Can anyone help with this? I am speaking to an ex-mormon who is Athiest. I am trying to help him. Thought I could answer his questions, but not on this one.
Regarding Hosea 11:1 and then Matthew 2:15
“Rich, you admit that the son called out of Egypt is Israel. That’s good! But you have offered nothing that explains Matthew’s claim that the son called out of Egypt is Jesus. After years of looking for an explanation from the Christian perspective, the only reasonable explanation for the discrepancy seems to be that Matthew was intentionally lying about what the scripture really means.
By the way, Matthew lies about other scriptures too – the Hosea one is not an isolated example – but let’s stick with the Hosea one for now.”
Anyone help here?
Look at how Matthew presents Jesus - not just there, but throughout that gospel.
Matthew has a variety of means to describe Jesus - as
- Israel
- Moses
- David
- Solomon
When Matthew uses that passage from Hosea to describe Jesus, what he is saying is that Jesus is, does, completes, what Hosea says in those passages: which
must be read in context.
The problem with many atheist objections to the Bible - including this one - is their lack of intelligence. They are Fundamentalist ideas, a Fundamentalism that seeks to destroy faith rather than to build it up - that doesn’t make them any less Fundamentalist.
Matthew is not lying - his point is far more subtle, & far more intelligent than the objection allows for
To understand what Matthew is saying, we need to ask why he says something that,
on the face of it, looks untrue. That means asking "
Why does Matthew relate this:
- Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
- Hsa 11:2 The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Ba’als, and burning incense to idols
to this ? What relation does he see between them?
- Mat 2:13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there till I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
- Mat 2:14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night, and departed to Egypt,
- Mat 2:15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”
- Israel is the son of God - so is Jesus.
- By establishing that Jesus is God’s son, Matthew prepares the reader for the public recognition of Jesus as son of God at His Baptism
- Verse 13 prepares for verse 15 - because what was intended to happen to Jesus, happened to the Israelite children: Herod is seen as a new Pharaoh
- Moses fled for his life - so here too, Jesus is saved by flight: an early hint that Jesus is a Moses-figure
- He is “God with” the oppressed - as in the OT; as in Exodus 3
Hosea 11.2 is not at first glance like Jesus at all
- but, Jesus fulfils that description, not only by being Israel personified, but also, by doing what Israel failed to do: Israel in the desert, & later, followed idols. Jesus, by contrast, was everything that Israel was not, that Israel failed to be & do: it is in
that sense that He “fulfils” what is said in that verse.
Fulfilment, as the word is used in the Greek, is a matter not just of matching event A to prophetic text B - fulfilment works in other ways too; such as completing what others (in this case, Israel as a people), failed to do.
So Jesus is far more rightly described as God’s son than the People of Israel was - He behaves as a son should, as well as having the status of a son.
Hope that helps.
