Yes, I think Jesus really did ride into Jerusalem, but no, I don’t think he did so riding two animals. So yes, you could say that Matthew is hyperbolic about it.
I was speaking on the matter of the ressurected saints and if that hyper-literacy can be applied there which i think it cannt
But it is. We have been living in exile from fellowship with God, and Jesus’s death heralds the victory over Death or Babylon and the return to the New Zion.
Matthew was addressing his gospel primarily to a Jewish audience, and they would be very familiar with the prophesy of the return from exile. They were familiar with the bones of their ancestors as they collected them and transferred them from their tombs and put them in ossuarys, and would see the parallel.
At least, that is what makes sense to me in understanding a problematic verse not repeated or commented on in any other gospel.
This brings to mind a related question I’ve recently had while reading through both Matthew and Mark. In the list of disciples Jesus’ calls (Matt 10 and Mark 3), one of the disciples is listed as: “Simon, the Cananaean”! I don’t suppose that is similar to “Canaanite”, is it? As in … was one of Jesus’ disciples not even Jewish at all? That can’t be right, but I’m not sure what to make of it. I see from a quick Google of it that it refers to a Jewish sect that bitterly opposed Roman rule … so “zealot” as I guess I now remember from other translations. But still … it almost sounded like a gentile label.
The resurrected saints is different, sure. I think that needs to be read more alongside the slaughter of the innocents. Both of those scenes seem to be included to make important points, and by including such momentous events as little more than asides, it helps to convey how important Matthew sees Jesus’ birth and death as being. I have no strong opinion on whether either event happened, and Matthew doesn’t present either event as somehow grounding the truth of his main plotline. If you don’t like his way of highlighting momentous events, you can ignore those flourishes without losing anything central.
But the events do serve a purpose. @jpm already got into the connections between Ezekiel and the resurrected saints. At the other end of the gospel, the slaughter of the innocents shows clearly through a short story just how twisted the land of Judea had become. Their “king” had become like Pharaoh with his decree to kill baby boys; Jesus and his parents need an exodus from Israel to find safety – in Egypt! Israel is Egypt, Herod is Pharaoh and Egypt is Israel. It’s all mixed up. And even if the particular story Matthew uses is invented, the characterization it paints of Herod and Judea at that time does ring true based on other historical sources. It tells the truth, but in a creative way that riffs on Scripture.
I realize not everyone likes a gospel that can do things like this. But hey, there are other gospels too. Let Matthew be Matthew. Some of us like it just the way it is. 
1 Like
Yet Jesus is Jesus. I mean if it includes that much of a symbolism and still has a literal historical person in it what can we make of it? I dont like the “the most part is symbolic but here and there it includes some historical characters” potision. I dont like what we humans can do with scripture. I can twist everything the bible says into symbolism. Heck i can make it a poem if i want to. The question is what the verse really means not what it might mean
Nick, a straight telling of an event is just as open to twisted readings as an embellished or artfully arranged telling. Perhaps even more so, since usually the reason for adjusting the details is to more unambiguously expose the purpose. When a movie collapses a bunch of scattered events in a person’s life into one key event, they do so because that created event portrays the truth about the person they learned from studying all the scattered, small events. It could be less honest to just show a few of those scattered events without the context that reveals what they say about the person’s character. A movie or book can’t fully include a person’s life. It has to be selective. Sometimes a selection that includes fictionalized events is more true to the full person than a different selection that may stick to actual events but never exposes – or maybe even obscures – key aspects of the person.
The question is whether one trusts the author: are we willing to allow that everything they put into their account, including their creativity, was aimed towards revealing the truth? If so, we can benefit from what they’ve given us. If not, then we should be on our guard about the believable details as much as the fantastic details. They could lie just as easily through how they strung together actual events as through composing a fictionalized scene.
1 Like
We are not speaking about A person. We are speaking about THE person. Jesus. The most debated and the most important person in history. So the same terms about what can be fictionalized to show a better understanding of a character on the book do not apply here
Why wouldn’t they apply? Can you only do such things about unimportant people? And I don’t see why the events that seem most likely to be fictionalized (the slaughter of innocents and resurrection of saints) should undermine the person Matthew’s gospel is about. Those infants and saints are not Jesus, after all.
If including such details about other people seems to undermine Matthew’s credibility in talking about Jesus, then why not focus on the other gospels that I suppose have boosted their credibility by not including these events? Or focus on what several gospels, despite their different approaches, say in unison.
But there are some of us who don’t see this as undermining Matthew’s authority at all. No more than a Van Gogh painting is diminished for not looking like a Kinkade.
Because Matthew “breaks” the harmony with this approach. You cant include made up stuff in a book about a historical and important character.
Not only an important character, but for us Christians God himself. Its plainly silly. Where have you seen this elsewhere? Ceasars life? I dont think so. Leonidas of Sparta? Nope not there. Its a theology book that i know of. But is a book that records events as well so made up stuff is a no no
Practically every novelization or movie treatment of a historical and important character includes dialogue. That dialogue is “made up stuff.” If it is a good treatment, the words put into the person’s mouth fit with what can be known about them. We get a truer picture of the person through the made-up words and often made-up scenes.
This is extremely common in narrative biographies, even in our culture where we place greater importance on historical accuracy. It may not be common in encyclopedia articles, but nobody is claiming that is what Matthew was trying to write.
Doubting that. As stated before neither in Ceasars not Leonidas not anyone has these stuff. The only figure that comes to mind is Alexander the Great but i doubt they include in his biography that his sister was a mermaid so tis kinda a legend thing.
So what Matthew was trying to write?
For one thing, Luke and Mark weren’t even apostles.
Alright disciples ,thats not the main concern of the question lol
He was writing to a particular audience that had literary conventions. It would not have been difficult for them to understand or differentiate fact from literary embellishment. We are far removed from the cultural context and we write history differently and make different assumptions. What would have been implicitly clear to the original audience, we don’t necessarily infer in our context. None of that is surprising, it is how human communication works.
Many commentators have considered the more fantastical elements of Matthew to be Jewish apocalyptic or eschatological imagery that fit with their literary traditions of the time.
How exactly making a whole event up fits with the literaly traditions of the time? How both the ressurection of the saints and the killing of the babies got to do with Jewish tradition at the time? Seems to me that every passage we dont know the answer for we put it on the metaphorical,allegorical,apocalyptic section.
52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,
53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
54 When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place
To summarize Nick’s question, earthquake, resurrected saints: dictated by the Holy Spirit or myth forming?
No, that’s not true. These are things you can study.
Why is it unthinkable that the Holy Spirit could guide artistic and literary renderings that communicated intended meaning perfectly well?
Refusing to believe here God dictating fiction. Its a book about him. Why would he want fiction