Beast(s) ridden by Jesus (was: Re: EI = Since)

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 01 1998 - 05:53:30 EDT


At 9:14 PM -0400 5/31/98, Jim West wrote:
>At 09:06 PM 5/31/98 -0400, you wrote:
>
>>Well ... there's 21:7--HGAGON THN ONON KAI TON PWLON KAI EPEQHKAN EP' AUTWN
>>TA hIMATIA, KAI EPEKAQISEN EPANW AUTWN. Perhaps this is not deliberate
>>irony, but the reader tends to perceive it as ironic.
>>
>>Carl W. Conrad
>
>Perhaps I am in ill humor or something, but I cannot figure how you take
>this to be ironic. The plural? I take ta himatia to be the things he rode
>upon. I.e.,
>They led the ass and the foal and set garments upon them, and he rode on
>them (the garments) (not both animals).

That's all very fine--but it looks to me like the hIMATIA are placed upon
both animals--whether collectively or individually, I don't know. But the
evangelist does appear to want Jesus' action to be a LITERAL fulfilment of
the prophetic passage cited in 21:5:
        EIPATE THi QUGATRI SIWN
        IDOU hO BASILEUS SOU ERCETAI SOI
          PRAUS KAI EPIBEBHKWS EPI ONON
            KAI EPI PWLON hUION hUPOZUGION.

It is an awkward passage, and one that has been discussed in this forum
before. Mark's account has only the PWLOS (Mk 11:7 KAI FEROUSIN TON PWLON
PROS TON IHSOUN KAI EPIBALLOUSIN AUTWi TA hIMATIA AUTWN, KAI EKAQISEN EP'
AUTON. For comparison's sake, here's Luke's version (Lk 19:35): KAI HGAGON
AUTON [scil. TON PWLON] PROS TON IHSOUN KAI EPIhRIYANTES AUTWN TA hIMATIA
EPI TON PWLON EPIBABASAN TON IHSOUN. Whatever one's preferences regarding
the Synoptic problem, Matthew's two animals are unique; if one assumes
Marcan priority, one must suppose that Matthew has added the ass and linked
it to the prophecy (as seems most likely to me), while Luke has improved
upon Mark's phrasing but kept Mark's content intact; if, on the other hand,
one accepts the Farmer-Griesbach view of Matthaean priority, it would
appear that both Luke and Mark found Matthew's version of the two animals
awkward enough to dispense with the ass.

Again, I don't really consider this a case of irony, nor do I really think
Matthew intends to be funny here (but I would hardly want to make a
sweeping statement such as that 'Matthew is totally lacking in irony unless
you can show me an instance of it'). I think he wants to narrate the
triumphal entry as a fulfilment of Zech 9:9, probably with an emphasis on
the theme of PRAUS BASILEUS, but that in order to depict the event as a
fulfilment he presents in his account a second animal and depicts Jesus as
(apparently) riding on both. I don't really think that making the AUTWN of
EPANW AUTWN take hIMATIA as its antecedent is an adequate resolution of the
problem.

Would Mark Goodacre and Stephen Carlson care to comment on this one (and
perhaps also on the question whether Matthew the evangelist is capable of
irony)?

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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