A Better Harmonization of Matthew's Double Donkeys

A popular contradiction alleged between the Gospel accounts is the number of donkeys Jesus rode into Jerusalem during the triumphal entry. Mark and Luke both mention a "colt" and say that Jesus sat on "it". Matthew, however, mentions the colt and its mother and ambiguously says that Jesus sat on "them". Thus, it is argued that Matthew has Jesus sitting on both of these animals while riding into Jerusalem. As Bart Ehrman says: 

"In Matthew, Jesus' disciples procure two animals for him, a donkey and a colt; they spread their garments over the two of them, and Jesus rode into town straddling them both (Matthew 21:7). It's an odd image, but Matthew made Jesus fulfill the prophecy of Scripture quite literally." (Jesus Interrupted, p. 50)

Here's Matthew 21:6-7 (NASB): [1]
"The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their cloaks on them; and He sat on them."

What does "on them" mean?

When Matthew says that Jesus sat "on them" the context yields only two plural antecedents to which Matthew might be referring: the donkeys or the cloaks (technically, it could be referring to the disciples, but this option will be dismissed without further comment). If "them" means the donkeys, it must further be adjudicated whether Matthew intends to say that Jesus is straddling the donkeys or whether a simpler interpretation is correct. I will briefly summarize these interpretations.

The "cloaks" interpretation

According to this interpretation, when Matthew says that Jesus sat "on them" he is referring to the cloaks—the disciples put the cloaks on the donkeys, and Jesus sat on the cloaks. While this harmonization is very popular, I don't think it is as convincing as many apologists assert. For one thing, the phrase "on them" is used just a few words earlier to refer to the donkeys. Since Matthew does not specify anything different, this offers some support for "them" referring to the donkeys, albeit not very much. The more convincing, though also not conclusive, argument against this reading comes when we compare Mark's account with Matthew's.

Mark 11.6-7:
"And they told them just as Jesus had said, and they gave them permission. They brought the colt to Jesus and put their cloaks on it; and He sat on it."
Matthew 21.6-7:
"The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their cloaks on them; and He sat on them."

In Mark, the antecedent of it is the colt, even though Mark also has plural cloaks. In Matthew, the sentence is structured the same way, so it's most plausible to take them as having the same antecedent—namely, the donkeys. It's unlikely that Matthew would perfectly parallel Mark's account and switch out the singular pronoun for the plural in every case but mean something entirely different at the end.

A worse objection to the "cloaks" harmonization is the one defended by Bart Ehrman here. [2] Ehrman argues that since the cloaks were spread over both animals, sitting on the cloaks would still entail sitting on both donkeys. But sitting on "the cloaks" doesn't mean sitting on all of the cloaks. That can only be exegeted via a very uncharitable hermeneutic. As long as Jesus sat on some of the cloaks, it could be correctly said that he sat "on them".

While these arguments aren't conclusive, they provide reason to be skeptical of this interpretation. I think it's still a marginally better interpretation than saying that Jesus was straddling two donkeys, but a better harmonization would be preferred.

The "unit" interpretation

According to this interpretation, "on them" does refer to the donkeys, but it doesn't mean Jesus was straddling both of them. Rather, Matthew refers to the donkeys as a unit on which Jesus sat, but he only needs to have sat on one of them. Steve Hays references Donald Hagner's commentary, saying that even if "them" refers to the donkeys,

"it hardly means that the evangelist alleges that Jesus actually sat upon both animals at once (!) or even in succession. Instead it means that here the two animals, which were kept so closely together, are conceptually regarded as a single, inseparable unit,” D. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (Nelson 1995), 595

D. A. Carson gives this as a secondary harmonization, preferring the cloaks harmonization instead. (The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Matthew) To see the plausibility of such a grammatical construction, we need only consider an English example. One might say, of a room with multiple chairs packed closely together, "The chairs were very comfortable. I sat on them," and yet only have sat on one chair. The speaker is referring to the chairs as a unit, and it would be absurd to think he straddled all of them. Even if the grammar might initially incline us towards the notion, common sense rules it out, leading us to assume he only sat on one chair. It is not difficult to think of other examples of this sort of grammatical construction.

I contend that this is the best harmonization of the texts. The suggestion that Matthew has Jesus balancing on two animals of different heights, while not impossible, is rather unlikely from the start. Matthew had access to Mark when he wrote this passage, as the textual similarities make clear, so a straddling Jesus would be a deliberate correction of Mark's narrative. Thus, if Matthew meant something so counterintuitive, why wasn't he clearer? It would be easy to say something akin to "he sat on both of them" if that was what he wanted to communicate. It's highly unlikely such a strange event would be inserted so ambiguously and subtly.

Some further points are in order about why Matthew wrote his account this way. We'll start with an examination of the prophecy quoted in verse 5.

Did Matthew misunderstand Zechariah's parallelism?

Those who allege that Matthew has Jesus riding two donkeys sometimes allege that Matthew was trying to make Jesus fulfill the prophecy of Zechariah 9.9, which he quotes in verse 5. Zechariah 9.9 (NASB) says:

"Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion!
    Shout in triumph, daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    He is righteous and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
    Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey."

This verse is an example of Hebrew synonymous parallelism—the first line expresses an idea, and the second line amplifies it or repeats it with slight variations. If this prophecy inspired Matthew to write Jesus riding two donkeys, it would require him to have misunderstood the parallelism. But this is highly unlikely. Consider the text that Matthew cites:

"Say to the daughter of Zion,
'Behold your King is coming to you,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'"

Note that Matthew omits lines 2 and 4 from Zechariah 9.9. These both echo the lines before them, indicating that Matthew is quite familiar with this Hebrew convention. Further, as Jonathan McLatchie notes, commenting on Matthew 8.16-17, 

"Verse 17 quotes from Isaiah 53:4. It is of note that Matthew does not here quote from the Septuagint, which reads, “He himself bore our sins and was pained because of them.” Matthew’s quotation does not even match the Aramaic Targum, which reads, “Then for our sins he will pray and our iniquities will be forgiven because of him.” Instead, Matthew translates the Hebrew quite literally, highlighting how it is fulfilled in Jesus performing miracles of healing. Matthew’s acquaintance with Hebrew thus make it quite unlikely that he would so grossly misunderstand the parallelism in Zechariah." [3]

A further strike against the theory that Matthew misinterpreted Zechariah is that the Hebrew text of Zechariah, which Matthew was translating from, uses the word for a male donkey. In Matthew's narrative, the second donkey is a female donkey (apparently called a "jenny"). Matthew's familiarity with Hebrew and the lack of a direct correspondence between Zechariah 9 and Matthew 21 thus make it unlikely that Matthew misinterpreted Zechariah.

Why does Matthew mention two donkeys?

This leaves the question of why Matthew bothered mentioning the female donkey in the first place. It could be to show that the colt was truly unridden, as Robert Gundry suggests. [4] Gundry also suggests that the donkeys are meant to be viewed as a "wide throne". This would explain why Matthew uses a plural pronoun even though he's only referring to one donkey—he wants the readers to envision the donkeys, the throne, as a singular unit upon which Jesus sat. Others have argued that sitting on a throne of two donkeys emphasizes both Jesus' divinity and his humility. For an interesting treatment of these options, I would recommend this video from InspiringPhilosophy. He defends the "cloaks" harmonization but has solid research nonetheless.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the arguments against the "cloaks" harmonization have been shown to have weight, if not being ultimately decisive. Matthew's phrase "on them" is best interpreted as referring to the donkeys. However, this need not mean that Matthew intended his readers to envision Jesus straddling both animals, as the donkeys are regarded as a single unit: a garment-spread throne for Jesus. Thus, saying Jesus sat "on them" can still be correct, even if he only sat on the colt. While some might object that this is grammatically counterintuitive, it is less counterintuitive than the notion that Jesus was straddling both of the donkeys. The idea that Matthew didn't understand the Hebrew parallelism in Zechariah has also been shown to be unlikely, given Matthew's competency with the Hebrew text and his omission of the other parallel cola from the verse he's citing. Therefore, Matthew's account is not in tension with Mark's.

Notes and References

[1] The NASB translates the final "them" in this quotation as "the cloaks", in keeping with the proposed harmonization that "them" does in fact refer to the cloaks. To better illustrate where the ambiguity lies, I have supplied the literal translation of the Greek text.

[2] See here for Dr. Jonathan McLatchie's response to Bart Ehrman's remarks. Although McLatchie defends the "cloaks" harmonization, his comments are helpful.

[3] ibid. 

[4] Gundry, Robert H. Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution. 2nd ed, W.B. Eerdmans, 1994.