Matthew: Of having slain prophets and wise men, among them “Zacharias son of Barachias” ([xxiii, 35]).
The Zacharias mentioned was slain in Jerusalem, 69 A. D.; so that Matthew makes Jesus refer to an event that occurred forty years after his death.
Referring to this passage, the Catholic scholar, Dr. Hug, says: “There cannot be a doubt, if we attend to the name, the fact and its circumstances, and the object of Jesus in citing it, that it was the same Zacharias Barouchos, who, according to Josephus, a short time before the destruction of Jerusalem, was unjustly slain in the temple.”
Commenting on this passage, Prof. Newman says: “There is no other man known in history to whom the verse can allude. If so, it shows how late, how ignorant, how rash, is the composer of a text passed off on us as sacred truth” (Religion not History, p. 46).
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Repeat his lamentation concerning Jerusalem’s rejection of him.
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” ([Matthew xxiii, 37]; [Luke xiii, 34].)
Where was he when he uttered this lamentation?
Matthew: During his visit at Jerusalem.