Unlocking the Book of Zechariah

The book of Zechariah occupies center stage on multiple fronts in the study of the biblical prophets. It is at once a crucial resource for reconstructing the social world of the Early Persian period and the reckoning with Persian imperialism, a barometer for gauging the reception history of monarchic-era Israelite literary traditions, and a forum for evaluating the nexus between prophecy and the scribal craft.¹ In this last sense, the book of Zechariah plays triple-duty. The literary relationship between its major and distinct component parts (Zechariah 1–8 and 9–14) has long received scholarly attention, as has its uneasy relationship with the book of Haggai.² But the book of Zechariah also holds a special position in the study of the Book of the Twelve (Hosea–Malachi), raising serious questions about the redaction-history of that work.³ Finally, the book of Zechariah has factored significantly into the study of the origins of apocalyptic thought and writing in ancient Judaism, with many scholars arguing for both its visions and ornate explications as a major catalyst in the genre's evolution.⁴

Of course, these issues barely scratch the surface of this overwhelmingly complex literary work, and its classification and interpretation rests largely on a scholar's critical presuppositions. The history of critical scholarship throughout most of the twentieth century saw much disagreement on the compositional character of Zechariah 9–14, but most scholars agreed that it was a supplement of sorts to a coherent collection of oracles in chapters 1–8 that emanate primarily from the historical prophet Zechariah.⁵ Recent decades have seen scholarly investigations that challenge this, promoting models whereby both Zechariah 1–8 and the supplemental material in chapters 9–14 grew into their current form over many centuries through successive, brief scribal additions and redactional recasting.⁶ Such models have, consequently, raised questions about the nature of prophecy in the Persian period, the role of textuality and literacy, and even the degree to which these and related texts (i.e., Haggai, Malachi) can factor into studies regarding the evolution of the Hebrew language.⁷

Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer and Mark J. Boda both stand at the forefront of research on the aforementioned issues attending the study of the book of Zechariah, with each scholar standing behind a major work that moves the needle forward in profoundly important ways. Tiemeyer's monograph focuses primarily on the material in Zechariah 1–8 and builds on an earlier study regarding the vision texts within those chapters.⁸ Boda, by contrast, has produced a commentary that treats the entirety of the book of Zechariah.⁹ As a result, Boda's work is much lengthier than Tiemeyer's (911 pages versus 256 pages), but both works are extremely detailed, delving into their respective sets of subject matter with great rigor and care, and bringing equal degrees of skilled analysis and productive discussion. In what follows, I will address what I regard as the more prominent related issues that arise from each scholar's treatment of the material, and attempt to elucidate the broader implications of their respective analyses as they relate to the study of biblical prophecy and textuality in the Persian period.

Though Tiemeyer and Boda differ in how they approach the material they study, their respective works have a number of notable points of contact. Both Tiemeyer and Boda are invested in discussions of the Book of the Twelve and the long history of its redactional growth, and both scholars recognize the crucial role that Zechariah 1–8 plays within it. Both scholars also recognize that the final form of Zechariah is certainly the result of a long process of transmission and redaction. However, both scholars view much of Zechariah 1–8 as emerging from the writing of the prophet Zechariah himself with...