Chizuk Emunah (Pt 2) Under the Microscope: Chapter 22

Matthew 23:35, "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." This reproach rests on an error regarding the names, for it was Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, whom they slew (See 2 Chro. 24:20). It is impossible to admit the attempted reconciliation according to which Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, and Zechariah, the son of Berachiah, are identical. For the priest of that name was slain in the days of Joash, king of Judah, about two hundred and fifty-four years prior to the destruction of the temple; while the prophet Zechariah did not prophesy until the second year of Darius, the son of Artachsasta, during the Babylonian captivity. Such errors in the mouth of Jesus are decidedly unfavourable to the divine inspiration attributed to him, as well as to the authors of the New Testament.

 This is a common objection against the New Testament used by skeptics today. It's hard to see what the problem actually is. Troki just assumes that Matthew was referring to the Zechariah 2 Chronicles, yet Matthew does not mention this. A similar problem that skeptics bring up is where the book of Daniel states that Nebuchadnezzar had a bout of madness, while external records say it was Nabonidus who had such a bout of madness. It's not an explicit contradiction.

Troki argues that Matthew got the wrong Zechariah. For challenges against the New Testament, J.P. Holding's site Tektonics is the place to go. He gives 6 possible solutions to the problem.

1. The Zechariah referenced is the father of John the Baptist.
2. It is Zechariah the prophet who wrote the book named after him.
3. It is the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles, and Jehoiada is his grandfather; Berekiah, his unnamed father.
4. Berekiah is another name for Jehoiada.
5. Transmission error.
6. The Zechariah in question is simply unknown.

So if all you want to do is harmonize, this should not be a difficult problem. But if we can, we should do more than just force the text to say what we want.

I side with Michael Rydelnik that the most plausible solution is transmission error. Jerome noted that some variants of Matthew's text say "son of Jehoiada." Likely, the original version of the text said from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. The "son of" part was added later as a marginal note, and got incorporated into the text.

As Holding argues:

Really, if the writer of Matthew did make an error of the type suggested, how hard would it have been for pious Jews to discredit him? That there is no evidence that they did is testimony to the veracity of Matthew's account, whichever one of these solutions applies.

We have the writings of the early church leaders, who repeatedly defended the New Testament documents against skeptical attacks, from both Jews and Gentiles. If Matthew had made such an error, we would have seen responses from these writers addressing this objection. The fact that we don't is pretty strong evidence that the opponents of the New Testament did not consider this a problem.