What Jesus Rode

A reader is having difficulty with a Muslim who is trying to make apologetic hay with Matthew 21:7, which records that Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem involved both an ass and its colt, with the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke, which mention only the colt. These passages record the fulfillment of a Messianic prophecy in Zechariah 9:9, which can be read as either prophesying the use of one or two animals.

The reader writes:

The Moslem is making an argument that Matthew is being stupid by suggesting that Jesus is riding on TWO asses. He also stated that ONLY MATTHEW wrote about an Ass and a Colt but the other Evangelists don’t, so this mean Matthew is erroneous and is a Gentile (he insisted that Matthew is a gentile and not the Apostle. I disagree because the Church long held believe that Matthew the gospel writer is the same as Matthew the Apostle [altough the erroneous NAB commentary proposed otherwise]

I need to prove that the wording in the original writing means only ONE ASS in Matthew 21:7

However from people at Catholic-convert.com. It turned out that the original Greek said “Them,” implying that Jesus was riding on two animals. (Jimmy I need your language help on the original Greek too)

We then try to propose a solution that the “them” is referring to the “garments” which Jesus sat on. This argument is not pretty assuring although not entirely wrong. The “them” in Mat 21:7 could pass as referring to the “two animals” or the “garments”

In regard to the other evangelists, my argument to the Moslem is that they didn’t mention the Ass because it’s not necessary to fulfill Zach 9:9. But the Ass WAS there, it just didn’t get mentioned.

Okay, here’s some thoughts:

1. The original prophecy in Zechariah can be read either as involving one or two animals. Both readings are acceptable given the Hebrew of the passage.

2. If memory serves, the prophecy has been taken both ways by Jewish interpreters, though I wouldn’t use make this claim in discussions with your Muslim acquaintance unless I can check it out and verify it. I simply mention it for your background at this point.

3. The Greek of Matthew 21:7 definitely indicates that there were two animals involved.

4. The use of two animals is not implausible. As has often been pointed out, the colt was young and had never been ridden before. Having it follow its mother (and possibly having it tied to its mother) would have had a steadying effect on it and made it easier to ride.

5. There is no contradiction between Matthew and the other Evangelists regarding the number of animals. Matthew is simply giving more details of what happened at the event. This is a common occurrence in the gospels. Different authors mention different details about what happened in Jesus’ minsitry, which is the whole point of having several different accounts–i.e., so that they can supplement each other. In fact, the Qur’an does exactly the same thing. In the Qur’an Muhammad (endlessly) repeats the story of Noah and the Flood, giving different details on different occasions (and often getting them wrong).

6. The Greek of Matthew 21:7 can be taken to mean either that Jesus sat on both animals or that he sat on the garments placed on one animal.

One could argue that the former interpretation is more likely on two grounds: (a) the verse says that the garments were placed “on them” (i.e., on both animals) and if the garments were placed on both animals this suggests that both were to be ridden, (b) the verse says that “they led the ass and the colt, and they laid on them the garments, and he sat upon them” (my literal translation from the Greek); in this the second occurrence of the word “them” (autOn) is most naturally taken from a word-repetition point of view as having the same referent as the first occurrence of the word, which is clearly being used to refer to the ass and the colt.

However, one could respond by pointing out (a) that there is a lot of flexibility in language, and Matthew could have used “them” differently in the second instance, and (b) in the Greek word order, the nearest preceding plural noun to the second occurrence of “them” is “garments” (as in the translation I gave above). This makes “garments” the more natural referent for the second “them” from a word-order point of view.

From this it is clear that a word-repetition point of view would support the “them” = “ass + colt” hypothesis, while a word-order point of view would support the “them” = “garments” hypothesis.

This leaves unaffected the fact that the garments are said to be placed “on them,” but if Matthew is speaking of the ass and colt as a unit (which he clearly is since one pronoun is used for both) then placing the garments on one “of them” is sufficient for saying that the garments were placed “on them” (without requiring that they were placed on both “of them”). If the latter is what Matthew meant then the garments might have been placed on only one animal (i.e., the colt), and Jesus rode only that animal.

In any event, both interpretations are possible given the Greek.

7. If the verse is interpeted to mean that Jesus rode both animals then this does not entail a physical difficulty or impossibility. He could have ridden them in turn (i.e., he first rode one, then the other). Hypothetically, if the two were side by side and one was much smaller, he could have ridden one and placed a foot on the other, though this is less likely.

8. Given the ambiguity of the Hebrew prophecy, it is not implausible that Jesus would want to have two animals involved in the event. Nor is it implausible that he would want to ride both animals, most likely in turn. Doing these things would make it especially clear to that the prophecy was being fulfilled.

9. If there were Jews in Jesus’ day who took the “two animals” interpretation, it would be even more valuable to fulfill the prophecy in this way to make it clear to them in particular that the prophecy was fulfilled.

10. There is no support whatsoever in this for the idea that Matthew was a gentile. That the author or authors of Matthew were Jewish is not contested by anybody, even by those who (wrongly) claim that the author was different than Matthew the apostle. Matthew’s gospel is clearly the most traditionally Jewish of all the gospels in its outlook, which strongly indicates Jewish authorship.

11. In fact, the “two animals” interpetation corresponds particularly well with the interpretive rules in use in first century Judaism, which tended to see more distinctions and more entities in a text, though grammatically the text could be read as involving fewer distinctions or entitites. The “two animals” interpretation thus supports rather than diminishes the Jewish authorship of Matthew.

I would also note that you are likely encountering a phenomenon that is common in Muslim anti-Christian apologetics. Some Muslim apologists will produce lengthy lists of alleged Bible contradictions that have clearly been plagiarized from Western sources (i.e., taken from Western sources without acknowledgement, as if the Muslims had done their own original research). These charges have been refuted over and over again. Indeed, at times one can be given the impression that the Muslim authors are plagiarizing from the very books written to explain the alleged contradictions and are hypocritically suppressing the explanations that resolve them. Your Muslim acquaintance likely is drawing his argument from such a plagiarized Muslim catalog of Bible “contradictions.”

It is difficult to take such Muslim catalogs seriously, both because the alleged contradictions have long been satisfactorily explained by Christians and because the Qur’an is filled with contradictions and absurdities that dwarf anything alleged regarding the Bible.