Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
-- Luke 11:49ff.
The interpretation is wholly in keeping with one Jewish interpretation of the suffering servant of Isaiah 52f. as referring to the Nation of Israel itself and not to an individual. Since Christians adopted the latter view, Luke's testimony to this point of view flies in the face of the subsequent Christian understanding, to which Luke himself is also witness in Acts 8. But Luke shines as an historian in this capacity, as in so many other instances, uniquely preserving interpretations, traditions and sayings of the Lord which when taken together appear to leave an incoherent mess, but when properly analyzed and appreciated preserve what we believe to be the historical Jesus' original eschatological message. According to that interpretation, the Son of Man would descend with God's armies of angels to exact from Israel the penalty of sin, the Temple would be destroyed, and all who had not repented would perish. The idea that Jesus came to die for sins is wholly alien to it.
