If you had they would have taught you that the term colt, does not only apply to horses.
Greg, don't bore the good folks on this thread with games. You know very well that I posted the definitions a long time ago on SGBR. You know that nobody is confused about the animals. The absurdity (as you know well for I have covered it for you on two threads) was that Matthew misunderstood a so called prophecy of Jesus riding triumphantly into town on ONE ass, and when he made up his stories he brought him in on TWO.
Now why don't you stop the silliness, eh?
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"The Lord had Two Asses
And I will take away my hand, and you shall see my behind, but my face shall not be seen. -- GOD in Exodus 33:23
St. Matthew, always too eager to make Jesus look like he was fulfilling prophecy, misquotes Zechariah 9:9, which speaks of a king riding a single donkey colt, and has his Jesus rinding in on two asses (this gives new meaning to the phrase, "Turn the other cheek".). The passage truly reads,
Zechariah 9:9
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem
behold, you king comes to you
he is triumphant, and victorious
lowly, and riding upon an ass,
yes, upon a colt, the foal of an ass.
But, the "divinely inspired" St. Matthew had translated the passage incorrectly, misquoting it as,
Matthew 21:2-7
Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you both shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her. Loose them, and bring them to me...." All of this was done so that it would be fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet,
"Tell you all to the daughter of Zion,
'Behold, your king comes to you
meek, and sitting upon an ass
and a colt the son of an ass.'"
And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and cast their garments on them, and they set him on them.
Both Mark and Luke report a similar event, but their stories have their Jesus ordering only one ass brought to him, suggesting that someone at the time of the writing knew that the prophecy only needed one ass. Mark and Luke both refer to the ass with masculine singular pronouns, he/him.
Mark 11:1-7
He sent two of his disciples, and said to them, "...you two shall find a colt tied, on which no man has ever sat. Untie him, and bring him" ...And they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door... and they untied him... And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him and he sat upon him.
Luke 19:29-35
...And they brought him to the Jesus, and cast their garments upon the colt, and they set the Jesus thereon.
So, why does Matthew mention two asses? The word "and" in his Zechariah misquote, "and a colt the son of an ass", is indeed in the original, ancient Hebrew. But it is used to indicate emphasis, not plurality. It is properly translated as "even" or "yes", and should not be transliterated into the Greek "kai" (and). Matthew's mistake is not difficult to understand. Matthew was not a Jewish priest or scribe. And, he probably spoke Aramaic or some Greek. If he knew Hebrew, it was certainly not the ancient Hebrew that was spoken by Zechariah more than 500 years before Matthew. Missing some of the nuances of the ancient and poetic style seems inevitable.
Now, if you are reading a King James Bible, you'll see that the KJB also mistranslates the original Zechariah, using the "and". But, if you are reading the sanitized New International Version (NIV), you'll notice the they've properly removed the "and" in Zechariah, but they have also removed the Greek "and" that Matthew uses in his quote -- thus covering up Matthew's error in translation, and obscuring the connection between it and Jesus calling for two asses.
Regardless of why Matthew made the translation error, he has Jesus demanding the two animals for the stated purpose of showing him as fulfilling Zechariah's prophecy, however mistranslated it was.
So, you ask, doesn't this reveal conflicts in the stories? Jesus demanded two asses, in plural, in Matthew's story, while he spoke only in singular, of one animal, in Mark's and Luke's.
In applying a bandage of sorts, apologizers for the gospel tales suggest that Matthew, Mark, and Luke report the same event, but that Luke and Mark simply leave out some details. But, this means half the phrases (the plural ones). This is rather absurd, since it means that Jesus would have repeated his dialogue twice to the same people -- once using "him", and once using "them".
Further, some apologizers say that Matthew didn't really mean to imply that riding two asses was necessary to the prophecy, and that Jesus might have demanded the mother ass to keep the colt under control. However, this argument loses appeal when you realize that,
A donkey colt that is strong enough to support the weight of an adult male, plus the saddle garments, is very likely past the age of needing its mother's presence for comforting.
And, if the colt had needed calming, the divine Jesus, able to make lions lie down with lambs (so they say), easily could have done this without its mother.
Matthew did translate Zechariah using literal "and" (Greek "kai"), something which, if the translation had been accurate, would not have occurred unless Matthew really thought there were two animals spoken of therein.
Matthew's Jesus did command the two disciples to bring two animals, and Matthew says "all of this was done so that the prophecy would be fulfilled". Matthew thought that the second ass, the mother, was part of the prophecy too.
Matthew's Jesus sits on "them". The only possible things "them" could refer to were the asses or the garments of the two disciples. The object of sitting in Mark is "him" (the colt), and is "the colt" in Luke -- not the garments. This highly suggests that Matthew's "them" likewise was referring to the animals rather than the garments.
More importantly, according to Matthew, the garments of the two disciples were placed on both animals. So, even if Matthew had Jesus sitting on the garments, this puts him on both asses as well (besides, there is no other reason to put a garment on the mother ass).
But, Matthew did more than have Jesus fulfill a prophecy that had been misread. He left out the part about this ass-riding king being "triumphant and victorious". This is significant, since, if you bother to read the whole of Zechariah 9, you find that this ass-riding king is supposed to come in and give the Jews military triumph and victory over the Greeks. This, of course, never happened when Jesus came riding into town. This is one of those things that Apologists hope will happen if Jesus ever comes back for his second try."
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