembles the figure of Moses, who led Israel out of Egypt and delivered the Law of God. Mt’s intention with this compositional strategy is to allow readers to revisit the story of the escape from Egypt and liberation as a prelude to a grand narrative of salvation, one that not ends with the exodus but only starts with it.