“And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.” — Matthew 1:25
The Textus Receptus says Mary bore her firstborn son. The critical text reads more briefly, “she bore a son.” Between those forms stand manuscripts that keep firstborn but lose her, or keep another part of the phrase. The variation looks like a full expression being worn down in stages.
The shorter form has strong early support. Luke 2:7 calls Jesus Mary’s firstborn son in almost the same words, so critics explain Matthew’s fuller text as harmonization from Luke. The sentence is complete without the phrase, and a scribe who remembered Christmas readings could easily supply it.
That is the best case against the received form. It should not be answered by pretending the early witnesses do not exist.
Yet agreement between infancy narratives is expected when both describe the same mother and child. Firstborn also carries legal and covenant meaning. The first male to open the womb was holy to the Lord, which Luke later develops in the presentation at the temple. Matthew need not narrate that rite to use the true title.
What “firstborn” means
The word does not, by itself, prove that Mary later bore other children. A firstborn is first in rank and birth even if no second child follows. Nor does the verse support perpetual virginity. Matthew’s “knew her not till” gives a natural limit to Joseph’s abstinence, and the Gospel later names Jesus’ brothers and sisters.
The textual decision should not be driven by either later debate. The full reading has broad transmission, meaningful place in the birth account, and intermediate forms that can be explained as partial loss. The shorter “a son” may also reflect a wish to avoid a phrase some readers thought raised questions about Mary’s later life, though motive cannot be proved.
Joseph does not name an abstract child. He receives Mary’s firstborn, the promised son, and calls him Jesus as the angel commanded. The received words give that moment its full familial and covenant form.
In Israel, firstborn was not merely a prediction that more children would follow. It marked the child who opened the womb and stood under a stated claim of the Lord. Luke makes that legal setting explicit when Joseph and Mary present Jesus. Matthew can use the title without repeating the ceremony, just as one Evangelist may state a fact another develops.
The intermediate readings deserve more weight than a two-column chart gives them. When some copies retain firstborn but omit her, while others lose a different part of the phrase, the evidence may preserve stages of erosion. A single late expansion normally enters as a stable unit; a phrase transmitted in broken combinations can point to an older whole from which pieces fell.
That pattern does not settle the verse by itself. It joins the full reading’s broad reception, legal fitness, and natural agreement with Luke. The shorter witnesses remain important, but “harmonization” is not the only direction in which a parallel can work. Familiar words can be supplied from another Gospel, and familiar words can be omitted because a copyist thinks he already knows the sentence.
Further reading
- Exodus 13:1–2; Matthew 1:18–25; 13:55–56; Luke 2:7, 22–24.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, note on Matthew 1:25.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.