Miniscule 59 [13th century] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuscule_59

Lectionary 6 [1265 ad] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectionary_6

Lectionary 13 [12th century] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectionary_13

and Lectionary 185 [11th century] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lectionary_185

Eusebius also omits the phrase, but I can’t find any details on which writing that occurs in. It would have been writen around the beginning of the fourth century, in any event.

So, for what it’s worth, Sinaiticus is the oldest I can come up with on this. But again, unless P77 contains this verse, it’s the oldest witness anyhow.

Here’s P77 if you want it: http://163.1.169.40/gsdl/collect/POxy/index/assoc/HASH015b/a36e9077.dir/POxy.v0034.n2683.b.01.hires.jpg

For the reasons I’ve already stated, I’m more inclined to think that there were 2 Zecheriahs murdered in two different temples.

Codex Sinaiticus (considered to be the world’s oldest (complete) Bible actually lacks the phrase “son of Berekiah” (although a later scribe wrote it into the margin, apparently in an effort to bring Sinaiticus into alignment with other manuscripts.)

I’m including a photo of it here, if anyone wants to see it for themselves. At the end of the second line you’ll see “ZAXAPIOY” (“Zachariah”) and then in the margin the added phrase “YIOY” (son of) “BAPAXIOY” (“Barakiah”). The third line then picks back up with “who you murdered.”

(In other words, the oldest complete Bible we have, originally read “Zachariah who you murdered” with no further details.)

http://s591.photobucket.com/albums/ss359/hobopotato/?action=view&current=ZechariahMatt23_35.jpg

If you disagree with the current ratings, and think that this is less serious than some other apparent problems, then please go ahead and use the ratings system to register your views. I’d be interested to see what you think.

Simply accept the word of the Lord it was Zechariah son of Barachiah and Luke felt no need to mention his name which rounds out the OT books nicely. There is a spiritual message always. God loves to blow out peoples’ expectations. There you are looking at the court killing of Zecheriah in Chronicles but it is only in the courtyard. It doesn’t say where in the courtyard. Maybe they intended to kill the Zechariah son of Barachiah like Zecharia in Chronicles like the good old times. But this time they killed Zechariah son of Barachiah between the court yard and the sanctuary (Holy Place with its Holy of Holies)

Jesus was trying to show the OT is not according to the Jewish only books, but all the books of the OT.

I don’t think a copying mistake. I’m convinced it was a spiritual message to include more books of the OT and not just the Jewish books.

With this being located between the altar of burnt offerings and the sanctuary, Jesus’ description “whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar” does seem to fit “stoned him to death in the court of the house of the Lord” after all.

That removes what I thought was the most compelling reason for thinking that Jesus wasn’t referring to the death of Zechariah son of Jehoiada.

I have all along been equating “altar” with “altar of incense” and “sanctuary” with “holy of holies”. This correlates very strongly with the murder of a high priest by other priests on the day of atonement (per TgLam). Virtually no one would ever be there except the high priest on the day of atonement.

But what if we assume Jesus was using the word “altar” to refer to the “altar of sacrifice”? That’s not a stretch at all. At the time of the first Zechariah the altar in question was, I believe, in the priests-only area of Solomon’s temple near the entrance to that area. The word “sanctuary” might still refer to the holy of holies, or it might just refer to the indoor area of the temple. This would include the holy of holies, but would also include the area called the holy place, where you have all the ‘indoor’ priestly stuff like the lamps, the show bread, the incense and what have you.

Either way, we’re still talking about a murder that would have been done in the priests-only area of the temple. But, given this understanding of “altar” and “sanctuary”, the murder Jesus describes might have occurred in the outdoor area for the priests. To tie in with the II Chronicles language, you might even call this area a “courtyard” for the priests.

We still have a murder of a priest by other priests. So it still diverges from the II Chronicles account, which seems to have non-priests involved in the murder. But this murder is not so strongly linked to the high priest on the day of atonement. This would tend to weaken TgLam’s and Jesus’ mutual support.

(Of course, shifting back to support of my argument, TgLam’s identification of the day tends to make me think that my first impression about Jesus’ meaning of “altar” and “sanctuary” was correct.)

A second complimentary attack on my argument is that it is fair and reasonable to assume that the murderers of Zechariah would not be too picky about obeying the “Priests Only” signs posted in various places in the temple. So that problemetizes the parts of my argument that depend on the fact that the first Zechariah’s murderers included at least some non-priests. Maybe there were non-priests among the murderers, and maybe they stormed into the priests-only court of the temple in spite of the prohibition and stoned poor Zechariah to death. Now, most everything in Jesus’ account, _except_ the paternity of Zechariah, more-or-less squares with the idea that the Zechariah in question was the first Zechariah.

If the errantist can successfully argue for these points, then he’s in the best position to say that that one remaining point of disagreement is an error either on Jesus’ part (worst case for inerrancy), or on Matthew’s part (still bad) or on some later copyist’s part (least bad case).

Having said all this, none of these points induces me to abandon the defense of inerrancy I have been giving on this issue.

As I said in my previous post, though, Targum Lamentations contains two details, one that matches 2 Chronicles and one that isn’t found there. That doesn’t really help; we get two small clues, but each points in a different direction.