Did Matthew get things wrong (23:35)? There is a mystery here to be solved.
Once we are generous with the text, then a solution will emerge. No need to stretch the truth out of shape to find the solution, either.
I quote from published scholars because I respect them, for they are charitable towards the biblical text. I place them on an equal or higher footing than unfriendly critics. One thing is certain. Skeptical critics cannot claim objectivity over friendly scholars.
All translations are from the NIV. If you would like to see others, please go to this website:
Let’s begin.
Scripture: Matthew 23:35
Note who Zechariah’s father is:
35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. (Matt. 23:35)
The problem to be solved
In context, Joash was a wicked king of Jerusalem and Judah, for he worshipped other gods. Zechariah the prophet rebuked him under the inspiration of the Spirit. Joash ordered the prophet’s death.
In this passage, note who the prophet’s father is and where Zechariah was killed:
20 Then the Spirit of God came on Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.’” 21 But they plotted against him, and by order of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. (2 Chron. 24:20-21)
Is Zechariah in Matthew’s Gospel the prophet in 2 Chronicles 24:20-25 who was killed in the temple precincts?
Zechariah’s position in Chronicles makes him the last prophet to be martyred, according to the canonical order of the Hebrew Bible. Second Chronicles was the last book. In Christian terms, Jesus is saying the Jews of his generation will be held liable for the blood of prophets from “Genesis (Abel) to Revelation” (Zechariah) or “A to Z.”
Yet note who Zechariah’s father is in this verse:
In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo: (Zech. 1:1)
Possible solutions
Now what about the phrase “son of Barachiah / Berechiah / Berekiah” (these are spelling variations from Hebrew to Greek to English)?
1.. Luke’s version: In the parallel passage, Luke 11:51 omits the father’s name. This solves the difficulty in Luke’s Gospel and will harmonize with Jerome’s observation (no. 3).
2.. It’s a scribal error (Moody One Volume Commentary, 2014): Some manuscripts omit this name, and this would solve any problem between Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest (2 Chron. 24:22) and Zechariah, the son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo (Zech. 1:1). Specifically, France notes (p. 881, n. 73) that the aleph manuscript omitted Berekiah, but an ancient corrector reinserted it! But leaving his ancestor’s name out would have harmonized with Luke’s Gospel.
Objection: A scribal error ruins the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture.
Reply: The 1978 Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which is very detailed and strict (too strict for my study of the Bible), allows for scribal errors: The relevant section reads:
Since God has nowhere promised an inerrant transmission of Scripture, it is necessary to affirm that only the autographic text of the original documents was inspired and to maintain the need of textual criticism as a means of detecting any slips that may have crept into the text in the course of its transmission. (Sections titled “Exposition,” “Transmission and Translation”)
In other words, God did not promise an inerrant transmission (i.e. copying process); therefore “slips” (i.e. errors) may have crept into the copies, but not into the original manuscripts, which we no longer have. So copying errors are allowable even for strict Evangelical institutes, like Moody.
3.. Jerome’s testimony: To add to the previous point, Berekiah’s name may not be original to Matthew 23:35. Bible translator Jerome (born 382-87 and died in 420) says that he saw a Hebrew version, Gospel of the Nazarenes, which omitted Berekiah’s name but included Jehoiada. If so, then this harmonizes with 2 Chronicles 24:20.
4.. Deliberate conflation: Another answer says Matthew deliberately conflated two Zechariahs (son of Jehoiada and son of Berekiah) because Matthew is about to quote from Zechariah 11:12, 13 in Matthew 27:10. In a possible parallel example, Matthew does this with Jeremiah and Isaiah. Matthew quotes from these “all-star” prophets and names them, but only references the minor prophets without naming them. In other words Matthew arranges his prophets with preference for the major ones, apparently a Jewish practice to prefer the majors. So Matthew could be doing the same thing with two Zechariahs, though here in Matthew 23:35 he does not quote the martyred prophet. It’s his arrangement with a purpose, following a Jewish practice. You may like this solution of deliberate conflation (Turner and Keener and France, referring to other commentaries).
5.. Double witness: Maybe those scholars in the previous point mean that Matthew likes to include doubles, e.g. two demon-possessed men (8:28); two blind men (9:27), and two other blind men (20:29). Two Zechariahs, son of Berekiah, and Zechariah the prophet whose father is Jehoiada, will serve Matthew’s purpose. (I don’t like this solution.)
For more information on Matthew’s preferences and rhetorical strategies in his use of the prophets, see this post:
Did Matthew Mistakenly Attribute Verses from Zechariah to Jeremiah?
6. Meaning of “son of”: Still another answer says that “son of” can be translated as “descendant of,” which extends the possibilities to “grandson of” or even “great-great-grandson of” (and so on). In Zechariah’s case, Jehoiada is Zechariah’s great-grandfather (Carson and Garland, citing other commentaries). Recall this remarkable verse: “Now Jehoiada was old and full of years, and he died at the age of a hundred and thirty” (2 Chron. 24:15). No doubt this august priest had many sons over the years, and one of them was named Iddo who had a son named Berekiah, the father of Zechariah (Zech. 1:1). This harmonizes 2 Chronicles 24:20, Zechariah 1:1, and Matthew 23:35. This solution is very plausible.
7. Blomberg: he summarizes his possible answers to the puzzle:
“From Abel to Zechariah” suggests the entire sweep of history from the creation of humanity to the time of Christ. Many have assumed that the Zechariah in view here is the murdered prophet of 2 Chr 24:20–21, in which case Berekiah would be a mistaken reference to Jehoiada. Second Chronicles was the last book in the order of the Hebrew canon, so this interpretation creates a nice inclusio [bookend] with the martyrdom of Abel at the beginning of Genesis. But it is more likely that the historical overview is strictly chronological, with Zechariah being truly the son of Berekiah and the prophet who wrote the second to the last book of the Old Testament (cf. Zech 1:1). There are no independent pre-Christian traditions of his martyrdom, but certain post-Christian Jewish texts seem to hint at it. And there are still other options. Very recently J. M. Ross [“Which Zachariah?” Irish Biblical Studies 9 (1987): 70–73.] has made a plausible case for the view that this is an otherwise unknown Zechariah martyred just prior to Jesus’ lifetime. (comments on vv. 33-36)
Towards the end of the excerpt, Blomberg references a scholar who has found evidence that an unknown (or not well known) prophet named Zechariah was murdered just prior to Jesus’s lifetime. Jesus may have heard about this recent Zechariah and is referring to him in Matthew 23:35.
8. Parallel confusion in the OT: Go to this youtube video for a fuller explanation of the discrepancy from a Messianic Jewish perspective and search this title: “Did Jesus Confuse Two Zechariahs? Dr. Brown …” He has examples of Jewish writings that mix up or conflate names. Dr. Brown is answering Jewish polemics against the NT. The OT can get things mixed up or conflated, too. However, this does not really solve the ancestry of Zechariah, which is what this post set out to do.
Conclusion and recommendations
There are about thirty Zechariahs in the OT. So we may never know the answer, with certainty.
On the other hand, I like these two solutions:
(1) It’s just an ancient manuscript variation, and the name Berekiah should be omitted. Including it was a scribal error, even if all the other manuscripts than aleph has Berekiah in them One scribal error can lead to others when the manuscripts were copied from one generation of manuscripts to the next and spread around. They should have read Jehoiada or omitted the name altogether, as Luke’s Gospel does.
(2) Or it is the chronicler’s deliberate omission of the lesser known ancestors of Zechariah: Iddo, his grandfather and Berekiah, his father. The chronicler instead included Zechariah’s long-lived, august ancestor, his great-grandfather, the priest (Jehoiada) in 2 Chronicles 24:20. In Matthew 23:35, omitting an earlier generation (Jehoiada), Matthew simply based his knowledge of Zechariah’s father and grandfather on Zechariah 1:1. This harmonizes the three records.
In the bigger picture, however, our faith must not be brittle, if there is a seemingly unsolvable discrepancy. This one has nothing to do with our faith in the resurrection of Christ and his Sonship and Lordship.
The overall message of the Bible—redemption, salvation, love, mercy, covenants, righteousness, holiness, judgments, and so on—is not threatened. The Bible itself is not brittle, just because “total inerrantists” make it seem that way. Just read the Bible to understand who God is in the bigger themes and wonderful and inspiring individual verses.
Now for some recommendations.
My view of Scripture. It’s very high:
Authority and Inerrancy of the Bible
Begin a series on the reliability of the Gospels. Start with the Conclusion which has quick summaries and links back to the other parts:
15. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Conclusion
The Gospels have a massive number of agreements in their storylines:
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
Celebrate them, instead of obsessing over and being anxious about some differences.
See this part in the series that puts differences in perspective (a difference ≠ a contradiction):
13. Are There Contradictions in the Gospels?
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link, and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 