Gospel of Matthew: Palm Sunday—How Many Donkeys Did Jesus Ride? (Part 2 with Hank Hanegraaff)

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast, continues part two of his teaching about Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, we celebrate Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem, in fulfillment of Zechariah’s famed prophecy, “Behold, your King comes to you; He is righteous and saving; He is gentle and mounted upon a donkey, even a young foal” (9:9). Skeptics and infidels have seized upon Matthew’s account of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem as not only absurd but the stuff of myths and fables. It has to do with the question of how many donkeys Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Believe it or not, a good number of fundamentalists on the left suppose Matthew has Jesus riding two donkeys into Jerusalem. One website actually appends the word absurd to Matthew’s rendering of Palm Sunday: “In three of the four accounts of the triumphal entry, Jesus rides a single donkey. Matthew, though, apparently misunderstands the prophecy and, rather absurdly, has Jesus ride two donkeys.” For the sake of plain old common sense, I should note that wherever there are two animals, there is always one. If Mark, Luke, and John had stipulated only one donkey, while Matthew stated that more than one donkey was involved, we would be faced with an obvious contradiction. Instead, the complementary details provided by the four gospel writers serve to flesh out the rest of the story. St. Matthew was using the presence of two animals as a way of depicting faithful Jews and faithful Gentiles, who through the mission and ministry of Messiah have come together as one body. Far from contradictory, the biblical imagery is complex and awe-inspiring

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