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NASB | Matthew 21:7 and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Matthew 21:7 and they brought the donkey and the colt, and placed their coats on them; and Jesus sat on the coats. |
Bible Question:
At Wikipedia.com - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Sunday it says that Matthew fabricated the element of this account of the triumphal entry by adding the donkey and it's colt so as to help fulfill his misinterpretation of the prophesy in Zechariah 9 (the correct interpretation, per Wikipedia, being that it was really only describing a foal alone as is indicative of the poetical style of that day). Matthew is the only gospel to indicate two donkeys I believe. What are your thoughts on Jesus riding two donkeys and the validity of the claim that Matthew fabricated that portion of the story to fit his interpretation of the propheshy? Here is the quote from Wikipedia at the website listed above: "Matthew quotes this passage from Zechariah when narrating the story of Jesus' entry to Jerusalem. His interpreting or even misunderstanding the repetition in the Hebrew poetry as describing two different donkeys: gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. is offered by some Biblical scholars as a reason for Matthew's unique description of Jesus riding both a donkey and its foal." |
Bible Answer: Hi, DPOAG... Your Wikipedia author demonstrates a general ignorance of language, and a particular ignorance of a common Hebrew poetic feature called parallelism. A modern example would be, "I drive a car to work, a sedan." No one thinks that I was speaking of two different cars! :-) Note that Matthew was Hebrew, writing to Hebrews, using Hebrew idioms. Furthermore, looking into the Greek use of the word "kai" in this verse could support this perspective. Another possibility is that the donkey did, indeed, have a foal. Some of the Gospel writers include information that the others do not mention. The Gospel genre is unique. It represents a sermon as much as anything else. It is common for a Gospel author to bring up specific things in order to make explicit points because of the special needs of his particular audience. By the way, Christ frequently said and did things explicitly in order to fulfill prophecy. John states this repeatedly (e.g., John 13:18; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36). In Him, Doc |