Subject: Christians before Jesus came |
Bible Note: Perhaps you are right. Like I said, I am not the one who believes this. However, consider also II Macc.10 as well about the triumphant purification and rededication of the Jerusalem Temple by Simon Maccabeus after it had been defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes. Also, keep in mind that Jesus seems to be deliberately setting up a literal fulfillment of Zech 9:9. If we say this is an historical account, one could argue that Jesus was showing a 'messianic consciousness' and trying to make sure he fulfilled this because the people (perhaps) thought that it had already been fulfilled. He wanted to be the fulfillment of the IT ideas that has developed in order to demonstrate that he was the Christ. Also, another problem is the Johannine account of this incident clearly specifies that the association of Jesus's entry into Jerusalem with Zech 9:9 was something that occurred in the minds of Jesus's disciples only after his crucifixion/resurrection. John quotes or paraphrases a only a partial version of Zechariah, mentioning only half of the parallelism, and he also eliminates the disciples' role. Another problem here is that the translators of the Septuagint apparently missed the parallelism between Donkey and foal in Zechariah 9 and instead pictured two animals--a donkey and a foal. This translation of in the LXX becomes significant because Matthew used it as a prooftext (used in the nice way) in Matthew 21:2-7, but says that Jesus sends two disciples to fetch a donkey AND a foal 'to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.' It is also interesting that Mark did not make this mistake, yet Matthew did. Do you see what I am saying? The NT authors (and Jesus) were using a pesher method to make Jesus fulfill these IT ideas of the Messiah. Zechariah 9 was never intended to do this. |