The Killing of Prophets: The Development of a Useful Assumption

In Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47 Jesus accuses his Jewish opponents of killing prophets.

The gospel texts provide no basis for this charge, other than the conflict that Jesus seems to be

facing at the moment. Even the one prophetic figure whose death has affected Jesus, John the

Baptist, was not killed in Jerusalem, but was executed, according to the gospel accounts, by

Herod Antipas who ruled Galilee and Perea. On the contrary, the accusation of killing prophets

and the success of the Israelite prophetic materials in getting proclaimed, recorded, transmitted,

and canonized stand in tension with each other. Where does this idea come from and what

makes it a viable assumption in the kinds of accusations made by Jesus in these texts? This

study will begin with an examination of cases in which prophets were treated badly in the

Hebrew canon, followed by an examination of this theme in later Jewish and Christian texts,

most significantly the Ascension of Isaiah and the Lives of the Prophets. It will conclude with

some considerations of how and why this assumption may have developed and how it became

available for such use.

Discussion of this issue surfaces in a wide variety of places, but tends not to be taken

very far. One exception is an article by Betsy Halpern Amaru, entitled “The Killing of Prophets:

Unraveling a Midrash,” but this essay focuses primarily on the development of rabbinic

traditions which lie behind an eleventh century midrash that tells six stories of murdered Israelite

prophets (1983). One does not have to work with this subject for long to figure out two major

reasons for this lack of sustained attention. First, this tradition is elusive. The occasional

emergence of this discussion in secondary literature reflects its disparate appearances in primary

sources. Second, and more significant for this study, is the problematic range of the materials

that one must consult to trace this tradition. There are few, if any, researchers who can bring
expertise to sources beginning in early Second Temple Judaism and running through early

Byzantine Christianity. A treatment of the length of this essay must approach a subject of such

scope with realistic expectations about the level of detail.

In examining stories in which prophets or others are mistreated because of their faithful

behavior, two questions need to remain at the forefront of our consideration. First, who is doing

the mistreating? Important distinctions will be present between stories in which outsiders are

persecuting Israelites, Jews, or Christians and stories in which the persecution comes from an

internal source. Second, what is the apparent narrative purpose of the account? It is usually

clear whether the narrator’s primary purpose is to demonstrate the resistance and obstinacy of the

persecutor or to extol the faith of the ones being persecuted and present them as models of

faithfulness. There may be cases, however, in which these purposes intermingle.

Killing Prophets in the Hebrew Canon

Not only are stories and sayings of prophets a major component of the Hebrew Canon,

but the section known as “the Prophets,” Nebi’im, is a major part of the authoritative framework

of the canon. The idea that prophets might be despised and persecuted figures runs contrary to

this high status, so it may not be surprising that the actual mistreatment of prophets is not the

norm within this literary collection. There are a few cases, however, in which persons kill or

attempt to kill prophets, so these deserve attention. One of the most prominent is the complex of

stories concerning Elijah’s confrontation with Ahab and Jezebel, as reported in 1 Kgs 17-21.

Despite the power and resolve of Jezebel, Elijah is the ultimate victor in this confrontation, and

Jezebel’s identity as a foreigner makes this episode a poor fit for the prophet-killing tradition in

Israel. This sequence of stories becomes even more complicated because of the strange,

embedded story of an unnamed prophet (or two?) who confronts Ahab in 20:13-22 and 20:35-
42. Perhaps the most remarkable element of these stories is that Ahab does not harm the prophet

who confronts him. In this sequence it is Jezebel who is most clearly presented as a persecutor

of prophets. She is, of course, a foreigner, and these stories seem to highlight her wickedness

more than the virtue those she is persecuting.

This leaves only two specific cases of Israelite prophetic figures being killed by other

Israelites in the Hebrew canon. The first of these appears in the dramatic twenty-sixth chapter of

Jeremiah, which contains a story closely related to the Temple Sermon of Jer 7. In this story

Jeremiah is arrested and put on trial for prophesying against Judah. Jeremiah escapes this

predicament, but the author includes within the episode the story of another prophet, Uriah ben

Shemaiah, who was executed, according to the story in 26:20-23. One of the major emphases of

this story is the joining of many forces to help preserve Jeremiah’s life (McEntire 2004: 301-

302). Within the larger context of the Jeremiah episode, the little story of Uriah demonstrates the

danger that Jeremiah faces, specifically from King Jehoiakim (O’Connor 1989: 617-630). If any

greater point is present, it is the unusual nature of this episode in which a prophet is executed. In

his comment on this little section in Jeremiah 26:21-22, Robert Carroll has made the point about

the prophet-killing accusation most succinctly: “The people of ancient Israel are maligned

enough in [vv.] 2-20, and should be spared this further libel against their collective memory.

They may not have listened to their prophets: They certainly did not refuse to listen to the point

of killing them.” Carroll has argued that the tradition of killing prophets is a later one, only

appearing in the Hebrew canon in Chronicles, and that this later “midrash” is inserted back into

Jeremiah (1986: 522).

The other instance of a prophet being executed in the Hebrew canon appears in 2 Chr

24:20-22. In this case, Zechariah ben Jehoiada is not specifically identified as a prophet, but as
the son of a priest. Nevertheless, 24:20 says, “The spirit of God clothed itself with Zechariah…”

and that he began an utterance with “Thus says God…,” so he seems to have been acting like a

prophet. In response to his statement, King Joash had him stoned. The ending of this story

makes its primary purpose uncertain. Verse 22 reports that Joash failed to remember an earlier

kindness done for him by Jehoiada and, instead, killed Jehoiada’s son, thus emphasizing the

disobedience of the king who had the prophet killed. On the other hand, the end of that verse

records the dying words of Zechariah, “YHWH shall see and seek vengeance.” The reporting of

the last words of a martyr who refuses to relent, but still speaks defiantly to the persecutor, will

become an important element of later martyrdom stories that place most emphasis on the faith of

the martyr. In spite of this element, however, the demonstration of Joash’s disobedience seems

to be the greater narrative force here. Sara Japhet has noted that Zechariah’s prophecy is not

only brief, but very general and “unprovocative” (1993: 849-850). This is another element that

fails to place emphasis on the character who is being killed.

Both stories of successful attempts to kill a prophet in the Hebrew canon, Uriah in Jer 26

and Zechariah in 2 Chr 24, are stories of an internal persecutor and are told primarily in order to

establish that persecutor’s lack of faithfulness.

While the Hebrew canon contains only these two stories of Israelites killing prophets, and

a few other cases of mistreatment of prophets that do not lead to death, the Chronicler’s insertion

of the tradition of “scoffing at” the prophets in 2 Chr 36:16 seems to be moving in the direction

of portraying the prophets as something other than the revered figures their placement in the

canon makes them appear to be. The parallel text in 2 Kgs 24 is not so explicit about this

response to the prophets. Still, 2 Kgs 21:1-15 and 24:3-4 both place side-by-side the claim that

God’s judgment was announced by the prophets and the accusation that Manasseh “filled
Jerusalem with innocent blood.” This juxtaposition provides room to assume that prophets may

have been among those whom Manasseh killed, but no specific instances are cited. The more

direct claim of “scoffing at” prophets and the account of Zechariah above, which is absent from

2 Kings, may indicate that Chronicles began to form an early sense of this tradition, but not one

that was highly developed.

Martyrdom in the Hebrew Canon

The notion that faithful Israelites might be persecuted for acting on their faith begins to

appear in late biblical literature. Most prominent are the stories of Daniel and the three young

men in Dan 1-6. Of course, these figures are not traditional prophets, and their persecution takes

place in a foreign empire at the hand of foreigners. Moreover, the attempts to kill these young

men for practicing their faith in the God of Israel are unsuccessful. The persecution of the Jews

in the book of Esther is similar. In Esther 3, Haman uses the unwillingness of the Jews to bow

down to him, because of their devotion to their own religion, to make accusations to King

Ahasueras and to convince him to kill the Jews living in Persia. Again, this takes place in a

foreign context and the attempt to kill Jews is thwarted. The primary difference is that only

Mordecai knowingly refuses to violate the law by not bowing to Haman. One can hardly escape

the high value that this collection of Diaspora stories places on the willingness to risk one’s life

to be faithful to God and/or Jewish tradition.

Comparisons of these stories with those of persecuted and executed prophets gives rise to

a central question regarding this subject, which was posed at the beginning of this study, the

purpose of the telling of stories of martyrdom and near martyrdom. There appear to be two

distinct and very different reasons why these stories were told. First, some were told in order to

illustrate the obstinate behavior of those doing the persecuting and to highlight their resistance to
the divine message. This is surely the case with Jezebel’s persecution of prophets and the

murders of Uriah ben Shemaiah and Zechariah ben Jehoiadah. Virtually no attention is given to

the martyred or persecuted characters themselves. In the cases of persecution of prophets by

Jezebel, and the Israelites more generally in 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings, the prophets are not even

named, except for Elijah in the case of Jezebel. The narrative interest is clearly on those who are

attacking the prophets. The other reason for telling these stories of martyrdom and persecution is

to highlight the faith of the ones being attacked, and perhaps hold them up as examples of

faithful behavior. This is clearly the case in Daniel and Esther, and this martyrdom tradition was

taken up and developed further in Jewish writings outside the TANAK.

Martyrdom in the Apocrypha

Because the narrative portions of the Apocrypha focus primarily upon Israel’s external

relations, narrative contexts for stories of internal interaction between prophets and other

Israelites are not typically present in this literature. It is often assumed that the phenomenon of

prophecy ceased during this period of the third to first centuries B. C. E., which generated the

collection known as the Apocrypha. While it is true that stories about prophetic characters and

identifiable prophetic literature are not preserved from this period, the drawing of historical

conclusions about prophecy in this period is largely an argument from silence. The stories most

relevant to the questions in this study are those of the mistreatment of Jews in general, because of

their faithfulness, and they typically involve external persecutors.

The continuing trajectory of the persecution of faithful Jews rises to the next level in the

dramatic stories of Greek persecution in 2 Mac 6-7. These narratives follow a pattern very

similar to the persecution stories in Daniel. Faithful Jews refuse to comply with a foreign law

requiring false worship and are sentenced to death. Of course, the striking difference is that the
scribe, Eleazar, and the unnamed mother and her seven sons are all killed in brutal, agonizing

fashion. No divine intervention saves them. James D. Tabor has even contended that these

stories and others in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha compete with one another in their “lurid

accounts of heroism in the face of torture” (1992: 575-576). Jonathan Goldstein has discerned a

standard pattern of elements in these martyrdom stories and similar ones found in other literature

(1983: 282-317). These stories include an emphasis on the refusal of the martyrs to relent, even

under the most extreme conditions, and they include the dying utterances of the martyrs. This

observation points to another significant factor distinguishing some martyrdom stories from

others: is the source of the persecution internal or external to Israel? The stories of martyrdom

in 2 Macabbees take place at the hands of the Greek empire, so the source of oppression is

external. Goldstein has described the shape of these stories and their function within 2

Macabbees. In addition to the concerns of this study, he has observed that they demonstrate

developing ideas within Judaism, such as redemptive suffering and resurrection (1983: 282-317).

The division between external and internal sources of persecution and between stories

which emphasize the resistance of the persecutor versus those that extol the faith of those being

oppressed establishes a matrix with four quadrants, as illustrated in the table below. Most of the

examples encountered thus far can be placed fairly easily within one of these four quadrants.

The table contains some examples which are still to be examined below and indicates that this

categorization will become more difficult with some later literature.

Place Table 1 here

Killing of Prophets and Martyrdom in the New Testament

 In Matt 23:30-31, in the midst of a tirade of “woes” which Jesus unleashes on the scribes

and Pharisees, he accuses them of descending from those who murdered the prophets.

Moreover, Jesus’ statement implies that his targets would admit that their ancestors were guilty

of this charge, but would only contend that they themselves are different. Matt. 25:35 connects

this accusation with the murders of Abel and someone Jesus calls “Zechariah ben Barachiah.”

This is a problematic tradition because this is the identification given to the biblical prophet in

Zech 1:1, but there is no tradition inside or outside the Bible of this Zechariah being killed. It is

most often assumed that Matthew has confused this Zechariah with Zechariah ben Jehoiada,

whose murder was discussed above. The specific charge of Jesus in Luke 11:47 is a woe against

the “scribes,” namely that they are building tombs for the prophets murdered by their ancestors.

The meaning of what they are doing is not of importance here, but rather the presumed record of

murdering prophets. Again, no specific examples are provided to support the charge. Toward

the end of his speech in Acts 7, just before he is stoned to death, Stephen is more to the point:

“Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the

coming of the Righteous One…” (Acts 7:52, NRSV). Based on information in the Hebrew

canon, it would seem that his audience could have answered the initial question with an

extensive list of prophets whom they did not persecute. The specific charge of “putting to death”

is even more puzzling, and Stephen offers no specific examples. In sum, within the New

Testament, the charge against the Jews of killing prophets is vague and unsupported, but goes

unchallenged. Joseph Fitzmyer, like many other commentators, argues that this is a “Jewish

motif” and that it “began to surface” in the Hebrew Scriptures, but he offers only the thin

evidence presented above for the development of this tradition (1998: 385).
 The theme of martyrdom is of some significance in the New Testament. Setting aside the

crucifixion, the two most prominent examples are John the Baptist, whose beheading by Herod

Antipas is attested in Mark 6:14-29, Matt 14:1-12, and Luke 9:7-9, and Stephen, who is stoned in

Acts 7:54-60. Acts 12:2 also briefly reports the killing of James, the brother of John, by Herod

Agrippa. Many others, including Paul, John, and Peter, suffer persecution in the forms of beating

and imprisonment. Still, it can hardly be concluded that martyrdom is a central aspect of

discipleship in the New Testament. In the cases where it appears, the resistance to the message

of a faithful one by the one who commits the act of persecution seems to be a significant factor,

though the idea that Jesus, Peter, John, Stephen, and Paul serve as models of faithfulness is not

absent from the texts in which they are persecuted. The former aspect is in keeping with the

important texts mentioned in the introduction to this essay, Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47, in which

Jesus accuses Israel of killing prophets. This saying does not emphasize the faithfulness of the

prophets or the glory of martyrdom. Its point is the condemnation of those who killed the

prophets as an act of resistance to the divine message.

The vague descriptions of persecution and martyrdom in Heb 11:33-38 provide an

important point of transition to Christian literature outside of the New Testament. The apparent

reference to Daniel and his three friends in 11:33-34 serves to launch this sequence of abuse

suffered by the faithful, adding additional weight to the possibility that these Diaspora stories

were an important source for the tradition of the killing of the prophets. The description of some

who were “sawn in two” in 11:37 sends us to two often overlooked pieces of early Christian

literature.

Martyrdom in The Ascension of Isaiah

 The full text of this work is extant only in Ethiopic, but numerous fragmentary

manuscripts in Greek and Latin have also been found. The most influential English translation

has been that of R. H. Charles, first published in 1900, but the more recent translation by

Michael A Knibb is more accessible (1985: 143-176). The date and provenance of this vivid

Pseudepigraphical work has been the object of significant debate. It is typically divided into two

fairly distinct segments, which are sometimes assumed to be originally independent sources.

The portion of this text found in chapters 1-5 is the most relevant here because it contains the

story of Isaiah’s execution. This section has been so distinct in the minds of many readers that it

has received the separate title “The Martyrdom of Isaiah,” and has often been assumed to derive

from an independent Jewish source. The remainder of Ascension, the passages found in chapters

6-11, is labeled in various ways, such as “The Vision of Isaiah,” by Craig A. Evans, or “The

Descent and Ascent of the Beloved” by Robert G. Hall. Evans divides the text in a more detailed

fashion, placing 3:13-4:22, commonly called the “Testament of Hezekiah,” with the material in

the second half of the book, so that these two halves are slightly folded together. He also

assumed, without significant argument, that the “Martyrdom” passage is from an earlier Jewish

source, perhaps as early as the Macabbean period, while the finished product of the Ascension is

a Christian work of the first-century C. E. (2001: 57-59). Hall has argued further that while

Jewish sources likely underlie the first half of the work, it has been significantly redacted by a

Christian writer near the end of the first century C. E. Hall saw no evidence or need to assign

any part of the second half of Ascension to a preexisting Jewish source. It is more likely the

work of the Christian writer who redacted the first half and inserted 3:13-31 in order to link the

two halves. This author may have been part of an “early Christian prophetic school” in conflict

with other groups over their experiences of visiting heaven to observe “the ascent and descent of
the Beloved,” Isaiah’s venture into heaven accompanied by an angelic being. Members of this

school claimed they could experience these visitations like Isaiah did in the second half of

Ascension and they suffer persecution, as Isaiah did in the first half of the work (1994: 471-475

and 1990: 293-296).

Issues surrounding the sources of this dramatic story require some further examination.

The arrest of Isaiah by Manasseh takes place in Ascension 3:1-12, when Isaiah is accused of

blasphemy by the false prophet Belchira. Isaiah’s claim to have seen God is contrary to the

teaching of Moses. The ability of a human to see God was a longstanding dispute within

Judaism, presented in the Babylonian Talmud (Yebamot 49b) as an apparent disagreement

between Exodus 33:20 and Isaiah 6:1. Jonathan Knight has summarized the dispute as it relates

to Ascension (1995: 52-53). After two apparent interpolations, the story of Isaiah is resumed in

5:1-16, when Manasseh has him sawn in two. During the process, Isaiah is mocked by the false

prophets but does not cry out. Instead, he is consumed by a vision and instructs his followers to

flee to Tyre and Sidon. The manner of Isaiah’s death and the circumstances surrounding it

provide a tantalizing addition to the accounts of persecution and martyrdom which we have

examined thus far. Perhaps the most obvious question is how this text is related to Hebrews

11:37. The image is so vivid that it is difficult to ignore. If there is a relationship between these

texts, then the usual three possibilities exist. Either of them could be literarily dependent upon

the other, or both could draw on a common earlier tradition. A common earlier tradition is

possible. The Mishnah contains the tradition that Mannaseh killed Isaiah (Sanhedrin 103b), but

it does not report the means of execution, and neither does the Babylonian Talmud. The

Jerusalem Talmud, however, expands this tradition and provides a story in which Isaiah flees

from Manasseh and hides inside a tree. Manasseh discovers the hiding place and orders the tree
to be sawed down. In this process, Isaiah is killed by the saw (Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 10, 28c).

So the manner of death is similar, but the situation is quite different from the dramatic trial and

martyrdom scene in the Ascension of Isaiah.

The final forms of these Rabbinic sources are later than Hebrews or Ascension, though

not by much in the case of the Mishnah, but they are based upon oral traditions which are likely

earlier, so their possible interaction with these Christian documents is difficult to evaluate.

Dependence in either direction between Hebrews and Ascension is possible. On the one hand, it

is hard to imagine the writer of Hebrews, who has catalogued so many names in the eleventh

chapter, taking this horrific means of execution from Ascension and omitting the name of Isaiah,

a character who is prominent in early Christian writings, as exhibited in the rest of the New

Testament. On the other hand, the primary purpose of Heb 11 is to praise the faith of Israelites

of the past, so a reference to an Israelite king killing a prophet might disrupt this effort. The

martyrdom portion of Ascension cannot be dependent on Heb 11:37 alone, since the latter

provides only a means of execution, with no characters or story to go with it. So, at most, this

one element is borrowed, while the Mishnaic reference makes it fairly certain that Manasseh’s

participation is taken from an earlier Jewish tradition. It should be noted that in the rabbinic

sources the story of Isaiah and Mannasseh is told to explain why Mannasseh will not attain an

afterlife in the world to come, rather than to praise the faith of Isaiah.

The final form of the story of Isaiah’s martyrdom is, therefore, a combination of many

ideas. The combination process seems distinctly Christian in character and has three sources: 1)

The general tradition of persecution and killing of prophets, which is rare in the Hebrew canon,

but seems to have been a developing idea in Christianity and Judaism by this time, 2) a vivid
tradition of trial and martyrdom that runs from Daniel to 2 Maccabees to the New Testament,

and 3) a Jewish legend that Manasseh executed Isaiah.

Martyrdom in The Lives of the Prophets

The document commonly known as The Lives of the Prophets is remarkable in nature. It

consists of biographical notices of widely varying length concerning twenty-three characters. It

begins with Isaiah and continues through the characters whose names match the biblical

prophetic books, including Daniel in his position in the Christian canon between Ezekiel and

Hosea. Following these sixteen prophets are seven others who appear in various places in the

Hebrew canon: Nathan, Ahijah, Joed, Azariah, Zechariah ben Jehoiada, Elijah, and Elisha. Four

of these seven (Nathan, Ahijah, Elijah, and Elisha) are well know characters in the Former

Prophets. Two others, Azariah and Zechariah ben Jehoiada, are known only from 2 Chronicles

15 and 24:20-22, respectively. The account of “Joed” corresponds to the strange story of the

“man of God” in 1 Kgs 13. Charles C. Torrey has summarized the complex traditions relating to

this character’s name (1946: 46). Like the Ascension of Isaiah, the date and provenance of Lives

are a matter of difficulty and dispute. As David Satran has aptly noted, “There can be few

phenomena more fascinating, or frustrating, than the intersection and potential inseparability of

early Jewish and Christian literatures” (1995: 2). Satran’s important “reassessment” of the Lives

of the Prophets fits within the general trend of calling into question older assumptions about

Jewish origins of much of the material generally assigned to the collection frequently called the

“Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.” He places the final form of this work in the late third or early

fourth century, and considers it a work of early Byzantine Christianity (1995: 62-63). George W.

E. Nickelsburg has summarized the general problem that, like many of these texts, the only
extant manuscripts of Lives are clearly Christian products (2005: 301). An alternative position

has been taken by Anna Marie Schwemer in her two volume work on Lives of the Prophets. She

argues for a first century Jewish original that was expanded by Christians at a later date. Most

notably, she contends that the account of Isaiah’s death in Lives precedes the expanded story in

the Ascension of Isaiah. The brevity of the reports in Lives and lack of attention to martyrdom,

along with great interest in the geography of their burial sites, all reflect first century Palestinian

interests (1995: 55-70). M. De Jonge mediates this argument well. Most significant for this

essay is De Jonge’s recognition of the lack of glorification of the prophets, particularly in terms

of the manner of their deaths, a feature that was developing in both Jewish and Christian

martyrology in late antiquity (2003: 45-47). It seems safe to conclude that there are elements of

both Jewish and Christian origin in Lives of the Prophets and that they cannot always be reliably

separated.

Most significant for this study is the common inclusion of death notices for the prophetic

figures in Lives of the Prophets. Six of the twenty-three prophetic figures in this work die

violently. The account of Isaiah’s death is brief, but matches the story of him being sawn in two

by Manasseh found in The Ascension of Isaiah, and it is difficult to imagine that it is not related

to that account. The stoning of Jeremiah by “Jews” in Egypt is a well know extra-biblical

tradition. An expanded version of the account is found in the work known as Paralipomena

Ieremiou. Ezekiel was murdered by an unnamed “leader” of the exilic community, whom he

accused of idol worship. The son of Amaziah, with whose father Amos had significant, but non-

lethal, conflict in Amos 7, killed Amos by striking him on the head. Ahab’s son, Joram, killed

Micah by throwing him from a cliff. The only account of a violent death which parallels a

biblical account is that of Zechariah ben Jehoiada, which matches 2 Chr 24 closely. The
remaining seventeen prophets are often described as having peaceful deaths and honorable

burials. The six violent deaths which are present are reported with such remarkable brevity that

it is difficult to say whether the resistance of the executioner or the faith of the dying prophet is

the more important narrative purpose of the account. Again, the assessment of Satran is on

point: “This is hardly the stuff of full-fledged martyrology” (1995: 52). Still, because these

death notices are contained within biographies of the prophets which exemplify their faith in

other more prominent ways, such as the performing of miracles, this purpose for the execution

accounts makes the most sense. In every case, it is Israelites who commit the act of murder,

though only in the case of Jeremiah is more than one individual blamed.

Satran goes on to argue against the earlier notion that these notices of violent death

connect Lives of the Prophets to Jewish contexts. The accounts of the deaths are more closely

connected to Christian sources. These six prophets, in precisely this order, for example, are

those who greet the Apostle Paul in the Apocalypse of Paul (1995: 55). This issue affects the

attempt to develop a trajectory here. Does the brief, tame account of Isaiah’s death in Lives

come before or after the florid account in Ascension? In terms of the origins of the shorter

account, this question cannot be answered with confidence, however, because the finished form

of Lives is surely later, we can conclude that this combination of a martyrdom story and the

killing of a prophet did not continue to expand in this trajectory of texts.

Conclusion

Tracing a trajectory of the traditions of martyrdom and the killing of prophets is

extremely difficult for several reasons. First, the texts above are not easy to place in

chronological order. For example, if the Ascension of Isaiah and the Lives of the Prophets are

Christian texts, might their authors have searched the New Testament for a unique method of
death by which Isaiah could die, and they found one in Hebrews 11:37? On the other hand, if the

tradition of Isaiah being sawn in two predates the writing of Hebrews, whether in a written

source used by the Ascension of Isaiah or in oral form, then Hebrews may be referring to Isaiah

at this place. Second, these texts were produced and used by very different sets of religious

communities. Here is where I believe we can draw some helpful distinctions.

Within Jewish texts, there are two kinds of stories about people being mistreated because

of their faithful behavior. The deaths of Uriah ben Shemaiah in Jer 26, Zechariah ben Jehoiada

in 2 Chr 24, and Isaiah in the Mishnah and Talmud are all deaths of Israelite prophets at the

hands of other Israelites, reported to demonstrate the wickedness of the killers – Jehoiakin,

Joash, and Mannaseh. The other type is demonstrated by the near deaths of Daniel, the three

young men, and Mordecai, and Eleazar and the woman and her seven sons in II Maccabees.

These are all mistreated or killed by foreigners, and the stories are reported for the purpose of

praising the faith of these exemplary Jews. The only case which does not fit easily into either of

these patterns is the set of stories involving Jezebel, but this is a case where the element of

persecution seems only incidental to the main story, a story of the confrontation between Elijah

and Jezebel, in which Elijah is the ultimate victor.

It is in Christian traditions that these elements become significantly mixed. In the cases

of Jesus and Stephen, it is difficult to say whether the wickedness of the persecutors or the faith

of the persecuted is the primary point. Both are on full display in the narratives. Moreover, it is

not clear whether these are cases of internal or external persecution. Jesus is a Jew, but the

gospels have him killed by Romans and Jews together. Stephen is killed by Jews, but he is

identified in Acts as a Hellenistic Jewish Christian. The final form of the Ascension of Isaiah

continues this mixing, bringing together the killing of a prophet with a more elaborate
martyrdom story. Manasseh does the killing, as in the Mishnaic and Talmudic accounts, but the

purpose of the story is to demonstrate the faithfulness of Isaiah in the midst of a brutal execution.

This mixture of propheticide and martyrdom is expanded in quantity, but not in quality, in Lives

of the Prophets. Violent executions still did not become the norm for prophets. The closest

Jewish parallel to the execution stories in Lives is the tradition which finds explicit expression in

the eleventh century Midrash Aggada by Moshe Hardashan, but even though this work places

greater emphasis on the executions of six prophetic figures, two of whom are found in Lives, the

purpose of the stories is still to demonstrate the unfaithfulness of those who killed them (Amaru,

1983: 155-156).

Finally, returning to the question raised at the beginning of this essay, concerning the

statements of Jesus in Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47, which make this prophet-killing charge so

visible and problematic. It is impossible to demonstrate precisely what was behind this charge.

There are the few examples of killing prophets in Jewish literature preceding the New

Testament, which are discussed above, and these may provide a source for the assumption

behind the accusation, but they are hardly common enough to sustain the seriousness of the

charge. The gospel writers seem to be playing with a vague idea with just enough substance to

be summoned up when necessary. The function of these statements within the gospels and their

sources, and within the communities that produced them is a question that has received

significant attention elsewhere. Depending upon the interpreter’s preferred solution to the

Synoptic Problem, the saying made its way into the text through the Matthean, Lukan, or Q

communities. Robert L. Miller, for example has argued that the sayings support the cause of a

group within the Q community who understood themselves s prophets and were in conflict with

Jerusalem (1988:238-240). Whatever the purpose, what makes the saying possible? The
inclusion of this accusation within the story of Jesus, and Stephen to a lesser extent, may serve as

the occasion for the useful combination of two very different Jewish ideas about persecution, a

mixing that became more prominent in Christian writings after the New Testament.

Works cited

Amaru, Betsy Halpern. 1983. The Killing of Prophets: Unraveling a Midrash. HEBREW
UNION COLLEGE ANNUAL 54: 153-180.

Carroll, Robert P. 1986. JEREMIAH: A COMMENTARY. Old Testament Library.

Philadelphia, PA: Westminster.

De Jonge, M. 2003. PSEUDEPIGRAPHA OF THE OLD TESTAMENT AS PART OF

CHRISTIAN LITERATURE: THE CASE OF THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE
PATRIARCHS AND THE GREEK LIFE OF ADAM AND EVE. Leiden, Holland:
Brill.

Evans, Craig A. 2001. Scripture-based Stories in the Pseudepigrapha. JUSTIFICATION AND

VARIEGATED NOMISM: VOLUME 1, THE COMPLEXITIES OF SECOND
TEMPLE JUDAISM. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 57-72

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. 1998. THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES: A NEW TRANSLATION WITH
INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY. Anchor Bible: New York: Doubleday.

Goldstein, Jonathan A. 1983. II MACCABEES: A NEW TRANSLATION WITH

INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY. Anchor Bible: Garden City, NJ:
Doubleday.

Hall, Robert G. 1990. The Ascension of Isaiah: Community Situation, Date, and Place in Early
Christianity. JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE 109: 293-296.

1994. Isaiah’s Ascent to See the Beloved: An Ancient Jewish Source for the Ascension of
Isaiah? JBL 113: 471-475.

Japhet, Sara. 1993. I & II CHRONICLES: A COMMENTARY. Old Testament Library:

Louisville, KY.: Westminster.

Knibb, Michael A. 1985. Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah. THE OLD TESTAMENT
PSEUDEPIGRAPHA, vol. 2. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Knight, Jonathan. 1995. THE ASCENSION OF ISAIAH. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic
 Press.

McEntire, Mark. 2004. A Prophetic Chorus of Others: Helping Jeremiah Survive in Jeremiah
26. REVIEW AND EXPOSITOR 101: 301-311.

Miller, Robert J. 1988. The Rejection of the Prophets in Q. JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL

LITERATURE 107: 225-240.

O’Connor, Kathleen M. 1989. “Do Not Trim a Word”: The Contribution of Jeremiah 26 to the
Book of Jeremiah. CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY 51: 617-630.

Nickelsburg, George W. E. 2005. JEWISH LITERATURE BETWEEN THE BIBLE AND THE
MISHNAH, 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Satran, David. 1995. BIBLICAL PROPHETS IN BYZANTINE PALESTINE: REASSESSING

THE LIVES OF THE PROPHETS. Leiden, Holland: Brill.

Schwemer, Anna Maria. 1995. STUDIEN ZU DEN FRÜHJÜDISCHEN

PROPHETENLEGENDEN VITAE PROPHETARUM, vol. 1. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr.

Tabor, James D. 1992. Martyr, Martyrdom. THE ANCHOR BIBLE DICTIONARY, vol. 4. New
York, NY: Doubleday: 575-576.

Torrey, Charles Cutler. 1946. THE LIVES OF THE PROPHETS: GREEK TEXT AND
TRANSLATION. Philadelphia, PA: Society of Biblical Literature.

Table 1

External Source of Internal Source of

Persecution Persecution

Stories in which Israelites/Jews Stories in which

are attacked by outsiders in
which the resistance of the
Primary narrative attacker is emphasized. E. g. 2
purpose is to Kgs 17-21, specifically Jezebel
demonstrate the against Elijah and the other
resistance or lack of Israelite prophets.
faith of the persecutor.
Stories in which Israelites/Jews
Israelites/Jews are
attacked by other
Israelites/Jews in which
the resistance of the
attacker is emphasized.
E. g. Jer 26 and 2 Chr
24:20-22, the Passion
Narratives in the
Gospels, Acts 7(?)
Stories in which
 are attacked by outsiders in Israelites/Jews are
Primary Narrative which the faith of the persecuted attacked by other
purpose is to is emphasized. E. g. Dan 4 and Israelites/ Jews in which
demonstrate the faith of 6, 2 Mac 6-7. the faith of the
the persecuted one(s). persecuted is
emphasized. Ascension
of Isaiah?