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