Q: In Matthew 21:2-7, Jesus is presented riding both an ass and a colt into Jerusalem. That would have looked a bit like a circus performance. Isnt this absurd, besides being a contradiction with the parallels in Mark 11:7, Luke 19:35, and John 12:14? Mark and Luke say that Jesus rode only on a colt.
A: This question is dealt with at www.apologeticspress.org/articles/595 ; parts of my response overlap parts of the material there. Most of the differences between Matthews account and the parallels are merely matters of detail-selection -- i.e., Matthew mentions the mother-donkey and the other authors do not. Mark and Luke dont say that the only animal present was the young donkey; they merely mention only the young donkey. Thats not a contradiction, any more than it would be a contradiction for one person to say that Ralph drove a pick-up truck to work, while another person reports that Ralph Smith drove a pick-up truck to work pulling a wagon.
However, some skeptics -- probably inheriting the idea from D. F. Strauss -- look at this (and at the passage as a whole) and propose that Matthew, desiring to depict Jesus literally fulfilling Zechariah 9:9 as translated in the Septuagint, made the mistake of misinterpreting that passages appositive phrase (i.e., in the phrase riding on an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass, the and means even or to be specific) and on that basis he wrote the mother-donkey into the story.
However, theres no way, looking from here to there, to verify that. Matthews personal recollection of the presence of the mother-donkey would sufficiently explain why he would mention both animals -- not only to provide a historical detail, but also to mention both of the animals that are mentioned in Zechariah 9:9 (i.e., the foal and its mother). The prophecy is adequately fulfilled with or without the presence of the mother-donkey being explicitly mentioned (since every donkey-foal is the offspring of a donkey), unless one supposes that Matthew misinterpreted the appositive phrase in Zechariah 9:9. Also, its a bit more difficult to insist that Matthew invented the mother-donkey so that Zechariah 9:9 would be precisely fulfilled when one notices that Matthew did not even bother to quote Zechariah 9:9 exactly as it appears in the Septuagint; he prefaces it with a phrase from Isaiah 62:11.
The extra details in Matthew simply do not add up to a contradiction against the other accounts. Justin Martyr, a writer in the early church, mentioned that the young donkey was tied with a vine, thus fulfilling the pattern of Genesis 49:11, even though the specific mention of a vine rather than a rope is not mentioned in the Gospels at all (in Justins First Apology ch. 32, which is online at www.earlychristianwriting...ology.html ). That doesnt mean that Justin contradicted the Gospels.
The phrase at the center of the objection is, istm, Matthew 21:7, where the disciples brought the ass and the colt and put their garments on them, and He sat thereon. Some skeptics imagine that Matthew intended for his readers to picture Jesus riding into Jerusalem performing a rodeo-trick or something -- straddling both animals at the same time. However, there are clearly other ways of interpreting the verse -- such as the interpretation that by the second them, Matthew refers to the garments, not to the animals.
Groucho Marx had a joke that went something like this: When I was on safari in Africa, I was awoken by a terrible noise in the middle of the night. I grabbed my rifle, rushed out of bed, and shot an elephant in my pajamas. How that elephant got into my pajamas Ill never know. I mention this because that joke illustrates (in reverse, I suppose, but it still illustrates) the way that people naturally resolve ambiguities in descriptions of events. Here in Matthew 21:7, there is some ambiguity in the way the events are described, but Matthew assumes that his readers will naturally resolve the ambiguity via common sense. He /could/ have added a parenthetical note to point out that although there were garments on both animals, Jesus only sat on the garments that were on the young colt, but he did not, for the same reason that if a safari-guide were to actually reminisce about the time when he got out of bed in the middle of the night and shot an elephant in his pajamas, he would not feel obligated to explain that he, not the elephant, was wearing pajamas.
To augment this point, one may observe that Matthew changed prepositions in 21:7. Epanw was, as far as I know, never used to refer to riding on the back of an animal (or animals), so this made it all the more natural for readers (Matthews original Greek-speaking readers, particularly) to understand that the second them refers to the disciples garments, not to the donkeys.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: This question is dealt with at www.apologeticspress.org/articles/595 ; parts of my response overlap parts of the material there. Most of the differences between Matthews account and the parallels are merely matters of detail-selection -- i.e., Matthew mentions the mother-donkey and the other authors do not. Mark and Luke dont say that the only animal present was the young donkey; they merely mention only the young donkey. Thats not a contradiction, any more than it would be a contradiction for one person to say that Ralph drove a pick-up truck to work, while another person reports that Ralph Smith drove a pick-up truck to work pulling a wagon.
However, some skeptics -- probably inheriting the idea from D. F. Strauss -- look at this (and at the passage as a whole) and propose that Matthew, desiring to depict Jesus literally fulfilling Zechariah 9:9 as translated in the Septuagint, made the mistake of misinterpreting that passages appositive phrase (i.e., in the phrase riding on an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass, the and means even or to be specific) and on that basis he wrote the mother-donkey into the story.
However, theres no way, looking from here to there, to verify that. Matthews personal recollection of the presence of the mother-donkey would sufficiently explain why he would mention both animals -- not only to provide a historical detail, but also to mention both of the animals that are mentioned in Zechariah 9:9 (i.e., the foal and its mother). The prophecy is adequately fulfilled with or without the presence of the mother-donkey being explicitly mentioned (since every donkey-foal is the offspring of a donkey), unless one supposes that Matthew misinterpreted the appositive phrase in Zechariah 9:9. Also, its a bit more difficult to insist that Matthew invented the mother-donkey so that Zechariah 9:9 would be precisely fulfilled when one notices that Matthew did not even bother to quote Zechariah 9:9 exactly as it appears in the Septuagint; he prefaces it with a phrase from Isaiah 62:11.
The extra details in Matthew simply do not add up to a contradiction against the other accounts. Justin Martyr, a writer in the early church, mentioned that the young donkey was tied with a vine, thus fulfilling the pattern of Genesis 49:11, even though the specific mention of a vine rather than a rope is not mentioned in the Gospels at all (in Justins First Apology ch. 32, which is online at www.earlychristianwriting...ology.html ). That doesnt mean that Justin contradicted the Gospels.
The phrase at the center of the objection is, istm, Matthew 21:7, where the disciples brought the ass and the colt and put their garments on them, and He sat thereon. Some skeptics imagine that Matthew intended for his readers to picture Jesus riding into Jerusalem performing a rodeo-trick or something -- straddling both animals at the same time. However, there are clearly other ways of interpreting the verse -- such as the interpretation that by the second them, Matthew refers to the garments, not to the animals.
Groucho Marx had a joke that went something like this: When I was on safari in Africa, I was awoken by a terrible noise in the middle of the night. I grabbed my rifle, rushed out of bed, and shot an elephant in my pajamas. How that elephant got into my pajamas Ill never know. I mention this because that joke illustrates (in reverse, I suppose, but it still illustrates) the way that people naturally resolve ambiguities in descriptions of events. Here in Matthew 21:7, there is some ambiguity in the way the events are described, but Matthew assumes that his readers will naturally resolve the ambiguity via common sense. He /could/ have added a parenthetical note to point out that although there were garments on both animals, Jesus only sat on the garments that were on the young colt, but he did not, for the same reason that if a safari-guide were to actually reminisce about the time when he got out of bed in the middle of the night and shot an elephant in his pajamas, he would not feel obligated to explain that he, not the elephant, was wearing pajamas.
To augment this point, one may observe that Matthew changed prepositions in 21:7. Epanw was, as far as I know, never used to refer to riding on the back of an animal (or animals), so this made it all the more natural for readers (Matthews original Greek-speaking readers, particularly) to understand that the second them refers to the disciples garments, not to the donkeys.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
