In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet.
//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.
