James F. McGrath, The A to Z of the New Testament: Things Experts Know That Everyone Else Should Too (Eerdmans, 2023), 66-67.
Once again we have to ask whether Matthew missed the original context [of Zechariah 9:9] and misunderstood the text, deliberately misrepresented it, or something else. It is hard to be certain, but here it is much harder to find an excuse or explanation for what Matthew did…On the whole, however, we can definitely say that Matthew interpreted the Jewish scriptures in ways that were perfectly acceptable in his time. I won’t try to grade him on behalf of his ancient teachers, but they probably would have judged him quite skilled and perhaps highly adept at the methods they themselves taught and practiced. As for what he’d get if he took a class today that taught our modern approach, emphasizing the importance of understanding texts in their original context, he might well fail, depending on the precise assignment. I’d prefer to think he’d scrape by with a passing grade, because he clearly showed knowledge of an insight into relevant texts….
Whenever I think about Matthew’s reference to Jesus riding two donkeys at once, I think of a Volvo commercial from 2013 in which Jean-Claude Van Damme rides two trucks simultaneously. Look it up – you can definitely find it online. It may help you appreciate Matthew more if you imagine Jesus doing something similar with the two donkeys, Whatever you decide about Matthew as an interpreter of scripture in his ancient context, it takes reading him in a modern one to find “daredevil Jesus” in his story.
The Amateur Exegete 
I’ve read several articles from your series “(Re)Considering Christianity: A Skeptic Looks at the Christian Religion” and I’d like to know: did you become an atheist mainly because of fundamental questions that remained unanswered, a gradual “cooling” of faith through personal experience and reading, realizing that certain doctrines or biblical accounts no longer made rational sense, or for another reason (if so, could you explain)?
Another thing — I read your article about the unicorn and the Bible, and I found your argument interesting. However, I wanted to point something out: in the text, it seems that you view biblical inspiration and inerrancy as something absurd.
But reading the way you describe these ideas, I got the impression that you’re responding to a very specific version — perhaps the most literalist or fundamentalist view of inspiration.
Yet there are other conceptions of inspiration and infallibility in Christian theology (such as dynamic, phenomenological, or functional inspiration) that don’t claim a literal or scientific perfection of the text.
Don’t you think that by addressing inspiration and inerrancy only in that more rigid sense, your argument ends up sounding a bit reductionist — or like a straw man — for not taking these other possible interpretations into account?
I’d really like to know whether your critique is directed only at the fundamentalist model or if you reject the concept of inspiration altogether.
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For the most part, I’m addressing fundamentalism. Strictly speaking, any view of inspiration that entails the existence of a deity is just not compelling to me. Can the Bible be inspire-ing? Sure. Is it inspired by a god? I don’t think so. But if you want to read it that way in some form or fashion, more power to you.
I think my issue is that certain versions of inspiration and inerrancy lend themselves to a sort of prescription for society on the part of fundamentalist readers. I oppose such views when they spill over into what one thinks I should be doing or how my loved ones should.
But there is absolutely room for someone to have a view of inspiration and/or inerrancy that is far less rigid.
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