No, Jesus Didn't Ride Two Donkeys In Matthew's Gospel

Counter-apologist Paulogia says that Matthew parades his ignorance of the Hebrew language during his account of Jesus' Triumphal Entry. Apparently, Matthew got so mixed up that he wrote that Jesus literally straddled two donkeys during the Triumphal Entry on the first Palm Sunday. But is this a fair reading of the text? Nah. I venture a guess that Paul may have picked this up from Bart Ehrman (although I can't be sure) and with the help of Tim McGrew, we look at this rather strange objection and show that this isn't a fair reading of Matthew at all. I don't blame Paulogia, but I think Ehrman should probably know better.

Matthew 19-28: Volume 3 (International Critical Commentary), Allison and Davies.
The use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew's Gospel: With special reference to the Messianic hope, Robert Gundry

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Bart photo:
Description
English: Bart D. Ehrman 2012 photo. Approved by Bart D. Ehrman.
Date 27 February 2012, 15:32:00
Source Dan Sears UNC-Chapel Hill
Author Dan Sears

Outro music:
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

[thefrazzledreader]

A lot of my atheist friends have been poking fun at this passage. Now I have a video to share everytime I see it. Thanks. 😁

[TestifyApologetics]

BTW, I like Paul even though I find his arguments to be terrible, and have had friendly exchanges with him on Twitter. I don't normally initiate or reply to response videos, but this one...I have a hard time letting it go and Paulogia states the objection so perfectly.

[jkm]

I’m a skeptic...about many skeptics’ reading abilities.

[diarradunlap]

"I find this whole donkey objection, well, rather asinine."

Sir, YOU have just Won. The. Internet. for today with that one.

[Ryan-zhor]

Having taken Bart's class at Chapel Hill, I can remember him telling us this stuff. Most of the alleged "contradictions" that he brought up can be fixed with a 30 second google search. He should know much better than this by now especially since he was once a professing Christian.

[jaqhopkins]

This “issue” kept coming up on my social media feed recently.. even Muslims who claim to believe Jesus is the messiah made fun of it. Needless to say, we should be more patient with ourselves instead of jumping to conclusions about an ancient text.

I feel that many people in Christianity leave the faith because they read modern era thinking into the text. We’ve departed from the Jewishness of the Gospels and ignore that it’s from antiquity.

Keep up the good work and faith 🙏🏽💯 God Bless

[hwd]

When The Lord sat on them, it means the blankets, that were on the colt, the foal of the Donkey. Solved.

[ApostateBoohoo]

Great video. From a fellow ex-skeptic, love your material. God bless, keep up the good work

[adamkpetty]

One of the best things I did for my faith was take a Bible class in college. The professor used these same Bart Erhman arguments throughout the class. This was one that I particularly remember.

That class led me to years of study that is continuing to this day. Thanks liberal professor for making me a better Christian!

[jonbass]

Beautiful pun at the end!!! Great video too! I didn’t even know this was an “objection.”

[Kebabrulle]

I feel like the people saying that the circus trick interpretation of Matthew 21 is more reasonable than the common sense interpretation, are the same people that think that Hume’s interpretation of miracle accounts (that they’re all more likely to be mistaken) is more reasonable than them being caused by God.

[supayakamupercaya]

Shalom Erik. Used to read your writings. Glad to see you starting to create youtube videos. They are well made. Found this channel, because of pastor Mike W

[Derek_Baumgartner]

Great vid! Keep up the good work!

Feels like another good point to note how some people try to find 'contradictions' in the Bible (by reading it and treating it in a way they'd treat no other text in history):

-Suppose I say to my friend "I went to the theater a few years ago with my sister."
-Suppose the next day I tell you "I went to the theater a few years ago."

Now, let me read the above as if I were cynical about the above claims. Ahem:
Wow, what is this? Is he lying? Does he even have a sister? Does he even know if he has a sister (not that we can know if he did have one, or not)? What a fool he must be, not even able to account for whether or not he has a sister, and if he does, does he even know if he went to the theater with her?

----
Of course, the obvious part is this: the second sentence has me simply saying less, without any contradiction.
If I went to the theater with my sister, then I went to the theater. The extra detail about my sister doesn't change that fact.

(some of you may be aware of the 'two or one angel(s) at the tomb?' "contradiction" for example, that is only a contradiction if you read it with the 'cynic' goggles seen above)

This example of the 'two donkeys' contradiction in Matthew strikes me another case of cynic's goggles.

A good way to spot when someone has cynic's goggles on:
-Are they willing to take everything about their disliked topic literally, but never seriously?
-If pressed, do they want to jump between topics rather than focus on this one?
-How often do they say something like "Now, let's be charitable about/well, they could also mean X, so here's my thoughts on that..", or do they refuse to even consider other interpretations and their viability?

[Ap]

It seems there is a weird phenomenon where people (particularly modern atheists) stop analyzing when reading the Bible. When I saw what the video was about I was legitimately confused because the "them" only makes sense when referring to the robes. It's weird how atheists turn off their brains when reading the Bible. It reminds me of how some atheists have told me I believe in talking donkeys.... because clearly the whole Balaam incident did not imply (or explictily say) this was a completely supernatural event 🙄

[cerebralfaithvideo]

Story Time: I bought Lydia McGrew’s book”Hidden In Plain View” from Tim McGrew at the National Conference On Christian Apologetics back in 2017. I got to attend a couple of his lectures, and we hung out at lunch time. It was great.

Also, I literally laughed LOUDLY with your Dad Joke at the very end of this video. Anyone who follows me on Facebook (or knows me in real life) knows how much I adore puns.

[VicCrisson]

I'm starting to like this channel very much, keep up the good work

[brotherchrisrco]

Bart Erhman is Atheists very own Prophet of Bait and Switch...

[daniellinzel]

I love the pun at the end: as(s)inine! Great video, thank you for making it!

[MarmadukeFan]

I love how Paulogia’s eyes are drawn off kilter.

[shilohplatt]

Me: Sees Mike Winger posting a video

Also me: Instinctively clicks and subscribes.