Here are the questions and then follows my response.
How does the genealogy of Matthew serve his larger narrative purpose? How does this differ from the structure and purpose of Luke’s genealogy? Finally, how does the prologue to John’s gospel function in comparison to these genealogies?
First, I love these questions, because I believe that everything in the Bible is there for a purpose and can have some value in learning more about God,His character, and our relationship with Him. So the genealogies have a purpose, that much to me is clear. First, the genealogy of Matthew serves his purpose for a lot of reasons but I want to focus on one specific area. One of the themes or purposes I find in Matthew, and my NT Professor added to it, is that Matthew is trying to tell his readers that Jesus is a better or more righteous Israelite. Jesus is the true or better Moses and true or better King David. So Matthew wants to point is readers back to the beginning and show the line of connection between Jesus and Abraham, the first person in Israel history. Throughout the book Matthew is connection Jesus to the Old Testament by having Jesus fulfill prophecy or be connected to the Law. Matthew wants to tell his readers that Jesus is a true Jew and the only perfect Jew, so he connects Jesus to all of the Jews of old and even connects Jesus lineage to some of the Jews that have had some major sin struggle. I believe this is one way and one of the most important parts and reason why Matthew includes Jesus family tree back to Abraham.
One a side note I think it is important that Matthew shows some gentiles, especially women, in his family tree as one end of the book and then Matthew has the other end of the book be the great commission to all people including the gentiles. So even though one of the themes in Matthew is that Jesus is the true Israelite, He did not just come and die for the Jewish people but for all of mankind.
Matthew list of names and Luke's list of names are different because first each was writing to a different set of people. As explained earlier Matthew was writing to other Jews and wanted to connect Jesus to the Jewish faith in the beginning, where as Luke was writing to Theophilus and probably a Greek audience as a whole. This would make Luke desire to connect Jesus back much father and broader to a larger people group. Luke then connects Jesus back to Adam and shows that Jesus is a human being no different than Luke's readers.
Another reasons that Luke's genealogy is different than Matthew's is because he is writing with a different purpose. Luke wants to show that Jesus is a human being and has emotions, feelings, passions, and desire that are human and no different than Luke's readers. So Luke wants to connect Jesus back to Adam, the first human and show that Jesus is strait from the beginning.
A side note that I find interesting in Luke's structure is that Adam was the beginning of the human race and the beginning of sin, now Jesus has come and is a new start to a new beginning. To steal some of the words I used earlier describing Jesus as a better Israelite, Luke shows that Jesus is the better human or perfect man. Jesus is a better Adam that will be the one and only to come as the Christ and start a new line.
I think that both of these genealogies have some connection and yet major distinctions from the beginning of John's gospel. John wants to show Jesus relationship to someone just like Matthew back to Abraham and Luke back to Adam. I think John wants to take Jesus back to God, before Abraham and before Adam. That is the structure of his prologue. John wants to show the relationship of Jesus to God because it fits in with his purpose, Jesus is God in human flesh. Verses 1 and 2 of John's gospel is like a genealogy, he is just showing that Jesus goes way back before any human was around, and that is significant.
I think that each of the 3 writers had a purpose in their writing and the genealogies are each a great example of showing one of the truths that each of the writers wanted to get across to the reader. Each of them are connect in this fact that they show Jesus connect to others for a reason but each unique in the purpose and point of that connection.
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