Innocent Blood

How well-read was Jesus? The LOY segment entitled Innocent Blood probes the possibility that Jesus read and quoted a no-longer-extant Second Temple-period Jewish literary work that warned against violent religious extremism.

(Matt. 23:34-36; Luke 11:49-51)

(Huck 154, 210; Aland 194, 284; Crook 224, 321)^[1]

Updated: 27 July 2023

לְפִיכָךְ אַף חָכְמַת אֱלֹהִים אָמְרָה אֶשְׁלַח בָּהֶם נְבִיאִים וּשְׁלִיחִים וַחֲכָמִים וְסוֹפְרִים מֵהֶם יַהֲרֹגוּ מֵהֶם יִרְדֹּפוּ וְיִדָּרֵשׁ כָּל דָּם נָקִי שָׁפוּךְ עַל הָאָרֶץ מִיַּד הַדּוֹר הַזֶּה מִדַּם הֶבֶל וְעַד דַּם זְכַרְיָה הָאוֹבֵד בֵּין הַמִּזְבֵּחַ וּבֵין הַבַּיִת אָמֵן אֲנִי אוֹמֵר לָכֶם יִדָּרֵשׁ מִיַּד הַדּוֹר הַזֶּה

“Thus Lady Wisdom herself declared, ‘I will send them prophets and emissaries, sages and scribes. They will kill the former and harry the latter. Therefore, this generation will have to answer for all the innocent blood poured out on the holy land, from the murder of Hevel down to that of Zecharyah, who died between the altar and the Temple.’

“Alas, what Lady Wisdom said is also true of you! God will demand from this generation all the innocent blood ever poured out because you will not repent.”^[2]

Table of Contents

1. Reconstruction

2. Story Placement

3. Conjectured Stages of Transmission

4. Crucial Issues

5. Comment

6. Redaction Analysis

7. Results of This Research

8. Conclusion

Reconstruction

To view the reconstructed text of Innocent Blood click on the link below:

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Conclusion

In Innocent Blood Jesus indicated that the threat to his generation was as real and as serious as the threat that had loomed over the generation of the Babylonian exile prior to the destruction of Jerusalem. Jesus’ generation was liable to suffer the same fate as the generation of the exile because his generation was guilty of the same sins as that earlier generation: resorting to violence as a solution to its problems. Therefore, what the Wisdom of God had declared concerning the generation of the Babylonian exile would also prove true for Jesus’ generation: from “this generation” God would demand all the innocent blood ever poured out on the earth.

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^[1] For abbreviations and bibliographical references, see “Introduction to ‘The Life of Yeshua: A Suggested Reconstruction.’” ↩
^[2] This translation is a dynamic rendition of our reconstruction of the conjectured Hebrew source that stands behind the Greek of the Synoptic Gospels. It is not a translation of the Greek text of a canonical source. ↩