DBT

Don't you think that the discrepancies between the NT accounts, and Isaiah 53 - such as what we we see in the Matthew's account of Jesus riding two donkeys is a good indication that the these writers were attempting to mold the life of Jesus in order to fit Isaiah's prophecy?

"Did Jesus ride one donkey or two? The Hebrew Scripture is clearly a parallelism, "riding an ass ... the foal of an ass" -- one animal. Matthew, however, being unfamiliar with this technique of Hebrew poetry, has Jesus "fulfilling" this Scripture by riding two animals! The others who mention it, mention only one animal."

goldenroad

The only gospels written by disciples were Matthew and John. The accounts of Matthew and John vary in that Matthew has the disciples going and getting the colt and donkey (he rides the colt). John says that Jesus found a donkey. The Matthew account describes what happened more fully, the John account describes the event vaguely without detail so for all we know there was a donkey and a colt. As for Luke and Mark, their accounts are not firsthand so what they wrote was most likely heard from others who had been there (and so the details got garbled up).

Matthew never says he rode two animals, it says he rode the colt, they did fetch two animals though.

DBT

Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them.” All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ” So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them.

(Matthew 21:1-9)

goldenroad

Hmmm, I just glanced at my NLT bible before you posted this and it said that he sat on it (as in refering to the colt) so after you posted I went to my NIV and KJV and saw that it says the disciples sat Jesus on them. A glanced at commentary for this passage and the consensus seemed to be that the pronoun 'them' is refering to the garments. He sat on the garments (them).

DBT

But the garments are said to have been set on 'them' - both the donkey and the colt- and then it states that the disciples set Jesus on 'them.'

It is ambiguous, and no doubt we could quibble over this little detail endlessly, but the other gospel writers do not even mention two donkeys, nor does the original prophecy. So the obvious explanation seems to be that Matthew, not being familiar with the quirks of Hebrew poetry, mistook the meaning while he was trying to portray Christ as having fulfilled the prophecy.

Djugashvillain

The discussion would be better served in BC&H rather than GRD--so off it goes.

Asha'man

You really need to do more research on the gospels, you have a very naive understanding of them. All 4 gospels were written anonymously sometime between the years 70 and 150. None of them were written by disciples, and most likely none of them were written by anyone who had ever seen Jesus in person or been alive when he was. The names, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were assigned to the anonymous gospels sometime in the mid to late 2nd century.