Book excerpt: The Poetics of Matthew 1 is about seeing what has not previously been seen in the first chapter of Matthew by explaining key literary patterns. What is the reason for the five references to mothers in the Messiah’s genealogy? How can the genealogy be called Jesus’s lineage if it is not Jesus’s biological lineage? What kind of “genesis” is the Messiah’s kind of genesis in verse 18? Why is Joseph labeled as “righteous” in verse 19? Why does verse 22 say “This has all happened” seemingly before it has all happened? Questions such as these were not previously thought to have answers within the text. The Poetics of Matthew 1 employs an underestimated method of answering text-based questions with text-based answers.