Time for another installment of looking back at a trip my wife and I took this past Christmas to Europe…. I know we are now in mid-April and spring is here, but I still have Christmas on my mind.
Ah, Belgium! Waffles and fries! Unfortunately, both my wife and I got sick within a few days after arriving in Belgium. At first, I was still in better shape than she was, and I was pretty determined to make the most out of our Christmas adventure in Europe. So, while she rested up, I went with our friends Andrew and Shannon to take a “World War 1 & 2” tour day.
Clarke with friends Andrew and Shannon, in front of Cloth Hall, in Ypres, Belgium, which was restored after WWI. A fantastic museum in the Cloth Hall chronicles the story of the Western front in WWI, and the town of Ypres was right on the front lines of the action.
It was only about an hour’s drive from where our friends were living (a bit southwest of Brussels) to get to Ypres, a town that dates back to Roman times, which has seen more than its fair share of battles over the centuries. But the worst of it was in World War I, where Allied (French, British, Canadian, and eventually American) forces exchanged machine gun fire with German forces, in an exhausting effort to move the front line, one way or the other. When Belgium was attacked by Germany in 1914, it triggered a series of alliance treaties which catapulted France and the British Empire into the war, and within weeks Ypres became a highly contested piece of real estate, a situation which lasted pretty much the entire war lasting four long years.
Ypres was one of the first sites on “the Western front” where chemical weapons, such as chlorine and mustard gas, was first used as a weapon of war. April 22, 1915 marks the day when during the Second Battle of Ypres a war power (Germany, in this case) first successfully used chlorine gas to dislodge enemy troops. While chemical weapons are technically outlawed by international law now, such was not the case during World War I.
Yet the most bloody battle was the Battle of Passchendaele, where Allied forces were able regain just a few miles of territory from the Germans, but at the cost of some half a million casualties. Well over a million battle casualties happened among the Flanders Fields surrounding Ypres during the course of the war, with dozens of cemeteries scattered across the area, where people still visit today. Ypres is once again a beautiful place now, but a little over a hundred years ago, it was devastation. The town was almost completely flattened, and the towering Cloth Hall, pictured above was almost all but obliterated (see below):
Cloth Hall Tower, Ypres, [ca. 1918], Photographer Unknown, Canadian Expeditionary Force albums, Reference Code: C 224-0-0-9-1, Archives of Ontario, I0004760
After touring the museum at the restored Cloth Hall in Ypres, we drove yet another hour west to the English Channel, at Dunkirk, a port and beach resort town in France, for a stop to think about World War II. The story of Dunkirk is most remembered as the last place the retreating British Expeditionary force stood on mainland Europe’s soil in 1940, in the face of encroaching and overwhelming German troops. The then new British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, insisted that remaining French troops be rescued, along with British troops, and this whole story is associated with the call for private shipping vessels to assist in the miraculously successful evacuation of thousands of military personnel across the English Channel.
The beaches of Dunkirk, France. Thousands of British, and eventually French troops waited on these beaches to be evacuated across the English Channel, as they faced a superior German fighting force, in 1940, in the early years of WW2.
Standing on the beaches of Dunkirk, which in the typical summer months is still a popular resort location, it was hard for me to imagine the helpless feeling many of those soldiers felt, pinned down on these beaches, as occasional German fighter planes sought to strafe the beaches, with RAF fighters in pursuit.
You would think that the horrors of the great world wars of the 20th century would have convinced humanity that guns and bombs do not solve social problems, but the human rebellion against the ways of Christ demonstrate that we are all in need of a Savior. Followers of Jesus do not all agree on how to respond to the dilemmas which wars present, but to make an end of them should be our ultimate goal. While chemical weapons are still a concern, the even more terrible threat comes with nuclear weapons, and there are credible rumors that such weapons might be developed to be used in space, to knock out satellites and cause electromagnetic surges, that can wipe out sensitive electronics here on earth, putting the lives of those who depend upon such sensitive electronics at tremendous risk. With two other major wars happening across the globe right now; namely, the Israeli/Gaza war and the Ukraine/Russia war, there is much that Christians can do to pray for peace. We live in difficult, difficult times.
One more reflection about Ypres is in order….
Ypres was also one of the sites where the “Christmas Truce” of 1914 was celebrated, a brief respite from the atrocities of war, as French, British, and Germany soldiers put down their rifles and played soccer in “No Man’s Land.” Folk singer John McCutcheon wrote a song about the “Christmas Truce,” which is one of my favorites.
I will have a few more posts looking back on our trip to Europe this past Christmas later in the spring.
Just a brief blog post about viewing the 2024 total solar eclipse in Indiana today….
For the 2017 total eclipse, friends of mine had traveled down to South Carolina for the experience of totality. I wrote about the partial eclipse I saw then, back in Virginia. So, when I heard that the 2024 total eclipse would pass through Indiana, where some of my wife’s family lives, I made plans to make the trip out to view the eclipse and while visiting family.
It was worth it.
If you have never seen a total eclipse yourself, and you have the opportunity, you should experience it. Thankfully, the clouds in Evansville, Indiana, began to disappear about 15 minutes before totality. So, we got a fantastic view of the sun and moon in the sky. Just about five minutes before totality, the sky started to grow darker and darker, and the air temperature got cooler.
The moment of totality was a completely surreal experience. It was a lot to take in for the next 3 or 4 minutes. The most amazing sight was the corona around the eclipsed sun. The above photograph does not do the event justice. But you can get a just little sense of the moment.
I could make out the planets Jupiter and Venus (Venus is about at the “4:30” mark, from a clock perspective, down from the son/moon). It was too difficult to see any stars, as there was just enough high cloud cover to obscure any sighting other than the planets in our solar system.
But it was really eery. The birds kept singing, but some of the nighttime crickets started to wake up and chirp. Along the horizon towards the southeast, at the bottom of the photo, it looked like sunset, even though it was only 2pm!
Eclipses were connected to past events in the Bible, but to try to connect today’s astronomically predictable eclipses, which happen somewhere on planet earth about once every 18 months, with biblical prophecy is just foolish thinking. Instead, the viewing of eclipses today are best opportunities to give thanks to the God of the Universe, the Creator of all things, who gives us the privilege of viewing fairly rare, but altogether not unusual events, as a display of his handiwork in nature.
Unfortunately, in North America, the next total solar eclipse will not happen until 2044, and that will only be visible in the U.S. in North and South Dakota and Montana. Another one will travel from California to Florida in 2045, but it still will not have as great as impact as today’s eclipse in the U.S.
Great things are happening at the Cambridge House Christian Study Center at the College of William & Mary. Dozens of college students and Christian faculty & staff at William & Mary are learning together what it means to love God with all their hearts and minds, on a secular college campus.
On Friday, April 12, members of the Williamsburg Christian community can get a sense of what the mission of the Cambridge House is all about.
Every year, William & Mary graduates students who end up becoming culture shapers and leaders, their influence trickling across all sectors of society. Who will be tomorrow’s culture leaders, on par with those W&M graduates like today’s Robert Michael Gates (former U.S. Secretary of Defense & Director of Central Intelligence), Glenn Close (actress), Sean McDermott (head coach of the Buffalo Bills), James Comey (former FBI Director), Jon Stewart (comedian, television host), or Jen Psaki (former White House Press Secretary under Biden)? Those who are praying for the Cambridge House hope that among them will be students whose experience with the Cambridge House is helping to form their spiritual and intellectual passions for serving Christ.
I had the privilege earlier in the semester of leading a small reading group of Cambridge House students, to survey the history of the church. It was thrilling for me to be with young people with brilliant minds and open hearts discussing everything from the Nicene Creed to Martin Luther to Vatican II. But more is happening!
One of the things that Dr. Hedley has been known for was to participate in one of the roundtable discussion groups organized by the well-known Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson. Here is a short YouTube clip featuring Dr. Hedley:
Join us for the next lecture in our Human Nature and Humanistic Endeavor series, presented by Douglas Hedley, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. Professor Hedley will discuss images of the Divine in C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces.
This lecture will explore C.S. Lewis’s celebrated novel Till We Have Faces. The novel is a retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche, but Lewis explores in it themes of imagination and the grounds of religious knowledge. The lecture will be delivered by Douglas Hedley, Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge, who has published many works on religion and the imagination. These include a trilogy of books: The Iconic Imagination, Living Forms of the Imagination, and Sacrifice Imagined.
This lecture is co-sponsored by Reformed University Fellowship, and our Human Nature and Humanistic Endeavor series has been generously supported by the Center for Religion, Culture & Democracy.
If you missed an earlier Cambridge House lecture this year, enjoy “Personalism and the Black Intellectual Tradition” by Dr. Angel Adams Parham on YouTube:
How do you tell the difference between the Holy Spirit giving you guidance and a stomach ache? This is a profound spiritual question that I have wrestled with on and off throughout my Christian life.
There have been times where I have sensed God’s leading and direction: A mysterious realization of Christ’s presence. There have been other times when I have sensed God to be silent. Awfully silent. Philosophers describe this as the problem of “divine hiddenness.”
Tanya Luhrmann explores “How God Becomes Real,” a fascinating look at how believers experience God, from the perspective of a secular anthropologist.
A common objection to the Bible raised by critics is that the Gospel accounts contradict one another. A most famous example is Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem, celebrated in many churches with children waving palm branches on Palm Sunday. While parents enjoy watching their kids fanning themselves with palm branches, wandering around the church sanctuary, such celebration obscures a very troubling passage common to all four of our Gospels.
How many donkeys did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? Perhaps much of the answer to this comes down to how well we understand what each Gospel writer was purposely trying to do.
A look at the various parallel passages reveals the problem. Here is Matthew 21:1-11 (ESV):
1 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,2 saying to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.3 If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he will send them at once.”4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,
5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
6 The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”10 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, “Who is this?”11 And the crowds said, “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.”
Some will derisively look at this passage and suggest that it is really bizarre and funny to think that Jesus tried to ride two animals at once, a donkey and a colt (a young donkey), as though trying to perform some circus trick. Riding one donkey might be hard enough, but straddling yourself across two donkeys simultaneously would be a feat that even the Messiah might find difficult to perform!
But that is only part of the problem. Compare Matthew with Mark’s version of the story (Mark 11:1-10 ESV):
11 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’”4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”
In Mark’s version, there is only one animal mentioned, a colt (a young donkey), as opposed to two animals in Matthew’s version. Both Luke’s version (Luke 19:28-38 ESV) and John’s version (John 12:12-15 ESV) only mention one donkey as well.
So, what is the deal with Matthew, with Jesus riding two animals, as opposed to one mentioned by the other Gospel writers?
One possible way of answering this objection is to note a detail highlighted above in verse 7 of Matthew’s version:
They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.
Notice how the text says that cloaks were placed on the two animals, and that Jesus “sat on them.” What is the “them?” A natural reading suggests a reference to the cloaks, and not the two animals. The cloaks were spread across the two animals, side by side to the other. Jesus could have easily seated himself on one donkey, on top of the set of cloaks spread out between the two donkeys. So, to think that the Bible is in error here because of how ridiculous it would have been for Jesus to ride two animals at the same time, can be easily addressed.
But what about the difference in number, between two animals (per Matthew) and one animal (per Mark, Luke and John)? It could simply be that Mark, Luke, and John only focused the spotlight in their narratives on the one donkey, and purposefully left out the second donkey as not being crucial for the telling of their respective stories. Presumably, Matthew could have included the second donkey, being the mother of the young colt which Jesus rode, as the mother would have provided the young colt some confidence in performing his task of parading Jesus through the streets of Jerusalem.
New Testament Bible scholar, Michael Licona, in his Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?, suggests that this literary technique of spotlighting was a common rhetorical, compositional device used in certain varieties of Greco-Roman literature (Licona, p. 131-32). First century authors would use spotlighting to focus their attention on certain details deemed to be important, while ignoring others.
YouTube apologist, Michael Jones, at Inspiring Philosophy, has a useful video explaining how all of this works with this supposed Bible contradiction:
While I think Michael’s solution is surely a viable one, I can understand why some critics may not be so easily convinced. Is there possibly a better, more plausible explanation for what is going on here?
Much of what we think about how certain Bible discrepancies can be resolved comes down to our understanding of biblical inerrancy. Someone who holds to what might be considered as a rather strict form of inerrancy, will be drawn to the solution that there were indeed two donkeys present at Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry,” according to Matthew, instead of one, whereby the second donkey was ignored by the other three Gospel evangelists. However, a more nuanced form of inerrancy will pay more attention to the intention of each author in telling their respective stories in the way that each one did.
Notice that in Matthew’s version of the story, he makes it a point to connect the story of the two donkeys with a prophecy, highlighted in Matthew’s verse 5, going back to Zechariah 9:9 (and partly also to Isaiah 62:11).
“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
Interestingly, neither Mark nor Luke make any reference back to the Zechariah prophecy. Mark and Luke simply describe the acquisition of the donkey and Jesus’ riding the donkey scenes, with no reference to the Old Testament.
Matthew, on the other hand, wants the reader to know that the donkey episode is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Most scholars today believe that Mark’s Gospel was written first, and that Matthew most probably had a copy of Mark’s Gospel in hand when he wrote his Gospel. Matthew adds the detail about the second donkey to highlight the fulfillment of prophecy that Mark (and Luke) ignore.
But we have a different problem when it comes to comparing this to John’s story. John’s very brief version mentions the Zechariah 9:9 prophecy, but John still only mentions a single donkey, and not two (John 12:12-15 ESV):
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
Some scholars suggest that Matthew made a mistake in interpreting Zechariah. John takes the last two lines of Zechariah’s prophecy, and folds them into one statement, that of “sitting on a donkey’s colt,” showing that both of these lines from Zechariah are speaking of but one donkey, and not two. An example of such critical scholarship can be found in what the Harper Collins Study Bible says for Zechariah 9:9, Matthew’s understanding “fails to take into consideration the parallelism of the Hebrew poetry (donkey is equivalent to colt) when it has Jesus riding on two donkeys at once.”
But this is not the most charitable way of reading Matthew’s text, nor does it acknowledge the fact that Jewish interpreters of the Old Testament in Jesus’ day did not have a univocal understanding of every passage which they read. As it turns out, there were two different interpretive traditions concerning Zechariah 9:9 among Second Temple Jews in Jesus’ day, and the Christian New Testament testifies to this reality (even the Inspiring Philosophy video notes this). Notice the difference in how a translation like the ESV has Matthew, in Matthew 21:5, quoting Zechariah 9:9:
“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
And in how the NIV translation quotes it:
“Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
The ESV omits the “and” in the last phrase, suggesting that the “donkey” in the immediately preceding phrase is repeated again in the “colt” of the last phrase, suggesting that only one donkey is being discussed here. The NIV includes the “and” in the last phrase, suggesting that the “donkey,” and the “colt“; that is, the young (foal) of a donkey are in mind here, suggesting two donkeys, presumably a young donkey and his mother.
So, what are we dealing with here: one or two donkeys? That all depends on which interpretive tradition in Second Temple Judaism you follow. It would appear that Matthew is intending to address those who follow the “two donkey” tradition, whereas John is intending to address those who follow the “one donkey” tradition.
It is not that a certain evangelist (or evangelists) does/do not care about historical accuracy to the “n’th” degree, but rather they care more about crafting a reasonably historical narrative that meets their distinctly different intended purposes.
This may sound a bit confusing, but the point is that Matthew and John are addressing two different audiences, each audience following a different interpretive tradition concerning the prophecy in Zechariah. Mark and Luke, on the other hand, have no interest in connecting the donkey story with Old Testament prophecy, as the prophecy connection did not serve the intended purpose of either Gospel writer, as least not enough to mention it. In other words, our Gospel writers as a group are trying to cover all of the bases, serving different audiences.
Matthew could be more concerned with trying to convince readers with a “two donkey” mindset that Jesus was indeed fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy, and less concerned about whether or not one or two donkeys were part of the story. Matthew probably was well aware that at least Mark’s Gospel assumed “one donkey” to be evidence of prophecy fulfillment, but that Matthew wanted to make sure that those who held to a “two donkey” view would realize that Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” was indeed a fulfillment of prophecy as well. We really do not have enough evidence to figure that detail out with exact, technical precision.
Ultimately, whether we have two donkeys or just one donkey, Matthew and John are convinced that Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” on Palm Sunday in Jerusalem fulfills prophecy. Furthermore, all of our four evangelists note that at least one donkey is involved in the historical narrative.
While this solution does not neatly solve the problem of two or one donkey(s), it tries to respect the intended purpose of each Gospel writer, acknowledging that there might be very good, but yet very different intended purposes being served by each evangelist. In other words, we are not dealing with a question of “who is in error here?,” but rather, we are dealing with the fact that each Gospel writer is doing what they are doing on purpose. Reading the text of each Gospel more carefully can help us to discern the intended purpose of each author, which in many ways is much more important than trying to establish a neat, easily harmonized, strict sequence of events.
Most Christians never bother to read parallel passages in the Gospels. This is unfortunate, as many skeptics of the Bible point to inconsistencies between such parallel passages, as part of their justification for rejecting the reliability of the Bible. It would behoove believers to make an effort to study parallel passages, in order to think through why different authors in Scripture have their differences! One can study such differences without necessarily abandoning the divinely inspired nature of all of Scripture. In fact, such study can help us to better appreciate the underlying motives of each author, as an aid to better understanding each text.
The ultimately takeaway for all Christians (and skeptics!) who study this Palm Sunday set of passages in the Bible is that Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem in a humble way, while simultaneously announcing that Jesus is the true King. The events which followed on that fateful week, that of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Resurrection, show to the whole world that Jesus is indeed the King of Kings.
Veracity 