130. - Collection Point® | The Total Digital Asset Management System

3. The Structure of Individual Sections of Zechariah 195
with 9.4 (fire devours) and 10.2ff. (shepherds), and in doing so, to
prepare for the shepherd allegory of 11.4ff.
I conclude that 9.1-11.3 is to be thought of as an editorial unity and
interpreted as a whole. We need, therefore, to put aside patchwork
theories of complilation once and for all. 1
Comparison with the editorial methods shown in Zechariah 1-8,
shows this first section of Zechariah 9-14 to be very different. There
is still, apparently, a concern for literary structure, but:
1. The units are not so clearly marked off.
2. The structures are less precisely indicated by repeated words,
and so forth.
3. There is much more inter-relationship between different subsections
of the whole.
P.O. Hanson's The Dawn of Apocalyptic
It is of interest to enquire how this result relates to other work in this
field. In Chapter 2 we considered the divisions proposed by scholars,
mainly on the basis of form-critical criteria. Although we have confirmed
the subdivisions of the text and are basically in line with the
scholarly consensus, the suggestion that 9.1-11.3 should be kept
together as an editorial unit is unusual.
One work that goes some way towards this is P.D. Hanson's The
Dawn of Apocalyptic,2 which argues that at least 9.1-17 and 10.1-12
are whole units. Moreover, he regards the writer of Zechariah 10 as
having before him ch. 9, which is a similar situation to what I have
suggested: a redactor may have been responsible for parts of ch. 10,
especially vv. 5 and 11.
Hanson bases his argument on a 'contextual-typological method',
claiming that there is a recognizable 'Divine Warrior Hymn' underlying
Zechariah 9. This he seeks to demonstrate by appealing to
1. However, many older studies were not so much incompatible with, as uninterested
in, the conclusions I have drawn. It could be that many of the differences
noted do derive from different authors and editors. The real incompatibility is that I
have not felt able to prove editorial incompetence.
2. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975. He repeats the same views more briefly
in 'Old Testament Apocalyptic Re-examined', Int 25 (1971), pp. 454-79, reprinted
in Visionaries and their Apocalypses (ed. P.D. Hanson; Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1983), pp. 37-60.