godsandmen
Senior Member
- Oct 20, 2017
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Christians believe that Jesus "fulfilled" OT prophecy. But in fact it's not prophecy fulfilled but prophecy historicized after the fact. The "fulfilled prophecies" were retrojected into the gospel writers' stories in order to flesh out the Jesus character who they knew so little about. After all, these writers wrote decades after Jesus died, and knew almost nothing about him. In their zeal to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, they searched the Old Testament for anything (sometimes just phrases) that could possibly be construed as messianic prophecies, and then created or modified events in Jesus' life to fulfill those so-called prophecies.
How do we know that? How do we know that the stories weren't actual records of actual fulfillment of prophecy? Well, lots of reasons, but one, in particular, stands out, at least to me. It's sometimes referred to as "Matthew's big blunder", and this blunder, I'm afraid, gives the game away.
In the story of the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, Mark, Luke and John all say that Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey. But Matthew has Jesus enter the city straddling TWO animals, not one - a donkey AND a colt! Here's the passage in Matthew:
Matthew 21:1-7
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 [Zechariah], 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.
The reason Matthew has Jesus on TWO animals instead of one is that he misunderstood the prophecy (quoted above) to refer to two animals. But this is an error on his part [yes, an error. You can throw out any belief in “inerrancy” right here!] This is a common occurrence in the OT of something called a parallelism, where the same idea is stated twice with slightly different wording, but actually means the same thing. In this case the passage in Zechariah is NOT referring to two animals. The donkey and the colt represent the same animal, and the other gospel writers all understood this, which is why they had Jesus enter the city on a lone donkey. Matthew didn't get it though. He thought the Zechariah passage literally meant TWO animals, so that's what he put in his story. It’s rather comical when you to try to picture Jesus straddling two animals!
Stunt rider Jesus to the rescue!
What does this tell us? What conclusions can we draw from this?
Here’s what we can conclude:
1) Whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew could not possibly have been an eyewitness. If he was, he would have known that Jesus entered the city on just one donkey, as he would have seen it with his own eyes.
2) Not only was the author not a witness, but he did not get his information from anyone else who was a witness, for the same reason as above.
3) Since he was neither a witness nor an acquaintance of a witness, there is only one way he could have gotten his information – from his own imagination – with the help of the Old Testament! Of course, he got the story from Mark, but then he changed Mark’s version of the story in order to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make the prophecy come true. It is a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fit his own personal opinion about what must have happened. It is prophecy fulfillment invented, not recorded, and this is most likely how all of the gospels were written.
There’s an old story that goes like this: “While traveling through a forest, a person noticed a circle marked on a tree with an arrow shot perfectly into the center. A few yards away he noticed several more targets, each with arrows in the center. Later, he met the talented archer and he asked him, "How did you become such an expert that you always get your arrows into the center of the bullseye?" "It's not difficult," responded the archer, "First I shoot the arrow and then I draw the circle."”
That’s how the gospels were written!
And Matthew's blunder, among other things, gives the game away.
How do we know that? How do we know that the stories weren't actual records of actual fulfillment of prophecy? Well, lots of reasons, but one, in particular, stands out, at least to me. It's sometimes referred to as "Matthew's big blunder", and this blunder, I'm afraid, gives the game away.
In the story of the triumphal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, Mark, Luke and John all say that Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey. But Matthew has Jesus enter the city straddling TWO animals, not one - a donkey AND a colt! Here's the passage in Matthew:
Matthew 21:1-7
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 [Zechariah], 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.
The reason Matthew has Jesus on TWO animals instead of one is that he misunderstood the prophecy (quoted above) to refer to two animals. But this is an error on his part [yes, an error. You can throw out any belief in “inerrancy” right here!] This is a common occurrence in the OT of something called a parallelism, where the same idea is stated twice with slightly different wording, but actually means the same thing. In this case the passage in Zechariah is NOT referring to two animals. The donkey and the colt represent the same animal, and the other gospel writers all understood this, which is why they had Jesus enter the city on a lone donkey. Matthew didn't get it though. He thought the Zechariah passage literally meant TWO animals, so that's what he put in his story. It’s rather comical when you to try to picture Jesus straddling two animals!
Stunt rider Jesus to the rescue!
What does this tell us? What conclusions can we draw from this?
Here’s what we can conclude:
1) Whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew could not possibly have been an eyewitness. If he was, he would have known that Jesus entered the city on just one donkey, as he would have seen it with his own eyes.
2) Not only was the author not a witness, but he did not get his information from anyone else who was a witness, for the same reason as above.
3) Since he was neither a witness nor an acquaintance of a witness, there is only one way he could have gotten his information – from his own imagination – with the help of the Old Testament! Of course, he got the story from Mark, but then he changed Mark’s version of the story in order to reflect what he thought it should say in order to make the prophecy come true. It is a conscious act of fraud in order to make the text fit his own personal opinion about what must have happened. It is prophecy fulfillment invented, not recorded, and this is most likely how all of the gospels were written.
There’s an old story that goes like this: “While traveling through a forest, a person noticed a circle marked on a tree with an arrow shot perfectly into the center. A few yards away he noticed several more targets, each with arrows in the center. Later, he met the talented archer and he asked him, "How did you become such an expert that you always get your arrows into the center of the bullseye?" "It's not difficult," responded the archer, "First I shoot the arrow and then I draw the circle."”
That’s how the gospels were written!
And Matthew's blunder, among other things, gives the game away.
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