…and where be all [God’s] miracles which our fathers told us of….?

//I’m not very good at believing in miracles. Oh, I don’t mean the run-of-the-mill “I found a new apartment on the day I got kicked out of the old one” variety. I mean real, fire-from-heaven, rising-from-the-dead stuff. And the biggest reason I, like many others, struggle to believe, is that we don’t see any of this stuff happening today.

1. Moses

2. Elijah and Elisha

3. Jesus and the apostles

Why does God intervene with miracles during these three periods, and then suppress his divine power the rest of the time? Why does he disappear for hundreds, even thousands, of years at a time? Might it be that these are the three periods in history when God was confirming a new truth or revelation—the only three times God found it necessary to really stick his finger in our business and swirl it around a little?

★★★★★

I happened to stumble on this review of my first book on Goodreads. I guess this is the power of electronic publishing … it reached all the way to Africa!

And speaking of Goodreads, a group of us will be discussing this book in a forum shortly. I’d love to have a few more participants! If you’d like to join, check it out at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1536601, and if you need a cheap paper or free electronic copy of the book to share in the discussion, contact me at lharmon@thewayithappened.com

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My wife leant me her Kindle to read “Revelation – the way it happened” as I have long had an interest in comparative religion.

I found this story to have an interesting premise and to be intellectually challenging, pressing me to think out of the box with the way the well-researched scholarly material was mixed with telling a story. It did take me some time to get used to the modern voices of the main characters. However, as I am used to legal texts and non-fiction reading material about the different religions & their texts, this may not bother another reader.

While an index might have helped, reading this book was an engaging experience and I recommend “Revelation – the way it happened” to any reader who wants a different perspective on one of the most complex books in the Christian Bible.

Dr Beric Croome
Advocate of the High Court of South Africa
BCom. BProc. LLB. CTA.
Higher Diploma in Tax Law (cum laude).
PhD.
CA(SA). FCMA(UK). MTP(SA). TEP(UK).

//We’re still discussing which Zechariah Jesus was referring to when he mentioned a man killed between the altar and the temple. Four Zechariahs each seem to fit a little. Here are the four we’re considering, stepping backward in time:

Post 1: A man killed in the Zealot uprising of 66-70 AD.

Post 2: The father of John the Baptist.

Post 3: The prophet Zechariah, of the Bible book of Zechariah

Post 4 (today): A priest from the 8th century BC.

Let me give you the words of Jesus from Matthew one more time:

Today’s verse, about Zechariah #4, seems to describe just such an incident. An Aramaic commentary on the Book of Lamentations (called the Targum Lamentations) also mentions a murder in the temple, of a high priest named Zechariah son of Iddo. This murder occurred on the Day of Atonement … the one day of the year that a man would be precisely where Jesus indicates: between the altar and the holy of holies. (We’re assuming Jesus means the alter of incense, not the big altar of sacrifice).

Recall that Zechariah #3 had a grandfather named Iddo (see yesterday’s post), so it’s possible the Targum is confused between the two. Lamentations was written before Zechariah  #3 came on the scene, so it would be a bit odd that a commentary about Lamentations would mention Zechariah #3.

The event described in today’s verse happened in the first temple period. That’s long before Jesus, making it strange that he would refer to this incident, and where Zechariah #4 died in “the court of the house of the Lord” doesn’t quite match “between the temple and the altar,” and Zechariah #4 isn’t killed by priests as Jesus insinuates (for one thing, only a priest was allowed “between the temple and the altar”) but by officials of Judah who wanted to worship pagan deities. But there is one good reason for imagining that #4 is the right Zechariah. It’s that in the Hebrew Bible, Chronicles was the last book of the Old Testament. Thus, when Jesus says “from Abel to Zechariah,” he is saying “from the first book of the Bible to the last.”

The biggest problem with this conjecture, of course, is that Zechariah in #4 is the son of Jehoiada, whereas Matthew writes that he is the son of Berechiah. Oops! Well, it may have been a simple error on Jesus’ or Matthew’s part. Or on the part of a later copyist: some evidence exists that the verse may have originally not specified any “son of”, but merely said “Zechariah.” (The Codex Sinaiticus from the 4th century, considered the oldest complete Bible in existence, does not contain the phrase “son of Berechiah.”)

In the end, the majority of Bible scholars tend to lean toward Zechariah #4. My own opinion? It’s that all four are equally correct. Bible writers and copyists, as discussed in my books about John’s Gospel and Revelation, sometimes tended to see truth as cyclical, happening over and over. Thus, they saw each individual Zechariah’s story as a contribution to the whole.

//In trying to decide which Zechariah was murdered in the Temple, we now reach back to a very well-known figure: the prophet Zechariah, as identified with the Bible book of Zechariah. He is said to be the son of Berechiah, matching what Jesus said in Matthew 23:35:

That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 

Thus, on the surface this Zechariah seems to be the most logical candidate. While Zechariah was a popular name in Jewish culture, this Zechariah was by far the most well-known. But we know absolutely nothing about how he died.

Was Jesus (and presumably his listeners) privy to writings or stories that we do not have today? Might there have been a popular understanding that Zechariah the prophet did indeed die just this way? We just don’t know.

We’ll cover one last possibility tomorrow.

//Yesterday, I quoted a verse in Matthew in which Jesus speaks of a murder in the Temple. Here it is again:

That on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. –Matthew 23:35

So who is this mysterious Zechariah? One possibility, discussed yesterday, is that this Zacharias/Zechariah was a man who died in the war of 66-70 AD. Today’s verse provides another Zechariah: the father of John the Baptist.

This makes a lot of sense, as this Zechariah lived in Jesus’ time. It thus makes sense for Jesus to say “from Abel to Zechariah.” We have no Biblical record of how John’s father died, but we do have this story in the Infancy Gospel of James:

And Herod searched for John, and sent officers to Zacharias, saying: Where has thou hid thy son? And he, answering, said to them: I am the servant of God in holy things, and I sit constantly in the temple of the Lord: I do not know where my son is. And the officers went away, and reported all these things to Herod. And Herod was enraged, and said: His son is destined to be king over Israel. And he sent to him again, saying: Tell the truth; where is thy son? for thou knowest that thy life is in my hand. And Zacharias said: I am God’s martyr, if thou sheddest my blood; for the Lord will receive my spirit, because thou sheddest innocent blood at the vestibule of the temple of the Lord. And Zacharias was murdered about daybreak. And the sons of Israel did not know that he had been murdered.

So was the father of John the Baptist murdered? The Infancy Gospel of James is considered pseudepigraphical (not written by the person it is attributed to) and dated to about the mid-2nd century, so it’s hard to fully trust. However, no less a respected church father than Origen suggests that the Zechariah mentioned by Jesus was indeed John the Baptist’s father.

Another solution tomorrow.

//Here is a puzzle that continues to intrigue Bible scholars. Who is the Zechariah that Jesus is talking about? In the next four posts, I’ll present four different opinions.

Let’s start with a discovery that I made while researching for my book about Revelation. Josephus, a Jewish historian, describes the death of a man named Zechariah, son of Baruch, who died during the uprising of the Zealots. Baruch is, essentially, the same name as Berechiah. Only the -YH suffix makes a difference.

This Zechariah was brought before the court on trumped-up charges, and was declared not guilty. The Zealots executed him anyway, at the temple: “Two of the boldest of them fell upon Zacharias in the middle of the temple, and slew him, and said, Thou hast also our verdict, and this will prove a more sure acquittal to thee than the other. They also threw him down out of the temple immediately into the valley beneath it.” Zechariah’s blood spilled “in the holy place,” and dead bodies were heaped around the altar, until it ran with blood.

This would have happened about 35 years after Jesus died, but before Matthew’s Gospel was penned. Early Christians, of course, recognized the great war (in which the Temple was destroyed) as sort of a necessary tribulation ending the prior age and preceding the age of God’s rule; thus, Jesus’ message in today’s verse described all of mankind’s history from beginning (Abel) to end (Zechariah).

But is this the Zechariah Matthew refers to? How strange would it be for Jesus to predict the death of a man in this fashion? More possibilities tomorrow.

//Note the semicolon in today’s verse. What you’re reading is a form of Hebrew poetry (though written in Greek, of course), known as parallelism. Nathanael seems to make two claims: (1) Jesus is the Son of God, and (2) Jesus is the King of Israel.

But this is not what Nathaniel meant. Readers of a Hebrew mindset would immediately recognize that the second half of the claim is a restatement of the first. In Nathanael’s mind, the two statements are one and the same, just poetically reinforced. Only the Son of God could be King of Israel; only the King of Israel could be the Son of God.

Throughout Israel’s history, its kings were known as divinely-appointed representatives of God. They were called sons of God. The difference with Jesus, of course, is that he is the son of God, not merely a son of God. He is understood by Nathaniel to be the final, greatly-anticipated king, whom God would raise up to rule forever. The Jewish Messiah.

We can use this understanding to shed light on other places where the phrase “Son of God” is used. Take this passage written by Paul to the Romans. It has nothing whatsoever to do with being the literal offspring of God.

Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. –Romans 1:3-4

Paul was an adoptionist before the term ever became known; he understood that Jesus became the Son of God at his resurrection. That is because Paul recognized Jesus as being anointed king at the moment he rose from the dead. Jesus was born of men, a descendant according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God after he died … and God raised him up to be his Son.

//Compare the above verse, in which the author of Timothy seems to be referring to the Gospel of Luke and calling it scripture, to its apparent source:

And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. –1 Timothy 5:18

If it’s true that 1 Timothy is quoting Luke, then we can draw one of two conclusions:

1. If you’re a conservative Christian, believing that Paul wrote the book of 1 Timothy, then it provides great evidence that the Gospel of Luke was written quite early. Paul died in the mid-60’s.

2. If you’re a more skeptical Bible scholar, believing that stories of Jerusalem’s downfall in Luke require it to have been written after the war of 70 AD, then it appears that Paul didn’t write the book of 1 Timothy.

And round and round we go.

It is definitely a fascinating journey. Baden’s picture of David is not very flattering. Our favorite Biblical king comes off as a power-hungry scoundrel.  This is the story of a wilderness bandit who wields rogue diplomacy, military prowess, and ruthlessness en route to subjugating a kingdom for himself, ruled from his cultic center in the conquered Jerusalem.

While David’s accomplishment was astounding—unifying the diverse villages and peoples of Judah, and then stealing the northern kingdom (Israel) out from under Saul—one struggles to imagine him a national ruler. At least not on the same terms as Solomon, the next king of Israel. Saul ruled Israel humbly from “under a tree,” then David doubled its size and built a palace and worship center around the ark of the covenant, but it was Solomon who elevated Israel into a glorious kingdom on the backs of slave laborers. This unlikely trio would build a monarchy out of an unruly wilderness that would last for four centuries.