But this interpretation has not always dominated the
exegesis of Matt 23.35. In fact, the Church Fathers never considered it, nor
did anyone else apparently until the rise of modern biblical criticism. . . . Proponents
of the ‘canonical’ interpretation make two assumptions about the exegesis of
Matt 23.35 that were not always shared by earlier interpreters. First, they
identify the Zechariah mentioned by Jesus with the Zechariah murdered by King
Joash of Judah within the precincts of the Temple, as narrated in 2 Chron
23.20-22. Although this latter Zechariah has a different patronym (Jehoiada)
from the one the Matthean Jesus specifies (Barachiah), few scholars in the
modern period have considered this a serious deterrent to identifying the two. We
will see that in the patristic period this identification was much less
obvious, especially to the Greek Fathers. The second assumption made by
proponents of the ‘canonical’ interpretation is that the Hebrew Bible – or, at
least, a very prominent form of it – already in the days of Jesus had a
sequence concluding with Chronicles, just as is typical today. The Fathers were
unaware of a sequence of Old Testament books with Chronicles at the end. If
they did not relate Jesus’ mention of ‘Abel to Zechariah’ to the borders of the
canon, what significance did these two names carry for the Fathers? We will
first consider the identity of Zechariah in the history of interpretation
before turning to the explanations offered for why Jesus named these two
characters. (Edmon L. Gallagher, “The Blood from Zabel to Zechariah in the
History of Interpretation,” New Testament Studies 60, no. 1 [2014]: 123-24)
The Origins of the ‘Canonical’ Interpretation
It was, apparently, not until the rise of modern biblical
criticism that someone thought of relating the mention of Zechariah to the
concluding position of Chronicles within the Bible. In 1780, Johann Gottfried
Eichhorn published the first volume of his Einleitung in das Alte Testament,
wherein we find this statement:
... und wenn er [d.h. Christus] das erste und lezte [sic]
Beispiel vom unschuldigen Blutvergiesen [sic] aus der Geschichte des V. T.
anführen will, so wählt er das Beispiel Abels aus der Genesis, als dem ersten
Buch des V. T., und aus den Büchern der Chronik, als dem lezten [sic] unter
allen, das Beispiel Zacharias (Matth. XXIII. 35). (J. G. Eichhorn, Einleitung
in das Alte Testament, vol. 1 [Leipzig: Bey Weidmanns erben und Reich, 1780]
18. (RB: English: "... and if he [i.e., Christ] wants
to cite the first and last [sic] example of innocent bloodshed [sic] from the
history of the Old Testament, then he chooses the example of Abel from Genesis,
as the first book of the Old Testament, and from the books of Chronicles, as
the last [sic] among them all, the example of Zechariah (Matt. xxiii.
35).")
Eichhorn cites no previous authority for this
interpretation; he apparently devised it himself. (Edmon L. Gallagher, “The Blood
from Zabel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation,” New Testament Studies
60, no. 1 [2014]: 136)
We might ask why this interpretation found expression and met with such popularity at this particular time, at the end of the eighteenth century, whereas no one seems to have thought of it earlier. Surely the stability of the sequence of books in printed Hebrew Bibles made a contribution. As noted earlier, of the many patristic lists of Old Testament books, none transmits a sequence with Chronicles at the end. In fact, no certain evidence before the twelfth century locates Chronicles at the end of the canon except for the list preserved in b. B. Bathra 14b. Even the Masoretic manuscripts, which often conclude with Chronicles, do not maintain this sequence universally. However, when the first Hebrew Bibles came off the press in the fifteenth century, they featured Chronicles at the end, and this has been true for every major printed Hebrew Bible up to the present day, although, as already mentioned, BHQ will overturn this tradition. By the time Eichhorn published his Einleitung in das Alte Testament, the printing press had for three centuries established Chronicles as the definite conclusion to the Hebrew Bible. (Edmon L. Gallagher, “The Blood from Zabel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation,” New Testament Studies 60, no. 1 [2014]: 137-38)
To Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift
card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com Gift
Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
