Search This Blog

Saturday, April 12, 2008

F.F. Bruce on the Use of the Book of Zechariah in the Passion Narrative

The following article is now online in PDF:

F.F. Bruce, "The Book of Zechariah and the Passion Narrative," Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 43 (March 1961): 336-353.

Quotatle quote (I love the characteristic understatement here):
Even so, one may well hesitate to go so far as to find an echo of Zechariah ix-xiv in his statement that the high priest’s slave whom Peter wounded at Jesus’ arrest was called Malchus (John xviii. 10). It has been suggested in one of the most important studies of the Fourth Gospel to appear in recent years that John called the slave Malchus to show that the narrative of the arrest fulfilled Zechariah xi. 6, “I will cause men to fall each into the hand of his neighbour, and each into the hand of his king (malkô)”. But there is a basic appropriateness about John’s other allusions to Zechariah ix-xiv which is lacking here; no one fell into Malchus’ hand, and why, of all the people present, should the high priest’s slave be chosen to fulfil the prophecy about a “king”? It is more likely that the Evangelist tells us that the slave’s name was Malchus because he happened to know that Malchus, in fact, was his name.

1 comment:

  1. Hello, this weekend is good for me, since this time i am reading this enormous informative article here at my home. dewa poker 88

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...