My previous posts were dealing with the themes and historical context of the Gospel of Matthew, along  with a list of suggested readings for those who want to go deeper.

I would like to go deeper myself by returning at greater length to one of the most puzzling features of Matthew, its relationship to Judaism.  To begin with, I suggested in my post “Who, When, and Why” that the author himself was Jewish.  I want to explore that at some greater depth here.

The first thing to say is that not all New Testament scholars have thought so.  Au contraire.

One of the premier scholars of the NT and the historical Jesus is John Meier.   Before he began his massive multi-volume study of the historical Jesus, called A Marginal Jew, he was principally known as an expert on the Gospel of Matthew.  Meier’s view was that Matthew was not actually Jewish.  One of his pieces of evidence is very interesting and has always struck me as rather amusing.

It is this.  In Matthew 21 we find the account of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.   This is the famous scene where Jesus tells his disciples to go to a certain place where they will find a donkey, to untie it and bring it to him, so that he can ride into Jerusalem.  They do and he does.   This is to fulfill what was predicted in the prophet, that says that “your king will come to you as one who is lowly, sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey” (see Matthew 21:1-5; quoting Zechariah 9:9)

The Old Testament passage is poetic, and like most Hebrew poetry, it repeats itself using different words.  In Hebrew poetry – for example, in the book of Psalms, or in Proverbs, or in most of the prophets – the author will state a line and then in the second line he will restate the same thing in different words (this is called “synonymous parallelism”), or will state the contrasting position in other words (this is called “antithetical parallelism”).   That’s what is happening here in the passage from Zechariah:

Sitting on a donkey

On a colt, the foal of a donkey.

The second line repeats the idea of the first line using different words.   This kind of synonymous parallelism happens thousands of times in Old Testament poetry.But Matthew – unlike the other Gospel writers – appears to have misunderstood how the poetry works.  In his account (21:1:11) Jesus tells the disciples to acquire two animals: a donkey and a foal.   They get them both, spread their garments over them, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem *straddling* the two animals!   It’s a very peculiar scene indeed.

But Matthew – unlike the other Gospel writers – appears to have misunderstood how the poetry works.  In his account (21:1:11) Jesus tells the disciples to acquire two animals: a donkey and a foal.   They get them both, spread their garments over them, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem *straddling* the two animals!   It’s a very peculiar scene indeed.

Meier argues that no Jew familiar with the way Hebrew poetry works would make a mistake like that.  His conclusion is that Matthew was not a Jew but was a Gentile who simply didn’t  understand the conventions of Hebrew poetry, and who wanted Jesus literally to fulfill what was literally said in the prophet.

Unfortunately Meier does not appear to have convinced most scholars, as others have pointed out other instances in clearly Jewish-authored works where a Jewish interpreter will do the same thing, take poetic lines meant to be in parallel with one another as literally expressing two different ideas rather than just one idea in different words.  In itself, this passage probably doesn’t tell us much about whether Matthew was Jewish or not.

It’s too bad.  I think it’s a terrifically interesting argument, and if nothing else it creates a rather amusing picture of the Triumphal Entry.

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2025-01-21T11:22:02-05:00January 21st, 2025|Canonical Gospels, Public Forum|

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41 Comments

  1. fishician January 21, 2025 at 9:52 am

    Do you think Matthew’s repeated misuse of the Hebrew scriptures in his birth narrative “prophecies” might indicate he was non-Jewish? But I suppose even a Jewish Christian might be over-zealous in interpreting such passages to prove his point.

    • BDEhrman January 23, 2025 at 8:32 pm

      I think the quotations appear to be “mis-used” only to modern historical scholars; for ancient modes of biblical interpretation, they were perfectly fine. (Check out the Habbakuk commentary in the Dead Sea Scrolls; it uses a very similar approach to interpretatoin.

  2. Mulerider January 21, 2025 at 12:55 pm

    Bart, may I offer a comment on your fine article? I submit for consideration that Matthew was a Jew who wanted the resurrection to be celebrated as a Saturday evening sunset event as opposed to a Sunday morning sunrise service. This would have kept the Jewish Sabbath as the only Sabbath and avoided a new Sunday Sabbath being created. What say ye?

    • BDEhrman January 23, 2025 at 8:43 pm

      What reason to you have for thinking that? I can’tt think of any myself! (So far as we know Christians didn’t call Sunday the Sabbath; when they use the term sabbath they appear to mean Saturday)

      • Mulerider January 23, 2025 at 11:53 pm

        Matthew 28:1, as found in the The Latin Vulgate, reads in pertinent part as follows: “Vespere autem sabbati….” (NOTE: Vespers occurs in the evening which meant it was still the Sabbath. That was the very time Matthew recounted the angel descended, rolled the stone away and reported to the two women present that Jesus is risen.) So, being a Jew, Matthew made it very clear the resurrection was to be a Sabbath-evening, sun-set celebration and not a Sunday-morning, sunrise event as was the case with Mark, Luke and John. Surely we cannot rule out that Matthew could have foreseen the importance this “resurrection day” would have just as we can see its importance when looking backwards in time and history. How can we rule out that when Paul had instructed his Corinthian converts (Christians) to meet and take up a collection on the first day of the Jewish week (our Sunday) he was looking at that day as the time to gather and worship for that was the “third day” or “resurrection day” in his way of thinking. Finally, I found that the following excellent, scholarly article leads me to consider that the rise and–cont’d

        • BDEhrman January 24, 2025 at 6:46 pm

          The problem is that Matthew was written in Greek, not Latin. The Latin translation came centuries later.

          • Mulerider January 25, 2025 at 9:32 am

            So, what’s the problem with that as it correctly translated the Greek as did all of the translations before the RSV NT of 1946 engaged in the sin of tampering with the evidence?

          • BDEhrman January 25, 2025 at 12:08 pm

            I’m not sure what you mean about when you say that tranlators all tampered with the evidence, or what it has to do with Matthew being written in Greek instead of Latin. Translations of the NT into venacular languages since the 16th century were normally made from the Greek

          • Mulerider January 27, 2025 at 10:58 pm

            You say you are not sure what I meant when I said (according to you) that translators all tampered with the evidence. But I did not say that. What I said was that the translators beginning with the Latin Vulgate (translating from Greek into Latin) up to and including the American Standard Version of 1901 (Greek into English) all got it translated correctly (as Matthew meant) but it was beginning with the RSV NT of 1946 that translators stuck their noses in it and all the sheep followed over the cliff like those in story of the maniac of Gadara. Matthew had to write a different Gospel simply because he is the only author who had added the Jonah prophecy reportedly uttered by Jesus as found in Matthew 12:40. In other words, Matthew was no more writing to be in harmony with Mark here in the story of the resurrection, 28:1 than he was writing to be in harmony with Mark in the story of how many asses Jesus rode into Jerusalem on, not to mention the other other irreconcilable differences. One can change the law, but not the facts; and this certainly included the RSV theologians in 1946.

      • Mulerider January 24, 2025 at 1:23 am

        Cont’d: decline, respectively, of Sunday worship and seventh-day Sabbath observance was a gradual one and that “resurrection day” played a vital part in this change. Moreover, according to this scholar, this gradual change began after the time-frame during which the NT writings were composed and that Alexandria and Rome where the key centers for this shift. Based on my study of the works of S.G.F. Brandon I am led to believe he considered Matthew to be the most Jewish of the gospels and this gospel was likely written in that city. So, if Matthew was from Alexandria, how can I rule our that he may well have even been a witness to this gradual shift from Sabbath to Sunday and, being Jewish, have done all he could to keep the “resurrection day” observed on the Jewish Sabbath by attenuating this gradual shift? I can think of nothing more Jewish than what I argue Matthew was leaving as his legacy even though it failed in the end. The article I am referring to above is by Robert K. McIver: “When, Where, and Why Did the Change From Sabbath to Sunday Worship Take Place in the Early Church?” (2015).

        • BDEhrman January 25, 2025 at 10:57 am

          Unfortunately, we don’t know where Matthew was written. And we don’t have any reliable evidence of a Christian church in Alexandria yet at that time. Scholars who propose a place of authorship usually land on Antioch, but my view is that we can’t just tell.

          There was indeed a change of the day of worship in Chrsitianity from Saturday (Sabbath) to Sunday. It is suggested already in Revelation (“The Lord’s Day) and is clear in writings as early as the Didache (100 CE). But I don’t know of any Christian author who refers to their day of worship (Sunday) as “the sabbath.”

          • Mulerider January 25, 2025 at 11:00 pm

            Who is claiming Sunday worship (observance) was replacing the Jewish Sabbath? The issue is how “resurrection day” would tend to attenuate the Sabbath and cause a rise in Sunday observance (worship). Now, what is “tampering with the evidence”? Here, it is taking Matthew’s words written in Greek, correctly translated into Latin as I cited, and then for the ensuing centuries up to the mid-twentieth when translators agreed with what Matthew had written in koine Greek about it being Sabbath evening, then going about changing a noun into an adverb and without one scintilla of justification. We find that from the time Matthew’s MSS was written (whenever that was) up to and including the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV) ) we discover constant, repetitive and consistent agreement as to what Matthew had written in Koine Greek and meant. In legal parlance, this is called corroboration and confirmation. But a few decades after the ASV a bunch of theologians, now long dead, thought they had more smarts and better insights than those translators of the preceding eighteen centuries and took to tampering with Matthew’s evidence. One can change the law, but one cannot change the facts, including theologians.

  3. Duke12 January 21, 2025 at 1:26 pm

    I remember first reading about Matthew’s two donkey version of the triumphal entry in Isaac Asimov’s guide to the Bible when I was a teen. That realization might have been a faith breaker for some my age. But I just dismissed it as Asimov being ridiculous and didn’t even bother to look up chapter and verse to verify or disprove it. Years later, I shared this opinion with a friend, who replied, “no, Asimov is correct.” This time I looked it up. Yep. Whaddya know. Didn’t shake my faith, but did teach me to do a better job of fact checking. Probably says something about how the mind of a believer blocks out uncomfortable things!

  4. kirbinator5000 January 21, 2025 at 1:50 pm

    How do scholars determine when to reject credibility and when to maintain it? I’m concerned that modern research methods prioritize criticism over constructive analysis, potentially leading to an overly negative approach. Ie historical methodology can easily discredit Acts/Galatians due to discrepancies, but struggles to consider the context that may have led to these differences. Similarly, Matthew’s accurate Old Testament references are often overshadowed by a single problematic statement, calling his Jewish scripture knowledge into question.

    Do you think historical methodology is skewed towards the negative?

    This raises questions about the best practices to use in pursuit of truth. How do scholars differentiate between historical events, symbolic language, and a combination of both? The Bible contains symbolic instances, like the feeding of the 5,000, but scholars must also be aware of pareidolia, the psychological phenomenon of perceiving patterns in random stimuli.

    For example, Robert Eisenman’s identification of Lazarus with Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus seems like a stretch (both smell bad and were in a tomb/coffin). But he thoroughly substantiates his claims. This highlights the challenge of distinguishing between conspiratorial conjecture and serious investigation. What criteria do scholars use to evaluate novel ideas, and is there a clear line between legitimate interpretation and pareidolia?

    • BDEhrman January 23, 2025 at 8:49 pm

      I suppose credibility is always a probability judgment, and people will weight evidence differently. I would say it’s incredibly diffitcult really to think that Lazarus was Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. Scholars use the same criteria and grounds for judgment for novel claims as for traditional ones. You look at the evidence, see what the flaws are, see what the contrary evidence is, and render a judgment. And yes, historical methodology is definitely skewed toward the negative. That’s what historians do. They doubt until the evidence proves to be convincing. I’m not talking about biblical historians here, but historians. You can’t assume that Caesar crossed the Rubicon or Washington the Deleware. You look at the evidence and decide. Otherwise you’re not being a historian but simply someone who accepts something they read someplace….

  5. Old_Agnostic January 21, 2025 at 3:07 pm

    Dr. Ehrman, in other blog posts over the years you’ve said that Jews were never expecting the Messiah to be born of a virgin. I’m familiar with the whole Greek Septuagint Isaiah 7:14 thing.

    If Matthew was really a Jew, and I’m not arguing either way, how did he miss Jewish tradition entirely and just end up eyeball-deep in the Septuagint mis-prophecy of the virgin birth?

    • BDEhrman January 23, 2025 at 8:53 pm

      Even before Matthew the Jewish followers of Jesus were plumbing the Scriptures to find references to Christ there, and they employed traditional modes of interpretation to explain them. Then as now people could say that the old views were wrong, and here is the new and better view. Jewish followrs of Jesus were doing that with Scripture (E.g., Paul: no non-follower of Jesus would interpret the rock that MOses struck to bring out the water to be “Christ” as Paul does in 1 Cor. 10!)

  6. Steefen January 21, 2025 at 3:28 pm

    Dr. Ehrman,

    The Book of the Law was present in The Tabernacle and in Solomon’s Temple.
    Do you disagree?
    The Book of the Law does not date back to a Lawgiver or a contemporary to the Lawgiver Moses?
    The story of the Exodus does not date back to David and Solomon?

    Your Forum administrator Robert is upholding that the Book of the Law dates no further back than the 7th century with King Josiah.
    People are naive and need a psychiatrist to think Solomon’s Temple contained the sacred scripture of the Book of the Law.
    People are naive and need a psychiatrist to think Moses was a lawgiver when the script used to put the Ten Commandments in stone would have been Proto Canaanite script.

    Faithful people should not be rudely insulted like this. There is a reason why there was some semblance of scripture during the time of the biblical King David and King Solomon. Psalm 81:10 I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.

    So, therefore, Solomon’s Temple had at least one verse of the Exodus and probably at least one verse of the Book of the Law.

    • BDEhrman January 23, 2025 at 8:54 pm

      I’m not sure what you mean by “Book of the Law.” If you mean the book that lies at the basis of what is now Deuteronomy then I wuld agree with Robert — we have no evidence of it until it was allegedly discovered in the temple in the time of Josiah.

      • Steefen January 24, 2025 at 4:02 pm

        The Book of the Law is referenced in Deuteronomy 28:58, 29:21, and 30:10. The book is also mentioned in Deuteronomy 31:24, where Moses is said to have finished writing the book and given it to the priests.

        • BDEhrman January 25, 2025 at 11:42 am

          Yes, that’s the book that was discovered in Josiah’s time; there’s some quesiton about whether it was actually complsed then and “discovered” in a convenient way.

  7. JBresler January 21, 2025 at 5:03 pm

    It is not impossible that Jesus deliberately pre-arranged for a donkey and a colt for his entry, in order to send a clear message to the chief priest that he claims to be the king in Zech 9:9. Entering only on a donkey could have been taken as merely being tired of walking. But straddling both animals would have made him look like a clown. (Perhaps he just put one foot on a small colt’s back).

  8. ReligionProf January 21, 2025 at 7:31 pm

    I hope you have seen this video I made about the “triumphal entry” and the supposed two donkeys.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvEq4mdg6DM

    It is connected with my book A to Z of the New Testament where I mention the relevant Jean Claude Van Damme commercial.

  9. OmarRobb January 22, 2025 at 10:45 am

    Hi Bart,

    The prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 is about a ruler who is going to enter Jerusalem riding a donkey. However, could riding a mule satisfy this prophecy … at least from the Hebrew rhetoric linguistic style?

    The background for this question:

    Bar-Kokhba was the only ruler in history (that we know of) that entered Jerusalem riding a donkey, but this was for showing off. However, there is another powerful ruler that entered Jerusalem riding a mule and that wasn’t for showing off. This was Omar the second Islamic Ruler.

    Furthermore, there was a Rabbi by the name “Ka’b Al-Ahbar” who converted to Islam at that time, and he told Omar that he (i.e. Omar) is mentioned in the Torah. But the only probable verse that could explain the thought in the mind of Ka`b is Zechariah 9:9 (regardless whether Ka`b was accurate in his interpretation of this verse or not).

    The story here is that the Christians in Jerusalem were under the rule of the Jews appointed by the Sasanian Empire from 614 to 628 AD. Then, the Christians regained control of the city.

    ——->>

    • OmarRobb January 22, 2025 at 10:46 am

      ——->>

      But this control was short-lived; as the Muslims came onto the scene in Palestine in 638 AD. The Christians were so worried that the Muslims will give control of the city to the Jews [and it does seem here that the Christians didn’t know that the Muslims regarded this city as a holy place for Islam that is almost equal to Makkah], and the Christians wanted a promise from the Muslim Ruler himself that the Jews will not be in control of the city. So, they told the Muslims that they will only open the gate for Omar.

      The Muslims didn’t really want to enter the city in bloodshed (it is a holy city for them after all), so they sent a message to Omar saying that these people won’t open the gate in peace except for him. So, he told them to wait, and he took his mule and went there. This mule was his only ride in all of his travels, and he did visit the Levant many times during his reign.

      So, here is the question: was the thought of Ka`b valid in this probable interpretation of Zechariah 9:9? And could riding a mule satisfy this prophecy?

    • OmarRobb January 24, 2025 at 8:37 am

      Hi Bart, I will be grateful if you can give me an answer for my question above?

      • BDEhrman January 25, 2025 at 11:01 am

        Would a mule count as a donkey? I doubt it, but don’t know.

  10. robgrayson January 22, 2025 at 12:35 pm

    Perhaps the passage in question simply suggests that not all first-century Jews—even those educated enough to have written a text like Matthew’s Gospel—were familiar with the rules governing the kind of Hebrew parallelism you describe. Is that credible?

  11. petfield January 23, 2025 at 6:35 am

    I think a truly remarkable ability of yours that -I bet almost always- goes unnoticed is the way you stage your text in order for it to flow when you have to present-explain some intricate textual issue. First, you write “a donkey” just to have your text flow and your reader engaged, and after having prefaced a bit the issue at hand, you return and present it very clearly (using bold letters for “two” animals). I’ve noticed this amazing skill of yours time and time again. You do this especially well in your lectures also. Good job, Mr. Ehrman! And fun stuff today with this post!

  12. Tom48 January 24, 2025 at 8:47 pm

    Bart wrote: “But Matthew – unlike the other Gospel writers – appears to have misunderstood how the poetry works. In his account (21:1:11) Jesus tells the disciples to acquire two animals: a donkey and a foal.”

    This seems to tell us that Matthew did not understand Hebrew poetry, but another thing it might tell us is that Matthew had never ridden a donkey. That might add support to the supposition that he was an upper-class (i.e. educated) Greek.

    • BDEhrman January 25, 2025 at 11:57 am

      I’m not sure how that follows. I’m an upper-class educated person and I’ve never ridden a donkey, but I know what riding one entails.

      • Tom48 February 1, 2025 at 11:39 am

        And yet the author of Matthew was an educated Greek speaker who had no familiarity with riding donkeys.

        My main point was that we can gain some information from the mistakes writers make in a case like this. We know Matthew was an “educated” Greek speaker, but I am not sure what “educated” means in this context. Does it mean he necessarily had formal training? Does it mean he was a trained scribe or rhapsode? Probably not. Or does it simply mean he spoke proper Greek? But a “proper” language is usually just the language of the upper class, so presumably every upper class Greek spoke proper Greek, by definition.

        Also, this error about the donkey could have been either an error in translation or an error in interpretation. But this seems like an error a trained Hebrew scholar would not have made, so, Matthew presumably spoke little or no Hebrew, and utilized a translation.

        At this point I would venture the conjecture that “Matthew” was possibly (probably?) an upper class Greek, he spoke little or no Hebrew, and had no familiarity with donkeys. I would further venture that the person best fitting this description would be an upper class Greek woman leading

      • Tom48 February 1, 2025 at 11:40 am

        a secluded life.

    • Mulerider January 26, 2025 at 11:33 pm

      I’m an educated person and know how to ride a mule, as you can tell by my sobriquet.

      • Tom48 February 3, 2025 at 10:12 am

        Interesting, I’ve ridden a horse, but never a mule. I’ve heard that mules have a smoother ride than a horse, and maybe I’ll get a chance to ride one someday and see.

        So, in your professional opinion, is it possible to ride two donkeys at the same time? I can’t imagine why anyone would want to, and it would certainly look silly, but I can’t say that it is impossible.

        And I have to ask – is a mulerider the same as a muleskinner?

  13. petrejo January 27, 2025 at 2:19 pm

    Meier’s argument is brilliant, and accords with my intuition. Matthew, like Mark, seem to me to be young Roman Centurions — idealists — readers of the LXX since their youth, and probably volunteered to serve the Roman Army in Jerusalem to see if they could help matters.

    They probably attended Synagogue (as many Romans did, as celebrated by the poet Horace).

    While stationed in Jerusalem they heard stories about the Qumran community, and John the Baptist, and were aware of that anti-Temple subculture. Then they heard about Jesus the Healer/Apocalyptist, and became involved.

    Mark — possibly the Centurion at the Cross who recognized Jesus as the Son of God — was the first to write a Gospel. Matthew — a better writer — could recognize a good book, and copied ~90% of Mark into his own Gospel, adding Five Great Sermons to try to capture Jesus’ famous Personality.

    It doesn’t matter if Mark and Matthew weren’t their real names. As Roman Centurions they probably wanted to remain anonymous. “Mark” isn’t a Jewish name, and the fact that “Matthew copied” ~90% of Mark almost verbatim suggests a possibility that Matthew was friendly with Mark.

    My thoughts.

    • Mulerider January 29, 2025 at 7:49 am

      But the part Matthew did not copy from Mark is what is of great importance to me. For example, Matthew added Jesus’ prophecy of Jonah (Matthew 12:40) and thus had to write a different story of the resurrection than Mark did in order to ensure Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled; in other words, Jesus’ corpse had to be entombed for three nights instead of two as was the case with Mark, Luke and John. We find that the Matthewan Jesus “kept” the Passover as opposed to “eating” it which meant his Jesus was crucified during the mid-week on Nisan 14 (the preparation for the Passover) and not on Nisan 15 (as recounted by Mark and Luke). The most startling difference is that Matthew makes it clear as a full Passover moon on a cloudless night that the two women first came to see the tomb when it was the evening (late, at the tail end) of the Jewish seventh-day Sabbath. The evening is the last part of a Jewish day based on John 20:19.

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