Straddling Two Donkeys?

 

Straddling Two Donkeys?

Brett A. Todd

Every year on Palm Sunday, churches around the world celebrate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “Hosanna; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!”  Some churches even have Palm Sunday pageants with people in costume waving their palms, and a real donkey walking down the aisle of the church.  But never have I heard or seen two donkeys walking down the church aisle, it’s always one donkey.  Makes sense, doesn’t it? How could Jesus ride two donkeys at one time?

All four of the Gospels in the Bible tell the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem as the crowds laid down their coats and/or palm branches (John 12:13) for Jesus to ride over as he made his way to Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-9; Mark 11:10; Luke 19:28-48; John 12:12-19).  But in Matthew’s story, we are told he rode not only on a donkey but also on a colt, two donkeys at the same time.  This is how it reads, Matthew 21:7:

they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.

What is going on?  Certainly, Jesus was not riding the donkey and the colt at the same time, was he?

Some attempts have been made to reconcile and harmonize Matthew’s reading with the other three Gospels (Mark, Luke, and John).  Let me share a couple of interpretations with you.  First, some believe when Matthew said Jesus “sat on them”, he was actually using a loose form of speech to mean “one of them”.   An example of this loose form of speech would be, “he jumped off the cliffs”, but in reality, he only jumped from one cliff.  

Another interpretation goes like this: when Matthew said, “sat on them” what he was referring to was the cloaks they put on the donkeys.  So when Jesus sat on one donkey, he was actually sitting on several cloaks (them).   Mistakenly, some Bible translators have taken it upon themselves to make their translations read as though there was only one donkey when the New Testament Greek is clear, there are two donkeys.  

I know, I know, this all gets quite confusing, doesn’t it? Let me offer you what I believe is a much more accurate and simpler interpretation.   Instead of doing a “song and a dance”, let’s just admit that Matthew messed up.  In his zealous attempt to make Jesus’ victorious entry into Jerusalem a fulfillment of Scripture (Zacheriah 9:9), Matthew botched up the story.

For many Christians, it is difficult to admit that the Bible is not perfect.  The image they have in their mind is God manually guiding the hands of the authors of the Bible so there would be no mistakes.  Well, guess what, there are mistakes and a lot of them.  There is also a good reason for these mistakes: God was not the one with a reed pen and parchment in hand, it was men, men who make mistakes.

In our next study, we will discuss another source the Gospel writers used in writing their stories.  For some, it is surprising to find out that they used pagan literature.