Could it be that Jesus in his statement blended the two Zacharias together?

[MarcoPG]

…as a midrash?

As you know, Matthew reads something like this

Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

There are many possible explanations of that problem, since Zacharias in 2Chronicles 20 wasn’t (explicitly) Barachiah’s son, and the Prophet Zacharias, whose book bares his name, says he is Barachiah’s son.

Could Jesus have blended the two voluntarily? It wouldn’t be so shocking, since Matthew apparently made this with the prophecy of the 30 coins too.

Thank you.

 

[patrick457]

…as a midrash?

As you know, Matthew reads something like this

Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

There are many possible explanations of that problem, since Zacharias in 2Chronicles 20 wasn’t (explicitly) Barachiah’s son, and the Prophet Zacharias, whose book bares his name, says he is Barachiah’s son.

Could Jesus have blended the two voluntarily? It wouldn’t be so shocking, since Matthew apparently made this with the prophecy of the 30 coins too.

Thank you.

Well, it’s possible. It may sound shocking to some of us - especially to those who adhere to a very literalist reading of the Bible - but that was how 1st century Jews read the Scriptures. (And hey, it was their books.) Nothing wrong about it - and hey, if Jesus also did it, how could you go wrong?

By the way, there’s also this instance from the beginning of Mark’s gospel where there’s this supposed quote “from the prophet Isaiah” but which in reality is a combination of Malachi and Isaiah. It wasn’t considered ‘wrong’ to combine different people or passages or to quote passages only loosely or to reword them in such a way so as to make them fit better into whatever you want them to fit into.

 

[Ignatius]

I don’t think there’s enough information to determine that. It would just be wild speculation.

 

[MarcoPG]

I don’t think there’s enough information to determine that. It would just be wild speculation.

I don’t expect a definitive answer, just if the possibily exists. And I think so. But to say they are the same person doesn’t match the text, so a blending could be.

 

[MarcoPG]

I don’t expect a definitive answer, just if the possibily exists. And I think so. But to say they are the same person doesn’t match the text, so a blending could be.

I found someone else making the same speculation:

According to Gundry there is strong language assimilation in Matthew’s Greek to the Septuagint text of Lamentations 4:13. Further, given Matthew’s notorious - but quite Jewish - use of the Old Testament in allusions and combinations it would not be inconceivable that Matthew may have intended to combine the two Zechariahs. Compressing their two lives into one he is able to strengthen the reference in Matthew 27:3-10 to Zechariah’s field of blood (Zechariah 11:12-13) and the concept of innocent blood.
(Gundry, Matthew, (USA: Eerdmans, 1994), pp.470-471)

(studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings/index.cgi?a=428)

Another opinion you can read here catholic-legate.com/qa/palestinianOT.html

 

[patrick457]

I found someone else making the same speculation:

According to Gundry there is strong language assimilation in Matthew’s Greek to the Septuagint text of Lamentations 4:13. Further, given Matthew’s notorious - but quite Jewish - use of the Old Testament in allusions and combinations it would not be inconceivable that Matthew may have intended to combine the two Zechariahs. Compressing their two lives into one he is able to strengthen the reference in Matthew 27:3-10 to Zechariah’s field of blood (Zechariah 11:12-13) and the concept of innocent blood.
(Gundry, Matthew, (USA: Eerdmans, 1994), pp.470-471)

(studylight.org/language-studies/difficult-sayings/index.cgi?a=428)

Another opinion you can read here catholic-legate.com/qa/palestinianOT.html

There are three Zechariahs in the OT: one is the prophet (Zechariah son of Berechiah son of Iddo) , the other the Zechariah mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24 (Zechariah son of Jehoiada), the third referenced briefly in Isaiah 8:2 (Zechariah son of Jeberechiah - “son of Barachias” in the Septuagint).

For the record, there’s this Targum (an Aramaic translation of a biblical book) of Lamentations, where you could also see a conflation of Zechariah the prophet and Zechariah the priest. Lamentations 2:20 asks the question: “Should priest and prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the LORD?” The Targum of Lamentations (Tg. Lam.) expands on - many Targumim are actually more like loose translations that expand on the original than word-for-word renderings - the Hebrew text (additions to the original text in italics):

The Attribute of Justice answered, and thus said: “Is it fitting to murder in the House of the Sanctuary of the Lord the priest and prophet, as you murdered Zechariah the son of Iddo, the high priest and faithful prophet, in the House of the Sanctuary of the Lord on the Day of Atonement, because he admonished you not to do that which was evil before the Lord?”

Admittedly this translation is much later than the time of Jesus (Tg. Lam. was probably composed somewhere during the late 5th century or a couple of centuries later), but you could also see the same form of interpretation at work: where two people sharing the same name are sometimes combined together.

Jewish thought sometimes linked the murder of Zechariah the priest and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians 252 years later: the temple was destroyed because Zechariah was unjustly murdered inside it. A late Jewish legend says that Zechariah’s blood continued to seethe in the temple until Nebuzaradan murdered young priests to appease it. A Jewish work preserved by Christians, The Lives of the Prophets (late 1st century, more closer to the time of Jesus and Matthew) doesn’t report this legend about the blood, but it does imply that Zechariah the priest’s death had an effect on the temple:

From that time on there were portentous appearances in the temple, and the priests could see no vision of angels of God, nor give forth oracles from the inner sanctuary; nor were they able to inquire with the ephod, nor to give answer to the people by Urim and Thummim, as in former time.

(The Lives of the Prophets originally didn’t combine the two Zechariahs, but in later versions, you also see the same conflation happening.)

 

[Mintaka]

There were also quite a few early Christians who believed that the story in Chronicles was a type of what happened to St. John the Baptist’s dad. There were even a few who thought the prophet Zechariah was St. John the Baptist’s dad (postulating a really late dating for the book and then a Biblically long life).

More simply, a Jewish male could be listed in genealogy or poetic kennings as the “son of” any of his male ancestors or adoptive ancestors. So if the Zechariahs were related (as they might well have been), any later Zechariah son of Kerflabberty Bob would also be son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, in sober fact.

That wouldn’t be conflation, but rather a use of the word “son” that we usually only see in surnames.

This used to be pretty common in Europe, too, and it comes into play in fantasies that follow the older European pattern. For example, in Lord of the Rings, I seem to recall Aragorn being called not just “Aragorn son of Arathorn” (his actual dad) but a “son of Elendil” and a “son of Isildur” (his very remote Numenorean ancestors). So if later on, King Aragorn XXIII could be called “son of Arathorn,” or “son of Elendil,” or “son of Isildur,” that would be perfectly normal and aboveboard. Conflation only tends to happen when people don’t understand the possibilities of certain definitions of “son.”

 

[abucs]

Maybe also similar to … son of Adam… from the Narnia Chronicles.

 

[patrick457]

Then the LORD said to me, “Take a large tablet wand write on it in common characters, ‘Belonging to Maher-shalal-hash-baz.’ And I will get reliable witnesses, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, to attest for me.”

I mentioned the “Zechariah son of (Je)berechiah” from Isaiah 8:2. Most ancient sources tended to combine this Zechariah with the later prophet (for reasons which we be more clear below). There’s another person mentioned with this Zechariah: “Uriah the priest.” Guess what? There’s also a Jewish line of thinking which conflates this Uriah with a later prophet of the same name (beheaded by king Jehoiakim) mentioned in Jeremiah 26:20-23.

There was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. And when King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death. But when Uriah heard of it, he was afraid and fled and escaped to Egypt. Then King Jehoiakim sent to Egypt certain men, Elnathan the son of Achbor and others with him, and they took Uriah from Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim, who struck him down with the sword and dumped his dead body into the burial place of the common people.

There is a legend about how rabbi Akiba (died ca. AD 137), accompanied by other Rabbis, went to Jerusalem - which had already been destroyed by the Romans. They saw a fox come out of the ruins of the Holy of Holies; the others were very sad, but Akiba expressed joy. When asked why he was happy, Akiba quoted Isaiah 8:2. Conflating the two personages mentioned there with the later two prophets, Akiba said that there was no connection between Zechariah (the prophet) and Uriah (the prophet) - since Uriah lived during the time of the first Temple while Zechariah lived during the time of the second - than to show that the words of Zechariah (the prophet) are conditioned by the words of Uriah (the prophet): for Zechariah (the prophet)'s scenario of the restoration of Jerusalem (Zechariah 8:4 “Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem”) to take place, Uriah (the prophet)'s prophecy of its destruction (cf. Jeremiah 26:18 / Micah 4:12 “Zion shall be plowed as a field”) must be fulfilled first.

Another Targum (the Targum Jonathan) also makes this conflation in the way it renders Isaiah 8:1-2:

And the Lord said unto me, "Take thee a great tablet, and write upon it a clear writing, ‘Hasten to seize the prey, and to take away the spoil.’ And call to witness before me as faithful witnesses, the curses, which I have threatened to bring by the prophecy of Uriah the priest, and behold, they have come. And also the consolations, which I promised to bring by the prophecy of Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah, I am about to bring.

The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi also combines these Uriahs and Zechariahs in his commentary on the passage.

And I will call to testify for Myself: also in those days, in the days of Jehoiakim, concerning that calamity, destined to befall them, two trustworthy witnesses, one to foretell for them the evil that was destined to come upon them, viz. Uriah the priest, whom Jehoiakim dispatched, as it is said (Jer. 26: 20): “And also a man was prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim, and he prophesied concerning this city and concerning this land, according to all the words of Jeremiah.”

and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah: who prophesied in the second year of Darius (Zech. 8:4): “Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem.” Uriah is a sign for Zechariah. If you see that Uriah’s prophecy is fulfilled, you can expect that Zechariah’s will likewise be fulfilled, just as I have called to testify concerning Sennacherib, Amos and Isaiah; Amos for the calamity of the ten tribes (Amos 7:11): “And Israel shall surely be exiled,” and Isaiah for his promise to Hezekiah (Isaiah 32, 33) [when he would reign].

 

[The_Serpent]

There is another explanation to be found in “The Wars of the Jews” written by the jewish Historian Josephus. In Chapter 5, section 4 the story of Zacharias, the son of Baruch is related. Briefly, he was a prominent citizen that opposed the zealots, and was against evil and for Liberty. False charges were brought against him that failed. Two zealots killed him in the middle of the Temple!

 

[MarcoPG]

Thank you to all of you.

Many of us surely know these possibilities. But I also have to point out the idea that Jesus is taking the two deaths of both ends of Scripture at the time (abel for Genesis, Zacharias of Chronicles) makes perfect sense and is quite appealing as for the symbolism for “all of them (killed)” from the beginning to the end.
The problem is, the two Zacharias didn’t live at the same time, therefore I can only think of a conflation.

 

[patrick457]

There is another explanation to be found in “The Wars of the Jews” written by the jewish Historian Josephus. In Chapter 5, section 4 the story of Zacharias, the son of Baruch is related. Briefly, he was a prominent citizen that opposed the zealots, and was against evil and for Liberty. False charges were brought against him that failed. Two zealots killed him in the middle of the Temple!

Problem though is that it happened in the 60s. So you’ll have to assume that either Jesus was predicting a future event (which doesn’t quite fit the context, since it seems to speak of a past event) or that Matthew retroactively inserted the event into Jesus’ mouth (which isn’t really an acceptable suggestion for more conservative Christians), assuming that Matthew was indeed written after the 70s. That’s why even a number of modern scholars don’t find that idea too credible.

 

[MarcoPG]

I would like to add this opinion that i found, which makes sense too (not just because it is my understanding of it ).

“Furthermore, given the rabbinic
tendency to merge two distinct persons, Matthew has likely conflated the
prophet Zechariah with the son of Jehoiada, as is done in Tg. Lam. 2.20: ‘Is it
right to kill priest and prophet in the Temple of YHWH, as you killed Zechariah
son of Iddo, the High Priest and faithful prophet, in the Temple of YHWH
on the Day of Atonement, because he reproached you, that you refrain from
evil before YHWH?’”

(Clay Alan Ham : The Coming King and the Rejected Shepherd: Matthew’s Reading of Zechariah’s Messianic Hope (New Testament Monographs 4) ,2005,192 p., p. 93)

Sorry if my bibliography writing does not match the standards