Kadame,
Can't put it better than Jesus
'the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah,'
Blood of ALL prophets shed from the foundation of the world FROM Abel TO Zechariah. The two are reference points; them and all between them. It would have been absurd/illogical if outside the ALL from Abel to Zechariah you had others
Point remains,
Jesus defined ALL, am with Jesus on this one
I don't think Jesus is with you, though. If he was defining ALL the prophets, where would you place St. John the Baptist, the greatest of them all, according to Jesus?
The problem is you are trying to force Jesus to say things he never did, so you are making Jesus contradict Jesus in order to help vooke make a point. That whole verse in context:
Woe to you! You build the memorials of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. 48 Consequently, you bear witness and give consent to the deeds of your ancestors, for they killed them and you do the building. 49 Therefore, the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and persecute' 50 in order that this generation might be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah who died between the altar and the temple building. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!
Jesus condemning Pharisees for pretending to honour prophets whose example they did not follow, it is to these prophets honoured by pharisees that "ALL" refers to.
kadame,
John had just been slain and there was no record of John in the Hebrew canon. Jesus himself excluded himself from that. On the other hand, the apocrypha had existed for hundreds of years before he said this word. This verse clearly shows what Jesus deemed as prophets and who he didn't.
Apocrypha are good for historical value but zero doctrine. Deriving a doctrine from there at the expense of the scriptures is desperation incarnate.
vooke, those reasons you've cited are good reasons why your interpretation is false. Jesus was not even talking about a canon of scripture. He simply referred to prophets whom the Pharisees honoured. It was YOU who claimed that Jesus' use of ALL amounts to an exhaustive list of prophets. Its clearly not. Therefore the whole point is moot. Jesus was talking to people who recognized certain people as "all" the prophets, clearly not recognizing either him or John, he was not binding himself to their beliefs but rather debating them on their own terms, exactly as he did with sadduccees.
You have no basis to say what is scripture. Jesus lived in a time in which the Septuagint was read in virtually all synagogues on Saturdays, assuming he saw that and never condemned it, IS what is desperation, something yo can only assume if you already accept the later canon of Pharisees done to counter Christian claims about Jesus being the Messiah.