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Loading...Tomorrow is Palm Sunday, the day on which Christians commemorate Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem. It is a terrific holiday in the Christian calendar, a celebration of victory and joy, prior to the dark events to occur at the end of the week on Good Friday.
The historian would want to know: did it really happen? Did Jesus really ride into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey to the acclamation of the crowds proclaiming him to be the coming messiah, laying down their cloaks and palm branches before him in full celebration? It’s a *terrific* story; a climax of Jesus’ ministry, in a sense. Is it historical?
I deal the question in my book Jesus Before the Gospels and will excerpt the discussion here. This will take two posts. This one sets the stage and the next one asks how we can figure out if it really happened.
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The Triumphal Entry
There seems to be no reason to doubt that Jesus spent the last week of his life in Jerusalem looking ahead to the celebration of the Passover feast. Passover was by far the busiest time of the year in Jerusalem, when the city would swell many times its normal size as Jewish pilgrims from around the year would come to enjoy the feast in the capital city. They would normally arrive a week early to prepare for the big day.
The festival was, and is, celebrated to commemorate the exodus of the children of Israel from their slavery in Egypt during the days of Moses, over a millennium before the birth of Jesus. The historical basis for the feast is given in the book of Exodus. There we are told that the people of Israel had been in Egypt for centuries and had been enslaved there. God, though, heard their cries of despair and sent a great leader, Moses, who through his miracle-working power brought the Israelites – well over a million of them – out from their slavery and eventually brought them to the Promised Land.[1] Jewish people throughout the world have celebrated this great exodus event, in some respects the founding event for the people of Israel, once a year at Passover. Since the festive meal in the days of Jesus was to involve eating a sacrificed lamb, the only place on earth to celebrate it properly was in Jerusalem, as it was only there, in the temple, that animal sacrifices could be made to God. And so those who had the time and money to do so would come to Jerusalem for the feast.
It would be a mistake, though, to think that most Jews in Palestine were celebrating this feast out of purely antiquarian interests, to recall what God had once done many centuries before in freeing his people from the bondage of a foreign oppressor. In the first century, Israel was once again subject to another power, this time not Egypt but Rome. Many Jews surely anticipated that as God had acted on behalf of his people in the past, so he would do once more in the future, liberating his oppressed people from the tyranny of a foreign power.
The Roman rulers of Palestine understood full well that this time of year was especially incendiary. Not only were there large crowds of Jews in Jerusalem, but some of these crowds were eager to drive the Romans out of the Promised Land, or to have God do so. The Roman governor, in this case Pontius Pilate, normally stayed at his palatial residence on the Mediterranean coast in Caesarea. But Passover was one time of the year when he would come to stay in Jerusalem, along with his troops, which he would station around the city in order to quell any problems that arose, to squelch any riots before they got out of hand.
That is the historical reality of Passover around the year 30 CE, when Jesus and a group of his followers came to the city along with thousands of other pilgrims for the festival. That reality itself should call into question the memory of how Jesus arrived in town, in the episode known throughout Christian history as the Triumphal Entry.
In our earliest version, found now in Mark 11, as Jesus and his disciples draw near to the walls of Jerusalem, he sends two of them into a village to procure for him a colt on which he can ride into town. They do so, and Jesus comes into Jerusalem to the acclamation of the gathered crowds. Some throw garments on the road for him to ride over; others cut leafy branches from the fields. The throng of people both before and behind him acclaim Jesus to be the new king who has come to restore the kingdom of David to his people: “And they were crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the Kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest” (Mark 11:9-10).
Matthew has an intriguing variation of this memory of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. According to Matthew, Jesus’ ride into town was a fulfilment of Scripture: “This took place in order to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, who said, “Speak to the daughter of Zion, behold the king is coming to you, humble and seated on a donkey, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass” (Matthew 21:5) This is a quotation of the Jewish Scripture (see Isa. 62:11; Zech. 9:9). According to Matthew, Jesus fulfilled the Scripture in an oddly literal way. As is commonly known, in ancient Hebrew poetry, poetic lines were coupled not by rhyming schemes, as with some English poetry, but by various kinds of conceptual parallelism. In a two-line sequence (a couplet) the first line might say something, and the next line might say the same thing in other words; or it might repeat part of the first line with an additional thought; or it might express the opposite side of the same coin. There were several ways such poetry could work. But it was poetry, not straightforward descriptive prose.
The line from Zechariah about one “seated on a donkey, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass” was the first kind of parallelism I just mentioned, where the second part (a colt, the foal of an ass) is saying the same thing as the first part (a donkey), only in other words. Matthew apparently didn’t understand how the parallelism worked. He took it literally. For him, Scripture predicted that there was to be both a donkey and a colt. As a result, in his version, Jesus tells his disciples to secure two animals. They do so. And Jesus rides into down straddling them. It is, needless to say, a very peculiar memory of the event.
But is the event itself an accurate memory? Was there really a Triumphal Entry?
[1] Exodus 1:37 indicates that there were 600,000 men, which does not include the women and children
You say that “The Roman rulers of Palestine understood full well that this time of year was especially incendiary.” While this seems like a reasonable assumption, are you aware of any solid evidence that this was true?
Josephus talks about problems of unrest that arose at Passover, including major clashes with Roman troops.
> Matthew apparently didn’t understand how the parallelism worked.
That seems a bit odd, as Matthew is frequently said to be the “most Jewish of the Gospels.” Is it plausible that he didn’t understand that elementary feature of Hebrew poetry?
Well, a lot of native English speakers don’t understand English poetry either….
Why would “Matthew” understand Hebrew poetry? Wasn’t he a Greek? If not, why did he write in Greek instead of Hebrew?
I believe Jesus went to Jerusalem for Passover believing that God was going to liberate Israel from the Romans just as he had liberated them from Egypt during the original Passover. He wasn’t going there to die for the sins of the world. If so, wouldn’t he have chosen the Day of Atonement, which has to do with forgiveness of sins and entering names into the Book if Life, instead of liberation?
You have to consider the account in John where the “Lamb of God” replaces the Temple sacrifices (hence the author’s passion narrative on the Day of Preparation vs. the synoptic Day of Passover).
What does Matthew’s apparent lack of understanding of the Zechariah passage’s use of parallelism tell you about Matthew’s author(s)? Wouldn’t someone familiar with the Hebrew scripture know about parallelism?
One would think. But a lot of Christians don’t understand the NT either. NT author John Meier uses the passage to show that Matthwe was probably a gentile.
What evidence is there that the “entry” was likely part of a seditious zealot movement? Caiaphas actively sought to prevent open rebellion against Rome lest it escalate and endanger what little autonomy the Temple priests were given by Caesar Augustus. It was Caiaphas who sent out the Temple police to arrest Jesus, most certainly on grounds that Jesus was seditious (rebellious) against Roman authority.
Our evidence is good that Jesus did act politically seditious against Roman authority. Simon the Zealot (Lk. 6:15); Simon Peter who was known as J Bar-jona” (Mt. 16:17) a derivation of of “baryona” Aramaic for “outlaw”, James and John shared the nickname “Boanerges” or in Hebrew “benei ra’ash” “Bar-jona” (Mt. 16:17). And…. the most famous Zealot was Judas Iscariot, “Iscariot” a corruption of the Latin “sicarius” or “knife-man”.
I’d say there wasn’t an entry as described so it could not have been part of a seditious movement. As you probably know, the etymologies of the names you are giving are much debated.
I’ve recently been chasing sedition rather than blasphemy as part of the zealots. Judas refers to Jesus as “Rabbi” a Pharasaic-title (Mk 14:45) albeit with an apocalyptic flavor of fringe Pharasaic thought. I don’t find the The “Jesus as Essene” theory very captivating. JC equipped his followers with swords in anticipation of trouble. (Lk 22:36-38) and at least one scuffled with the Temple police to aid in resisting Jesus’ arrest. (Mk 14:47) – not something an Essene would likely do. For folks to cry “Hosanna!” – a cry of Jewish independence and to not have known the seditious actions that this implied, and the political impact that his act caused, would be incredulous to say the least. (This is in direct contrast with the Gospels which attempt to contradict Jesus’ action and claim that he was not seeking an earthly kingdom–clearly absurd given the circumstances.) So…arrested due to a charge of blasphemy? – the evidence for this is highly suspect (particularly given judaic jurisprudence)
The whole Trial (in Luke) seems very suspect. (1) Jewish law prohibited the Sanhedrin to meet outside of the designated Chamber of Hewn Stone in the Temple and would not have been violated under any circumstance. (2) The Sanhredrin could not meet at night because justice must be carried out in the “light of day.” (3) The “entry” was probably during the Feast of the Tabernacles, not Passover. (the palm leaves strewn would not have been in bloom) The Sanhedrin would not have met during the eight-day festival for any reason. (4) The Elders would no more strike or spit on an accused person, than would the Supreme Court hearing a case! Luke’s account is completely out-of-context and shows remarkable ignorance as to the machinations of Jewish Law. (5) It was not blasphemous to declare oneself a “Messiah” or a “Son of God” any more than it would have been to claim to be an angel. Blasphemy could only be applied to claiming to be God Almighty. Jesus’ declaration of Messiah, merely referred to his earthly desire to ascend to the throne of David–an act of sedition against Rome surely, but not one of blasphemy.
The more I understand the Bible and the history of that age the more I think most of it was just made up.
I get it. But the BIble isn’t one thing, it’s thousands of things. Some of them are not historical (the world-wide flood; the census that sent Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem); but some of them are (Judea was destroyed by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar; there was a man named Jesus, who did have followers, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate; etc.)
You are correct. Most of the Bible is made up. There is no evidence that Jesus existed. There is no evidence that Moses existed or that the Israelites wandered around in the desert for 40 years. It’s all made up!
“In the entire first Christian century, Jesus is not mentioned once by
There’s no evidence you exist either! But seriously, are you saying that if Moses didn’t exist that therefore Jesus didn’t? Uh, not sure I see the logic of that. Don’t you have to evaluate the logic and evidence for each claim individually?
cont…a single Greek or Roman historian, religion scholar, politician, philosopher, or poet. His name never occurs in a single inscription, and it is never found in a single piece of private correspondence. Zero! Zip references!” Dr. Bart Ehrman.
I rest my case on the existence of Jesus. He is a fictional character. He is a great fictional character as Mahatma Gandhi said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
How many times is Josephus mentioned in a first century source? Zero! Zip! Therefore he didn’t exist! And Pilate’s wife? Zero, zip!
And Paul? Zero Zip! And … and, actually, 99.999% of the people living at the time. I don’t think therefore they didn’t exist!
Although I agree that Jesus was a real person, as a counter argument I like to bring up the example of Mike Fink. Fink was supposedly a riverboat man in America around 1800. Most historians now think he was a myth. And yet most of his contemporaries assumed he was a real person.
I think the more interesting question to ask is: how many figures who make it on to the Rank-Raglan list who we presume to be human (Alexander the Great) never have any contemporary mention of them. Josephus, Pilate’s wife, and 99.999% of the population don’t make the list to my knowledge, Jesus does. Maybe more appropriate to compare apples to apples.
Jesus’ fame had nothing to do with his public ministry, if that’s what you’re referring to. It’s only what happened many years after his life that made a difference.
If Jesus were a human, then I agree with you on both accounts. But I’m not quite sure that your response addresses the “more interesting question “
Crossan and Borg, (The Last Week), have suggested that, metaphorically or historically, Jesus humble yet triumphant entry is meant to contrast with Pilate’s military entry through an opposite gate which would have been happening at the same time.
Make sense!
If something like that did happen, what would have been Jesus’ purpose in carrying it out? If it was meant to announce himself as Messiah, we run into the major problem that he seems to have been quite reticent about saying any such thing (Christians would surely have preserved any explict sayings to that effect).
Another reason for thinking it didn’t happen. Though, of course, nothing indicates that he was encouraging the acclamation; the crowd seems to be doing it on its own.
There is always a perception of events that happen. How do some become so LARGE and are yet not as BIG impacts as others? It is most certain from the FBI tapes that have been released that J. Edgar Hoover with the approval (or at least acceptance) of JFK and LBJ treated MLK Jr. and Malcolm X horribly. The actions of JFK, LBJ and J. Edgar Hoover have helped create lots of the social problems we now have.
It is probably true that Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem. It was probably not noticed by a large majority of the people. However, the impact of this minor event cannot be denied.
Some of the largest (most well known) claim Abraham (the man who was to be the blesser of nations) as their patriarch. As far as we can tell Abraham was mostly a righteous man. His son Isaac appears to be the same; his grandson – Jacob, also. However, Jacob’s sons were notorious. Judah’s defense to Joseph in Egypt is probably why the promises went to Judah. How through history did these keep going on despite all the efforts to eliminate Judaism and Jacob’s descendants being so obnoxious?
Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey on what is called Palm Sunday is recorded by all four Gospels so that leads me to believe it happened.
Matthews statement about Jesus riding on a donkey and the colt of a donkey really isn’t about poetic parallelism. I believe it’s making a different statement. When the mother has a new colt it stays tucked right under her for safety and would stay there even with Jesus riding on the mother. If the mother thinks that a person is any threat to her colt they are toast, so if she allows Jesus to ride on her with one leg over her colt, she understood that Jesus meant them no harm. It’s really a comment about nature not poetry. Ken
Sir, I admire your creative spirit.
Whoever wrote (or translated) these OT and NT “colt” and “foal” mentions didn’t know much about equines.
I see a problem right from the start. Did Jesus ride a colt or a donkey? Surely the gospel writers knew the difference. Is there any way the Greek word could be translated as either animal?
In Mark and Luke it’s a young horse (a foal); in Matthew it’s a young horse *AND* a donkey (he straddles them); in John its a small or young (?) donkey (he uses a rare word).
Having re-read the four accounts of Jesus triumphal ride into Jerusalem it seems that he rode on the colt which had never been ridden. It’s amazing that this young colt having never been ridden before would dutifully carry Jesus into this large crowd waving palm branches and not be frightened and run back to its mother or a least balk at proceeding. It testifies to Jesus power over nature similar to his calming a storm, telling the winds to be still. Could this be the point that is being made? A lot of his ministry was in the world of the supernatural. Ken
In Mark 11:2, did Jesus order the disciples to steal the colt?
Well, he told them to take it and explain to the owners why they were doing so (11:3); I suppose most thieves don’t do things quite that way…
The Catholic NABRE translation has an amusing commentary on Jesus sitting on two donkeys: “an awkward picture resulting from Matthew’s misunderstanding of the prophecy”.
Bart, do you think it’s possible that Matthew was reading from a mistranslated Septuagint as a source, and inadvertently made the error based on this? It is also interesting that Matthew intentionally diverts from Mark’s single donkey, even though (to my understanding) Matthew used Mark as a source.
No, he was reading it as it is found in the OT. The Hebrew poetry uses a parallel structure where the second line repeats the idea of the first in different words; Matthew took it as being two lines describing two different animals….
Why do we assume Matthew was written all at once? And by one person? I’d propose that later editors wanting to spruce up a basic Matthean account went about inserting references to prophecies. One editor adds the colt and another–the one who doesn’t know much Hebrew– adds the donkey, and a third ‘fixes’ it: a colt and a donkey. All these folks add up to “Matthew” writer of that gospel.
I suppose the fall-back position is that if you have a narrative (or a play, or a poem) you assume *someone* wrote it unless there are compelling reasons for making you think otherwise. Often there are reasons. But I don’t know of any with respect to Matthew. At least I can’t think of any.
Couldn’t Jesus have ridden alternately on two animals so neither would be unduly burdened? Especially if one were quite young? I don’t see why the text requires them to be straddled together. (And do we have any idea how far he would have traveled to Jerusalem in this way, perhaps changing mounts as he neared the gate after coming some distance?)
Hello, Bart,
I was reading a rebuttal to the claim that Matthew didn’t know about parallelism in an article on the Reasonable Faith web site (William Lane Craig’s ministry).
What do you think about the following point?
1) Dale Allison (not a particularly conservative scholar) has a commentary on Matthew. He writes that many rabbinic texts “contain numerous tendentious renderings of Scripture which ignore the rules of poetry in favor of excessively literal interpretation…[and] some rabbis found two animals in Zech 9:9.” Matthew, therefore, knew about parallelism, and his seemingly mistaken interpretation was an easter egg directed toward literalist rabbis.
Here is the full apologetic article for anyone interested: https://eriknmanning.medium.com/did-the-author-of-matthews-gospel-make-an-ass-out-of-himself-when-telling-the-story-of-jesus-d5fc7d5109c7
This author seems to love Bart. 🙂
Thank you, sir!
Yup, Dale Allison is the real deal. And yes, that is a common line, and I have no problem with it. But Matthew still has him riding on two animals.
Looking gerneraly at the NT prophecies qouted from the OT about the messaih, how good do they fit Jesus?
I am new here, If anything has been written about this before on the bolg, please notify me!
The NT authors think they fit perfectly. Jews at the time (and still today) do not agree at all.
Do they really think they fit perfectly, or are they simply snaping them out of conext just to make their case?
For example, in Matt 2:15, “Out of egypt I called my son”. Its so clear that in Hosea 11 it’s speaking about something different. How possibly could it be that Matthew used it for Jesus? Did he really think it fits?
We can’t tell what is going on in someone else’s mind. But my sense is that what seems completely illogical to us seems completely logical to others — we see it all the time.
You write ” in ancient Hebrew poetry, poetic lines were coupled not by rhyming schemes, as with some English poetry, but by various kinds of conceptual parallelism. In a two-line sequence (a couplet) the first line might say something, and the next line might say the same thing in other words; or it might repeat part of the first line with an additional thought; or it might express the opposite side of the same coin.”
This kind of poetic verse structure where poetic lines are coupled by conceptual parallelism is common in Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. In fact Kalevala is full of this kind of verses and every child understand that this is just saying the same thing twice.
This was an oral tradition based on strict rules. And it also makes the poems easier to remember and pass on.
Interesting.
Prof Ehrman,
Q1. Is Matt 21:5 an instance of proof-text of the OT Zech. 9:9
Q2. When you contextualize Zech. 9:9, who was this King mentioned in the verse?
1. Yup. 2. It appears to be a highly metaphorical reference to God as a divine warrior riding into Jerusalem to conquer its enemies. (I think that’s the common view; it becomes clearer when you read the entire chapter as a whole)
We can see that even when there is no miracle described, the nay-sayers need to prove it false.
You can imagine the problem Jesus’s entry might have posed for the establishment. The Romans had a Jew calling himself a king who spoke of peace and love for the occupiers. The Jews in leadership had a Jew teaching a literal interpretation of scripture that just didn’t square with the accepted meaning. And the crowd had a fun time for a change.
Dr. Ehrman,
Question! I’ve heard some argue that John 13:2 indicates Jesus was in the middle of eating the passover meal on Thursday. Also, in regards to John 18:28, I was taught that since the Passover festival lasted seven days, not merely the one night when the lamb was slain and eaten (Exodus 12:6-20), the Passover week had begun the night before with a feast and would continue over the following days with more feasting. The Jews, therefore, did not want to become defiled before the NEXT unleavened meal of the Passover week. Therefore, John 13:2 IS referring to the paschal supper Jesus ate, while John 13:29 and 18:28 are NOT referring to the paschal supper but other meals associated with the passover.
What are your thoughts?
Jesus did have a meal the night before he was arrested, in all the Gospels. In the Synoptics it is called a Passover meal. In John it is simply his last meal. It can’t be the passover meal, since that meal in John won’t be *prepared* until the next day.