Gallagher,
however, has shown that this interpretation depends on Chronicles standing last
in the HB manuscripts and that there is only one antecedent that supports that
place in HB manuscripts before the twelfth century, namely the second-century
CE baraita, the b. Baba Batra 14b text that has 2 Chronicles in
the last place in the HB. However, there is no evidence that this was the order
of the Jewish Scriptures in the first century and Gallagher contends that only
after the HB was published in print, and I might add in a codex,
was such a position possible. Codices L (Leningrad) and A (Aleppo), for
instance, have Chronicles on the first place in the Writings, not the
last. Gallagher concludes that “neither Jesus nor anyone else could assert the
same [order or sequence] until the late fifteenth century” after the printing
press was invented. He also draws attention to the lack of any church father
drawing from Matt 23:35 or Luke 11:51 that Jesus had in mind the scope of the
biblical canon. Jesus’ point rather was his focus on the heinous acts taken
against pious Jews in antiquity. (Gallagher, “Blood from Abel to Zechariah) . .
. No ancient discussion or interpretation of the identity of Zechariah in Luke
or Matthew is without its problems, but it is important that no church father
identified these two texts as references to the scope of the Jewish scriptures.
Also, this passage referred to all the prophets that were executed from the
time of Abel (who is not called a prophet in the HB/OT) to Zechariah, but identifying
him as an Old Testament figure would be strange had Jesus intended to say to
his current listeners that “this generation” was accountable for the death of
Zechariah when he had been executed hundreds of years earlier. . . . Since it
is unlikely that Mathew and Luke are referring to the Zechariah of 2 Chr 24,
what other possibilities are there? Although some have suggested that Zechariah
is a reference to the author of one of the latest books in the Minor Prophets,
no one before the eighth century CE concluded that and no one today makes that
suggestion. The first church father to suggest that Jesus referred to the
Zechariah of 2 Chr 24:20-22 was apparently Jerome in the late fourth century (Commentary
on Matthew 23.35), but he never draw from this that Jesus was describing
the boundaries of the OT canon. . . . Rather than Chronicles being the last
book in the Hebrew biblical canon, Freedman argues convincingly that Chronicles
stands in first place in the Writings, and he supports this with references to
the major medieval manuscripts, including the standard Masoretic Aleppo and
Leningrad Codices. Rather than Writings concluding with 1-2 Chronicles, he
contends that they end with Ezra-Nehemiah. (Freedman, “Symmetry of the Hebrew
Bible,” 95-96. The order of books in the Aleppo Codex is as follows: Genesis to
Judges [same as usual], 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the
Twelve [in the standard sequence], 1-2 Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth,
Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra. [Ezra includes Nehemiah.
Freedman does not mention Song of Songs]) Freedman adds that since 2 Chr
36:22-23 and Ezra 1:1-4 are almost identical, this suggests that the books were
separated spatially since, had they been consecutive, and that order remained
there, there would have been no need for the repetition. (Ibid., 96) By
contrast, the primary historical books (Former Prophets, are consecutive (i.e.,
Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings) and have no repetitive texts
connecting them. More importantly, Chronicles is in the last place only in the b.
Baba Batra text before the tenth-century classical Tiberian codices of the
Masoretic text of the HB (Codices Aleppo and Leningrad) that place Chronicles
last in the Ketubim. Although the Talmud places Chronicles in the first
place in the Ketubim, all Tanak Bibles in use today have Chronicles at
the end of the Ketubim more out of habit and based on Codices A and L. .
. . In conclusion, Luke 11:49-51 and Matt 23:34-35 do not reflect a fixed
biblical canon in the first century CE and that conclusion is no longer as
convincing as previously thought. The precise boundaries and contents of the
Jewish scriptures cannot be discerned in the first century CE from these two
texts. (Lee Martin McDonald, The Formation of the Biblical Canon, 2
vols. [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017], 1:287-88, 288, 290, 292-93)
