What Happened To Zacharias
What Happened To Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain between the temple and the altar?
Is
there proof that the Gospel of the Nazirenes (see
http://GospelOfTheNazirenes.org )
has preserved verses and teachings that were removed from the Gospels by the
Church?
The Missing Account Of Zacharias:
At Matthew 23:34-35 Yeshua/Jesus says to the false religious leaders in that
day: "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you
prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify;
and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from
city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of
Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar" (Mt
23:35;Lk 11:51 NIV). Upon reading this we should ask who Zechariah was who was
murdered between the temple and the alter?
If we
pose a number of important simple questions: Who Zechariah was? Why were the
secular Jews held accountable for his blood? And what does this account mean to
us in our present time? Our severely edited Bibles which we rely upon today,
cannot even begin to provide us with the answers to these and many other
important questions. To demonstrate our inability to even remotely comprehend
what Yeshua/Jesus is talking about while using our present-day copies of the New
Testament which was severely altered by the Church of Rome, on this verse
Barnes’ Notes writes:
"It is not certainly known who this was. Some have thought that it was the
Zecharias whose death is recorded in 2 Chr. 24:20-21. He is there called the son
of Jehoiada; but it is known that it was common among the Jews to have two
names, as Matthew is called Levi; Lebbeus, Thaddeus; and Simon, Cephas. Others
have thought that Yeshua/Jesus referred to Zecharias the prophet, who might have
been massacred by the Jews, though no account of his death is recorded. It might
have been known by tradition."
We don’t
know of whom Yeshua/Jesus speaks, because the whole account of Zacharias the
prophet and the father of John the Baptist was removed from our Bibles. In the
Nazirene Gospel 3:5-6 we read: "His father,
Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit , and prophesied, Be blessed, Oh God
of Israel , for you have visited and redeemed your people; and have raised up a
symbol of power and strength for us, in the house of your servant David; as you
spoke by the mouth of your holy prophets , who have been since the world began.
You have spoken through the prophets so that we should be saved from our
enemies, and from the hand of all those who hate us; You have spoken through the
prophets in order to perform the mercy promised to our ancestors, and to
remember Your holy covenant. The covenant! The oath which you swore to our
father Abraham, that we, being granted deliverance from the hand of our enemies,
might serve you without fear, in holiness and righteousness before you, all the
days of our life. This child [John]
will be called the prophet of
the Most High; for He will stand before your face, Oh God, to prepare your ways;
to give knowledge of salvation to your people by the remission of their sins.
Through the tender mercy of you, Oh God, the day spring from on high has visited
us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew, and his spirit
intensified. His mission was hidden until the day of his presentation to Israel"
Spiritual holy men such as Zacharias, along with all other examples of Jews who
were part of the Holy Nation of Israel, had to be removed from the text of the
scriptures in order for the Gentile-Roman Church to rewrite history to make it
appear that the Jews rejected Yeshua/Jesus, and the Gentiles became the new
chosen people. Thus, in the same way that the above reference to Zacharias was
removed, so also was that found in the Nazirene Gospel 5:13-19:
"When they had departed, behold the angel of God
appeared to Joseph in a dream , saying, Arise, and take the young child and His
mother, and flee into Egypt. Remain there until I bring you word, for Herod will
seek to destroy Him. And when Joseph arose, he took the young child and His
mother by night, and went to Egypt, and was there for about seven years until
the death of Herod The prophet, had spoken the word of God saying, Out of Egypt
have I called my son. Elisabeth too, when she heard it, took her infant son and
went up into a mountain and hid him. Herod sent his officers to Zacharias in the
temple and said to him, Where is your child? Zacharias answered, I am a minister
of God and am continually in the temple. I don't know where he is. And Herod
demanded again, Truly, tell me where your son is? Don't you know that your life
is in my hand? And Zacharias answered, The Lord is witness if you shed my blood.
God will receive my spirit; for you will shed the blood of the innocent. And
they slew Zacharias in the temple between the holy place and the altar; and the
people knew it, for a voice was heard, Zacharias is slain, and his blood will
not be washed out until the avenger comes. After a time the priests cast lots.
The lot fell upon Simeon, and he filled Zacharias' place. Herod, when he saw
that he was mocked by the wise men, was furious, and ordered to have all the
children age two years and under, living in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts
thereof, slain. He set the age of the children to be slain, according to the
information asked of the wise men. Then were fulfilled the words spoken by
Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and
weeping, and great mourning, Rachel, weeping for her children, and would not be
comforted, because they are not"
It is
interesting to note that the Church Father Origen noted that the account of
Zacharias had been removed from many of the biblical texts, and was only
preserved in the uncanonical scriptures. Thus, in a letter from Origen to
Africanus, he writes concerning the removal of this important account (see
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0414.htm ):
"But probably to this you will
say, Why then is the "History" not in their Daniel, if, as you say,
their wise men hand down by tradition such stories? The answer is, that
they hid from the knowledge of the people as many of the passages which
contained any scandal against the elders, rulers, and judges, as they
could, some of which have been preserved in uncanonical writings
(Apocrypha)."
"Let us see now if in these
cases we are not forced to the conclusion, that while the Saviour gives
a true account of them, none of the Scriptures which could prove what He
tells are to be found."
"Then about
Zacharias the son of Barachias, who was slain between the temple and the
altar, we learn from Jesus only, not knowing it otherwise from any
Scripture. Wherefore I think no other supposition is possible, than that
they who had the reputation of wisdom, and the rulers and elders, took
away from the people every passage which might bring them into discredit
among the people. We need not wonder, then, if this history of the evil
device of the licentious elders...was concealed and removed from the
Scriptures by men themselves not very far removed from the counsel of
these elders."
"What I have said
is, I think, sufficient to prove that it would be nothing wonderful if
this history were true, and the licentious and cruel attack was actually
made...by those who were at that time elders, and written down by the
wisdom of the Spirit, but removed by these rulers of Sodom, as the
Spirit would call them."
|
Thus,
sincere Christians would look at this missing account of Zacharias -- the fact
that it was noted to be removed in a letter by the Church Origen -- and the fact
that it appears in the what is now called the Gospel of the Nazirenes -- and
they would recognize that what they have been given is a sign from the Lord that
they should question the integrity of their scriptures and doctrines of belief.
Once we see the sections which were removed from our own Bibles that are still
contained in the Nazirene Gospel, we can easily begin to understand what Yeshua/Jesus
was making reference to with respect to the allegation that the secular Jews
were guilty of the blood of Zacharias. What is clear is the fact that this
revelation pertaining to Zacharias was once contained in our Bibles, but was
purposely removed by the Gentile Church.
The
above is quoted from
The Missing Account Of Zacharias
posted by Brother Of Yeshua @ 9:34 AM
0 comments
