In the Gospel of Matthew, it is said that when
Judas Iscariot threw the 30 pieces of silver into the Temple, this fulfilled a
prophecy mentioned by prophet Jeremiah:
“Then
was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “And they
took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set
by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter’s field, as
the Lord directed me.”
(Matthew 27:9-10)
The problem with this verse is that this quote is
not found anywhere in prophet Jeremiah’s writings in the Old Testament, and it
looks similar to the verses 12 and 13 of the 11th chapter of
Zechariah’s book, with certain inaccuracies.
(See Zechariah 11:12-13).
DIFFERENT
THEORIES
To solve this issue, scholars have put forward
different theories.
1
– COPYIST MISTAKE
Some argue that the abbreviated form to write
Jeremiah and Zechariah are very similar, with only the initial letter varying
in the name, written in Greek, Ιριου (Jeremiah- J’iah) and Ζριου (Zechariah – Z’iah);
and they assume that a later date copyist may have by mistake, replaced the Z
by the J, rendering the reading as “Jeremiah” instead of Zechariah.
The problem to this hypothesis, is that the
manuscripts having the name Jeremiah are too numerous to be born from the error
of a single scribe. To reach that extent, the error would have to be committed
several times by many scribes at different places and times, which seems highly
improbable.
2
– NAME OF THE SCROLL
Others think that the expression is generic,
meaning, that the author of Matthew’s Gospel referred to the whole scroll of
the Prophets by the generic name of “Jeremiah”, which included the Book of
Zechariah where the words quoted by Matthew are mentioned. One example of this,
they say, it is when Jesus refers to the Ketuvim (Writings), as “Psalms”, since
the Psalms head the list of books in the Scroll of the Writings; as containing
messianic prophecies (See Luke 24:44).
This hypothesis also faces some difficulties. When
Lord Jesus mentioned that He was fulfilling the prophecies contained about Him
in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, He may not have been referring to the
Ketuvim under the name Psalms, but only to the book of Psalms, since this book
is the one containing messianic prophecies in the writings, with the exception
of Daniel, who He may have considered as part of the Prophets and not of the
Ketuvim. In any case, even is this assumption is correct, the book of Jeremiah
does not head the Scroll of the Nevim (Prophets), but the Book of Joshua
(Former Prophets) and the Book of Isaiah (Later Prophets);therefore, to use
Jeremiah as a generic name for the Scroll of the Prophets is highly unlikely.
3
– WRONG VERSION
The Syriac manuscripts do not have any name mentioned
in Matthew 27:9-10, but says only “Then
was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet”. Since it is generally
accepted that Syriac versions have been less manipulated than the western Greek
versions, some scholars suggests that originally no mention of an specific
prophet was written in the original Greek, and that both names, Jeremiah, and
Zechariah (Some Greek manuscripts have the name Zechariah instead of Jeremiah
in Matthew’s quote), are later scribes additions and not part of the original.
4
– ORAL TRADITION
Others suggests finally that since Matthew says “been
spoken” and not “been written”, his quote may come from an oral tradition known
to the Jews during his time, and that they would have been aware of that
prophetic tradition.
CONCLUSION
The two first theories seem to be unlikely and
highly coincidental for the above mentioned reasons.
What it seems to be is that originally, the
prophecy mentioned by Matthew may have existed originally in Jeremiah, since
the context of betrayal for personal gain and the consequent punishment fits
the situation of destruction of the Temple in 587BCE. These words were later
repeated by the author of Zachariah and applied in his prophecy of chapter 11,
in similar but not exact words, under divine inspiration, to a similar
historical situation during the Persian control. St Matthew would have known
this, and quoted the prophecy in its original version spoken by Jeremiah, and
repeated by Zechariah, which is now lost in the modern Old Testament versions.
Omar Flores.
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