Haenchen calls this third announcement of Jesus’ suffering unhistorical, because the attitude of the disciples at the arrest and interrogation becomes incomprehensible if they had heard about it beforehand in so much detail.1 Here the power of unbelief remains unrestrained. How many people are there also today who ignore in unbelief much that in Scripture has been clearly foretold? The fact that all three evangelists mention the three announcements with a great deal of agreement cannot be explained if later on they were each adding (unhistorical) details to their story. It in fact shows how deeply these three announcements penetrated the disciples’ consciousness. And (though at first they ignored them) after Easter their hearts were opened, and then the memory speaks accurately and in the affirmative.2
33 saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles.