| Temptation Of Christ |
Article Index for Temptation |
Website Links For Temptation |
Information AboutTemptation Of Christ |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT TEMPTATION OF CHRIST | |
| jesus | |
| doctrines and teachings of jesus | |
| gospel episodes | |
|
In Christianity , the temptation of Christ refers to the Temptation of Jesus by Satan as detailed in each of the three Synoptic Gospels , specifically at , , and . According to these texts, after being baptised, Jesus Fasted for forty days and nights in the Desert . During this time, Satan appeared to him and tempted Jesus to demonstrate his supernatural powers as proof of his divinity. Each temptation was refused by Jesus with scripture from the Book Of Deuteronomy . The Gospels state that having failed, Satan departed and Angel s came and brought nourishment to Jesus. Mark 's account is very brief, merely noting the aforementioned events, but giving no details about them. Matthew and Luke , on the other hand, describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and Satan. ACCOUNTS 's ''The Temptation of Christ'']] In Luke and Matthew's accounts, the devil tempts Jesus to:
The order is not consistent between Luke and Matthew. In Matthew, the middle temptation is the one to jump from a pinnacle, and the power over the kingdoms of the world is the final one, but in Luke it is the other way around. Regardless of which ordering was followed, tradition arose that once Jesus rejected the final temptation, the devil plummeted from the top of whichever of the two high places he was at, something frequently depicted in art and recounted in some detail in '' Paradise Regained ''. Matthew makes clear that ''the Spirit'', presumably the Holy Ghost prominently mentioned only two verses before, has lead Jesus into the desert. Many scholars see Matthew as presenting Jesus being tested under the orders of God, rather than the devil simply being opportunist. While Christian Fundamentalists state that the devil's goals were his own, most scholars see the devil's role here as echoing Satan 's role in some parts of the Old Testament , where he is portrayed as an angel acting under God's orders as an official ''opposing council'', to test humans on behalf of God. That Mark's account is very short while Matthew and Luke's accounts consists mostly of quotes from Jesus and Satan has led scholars to believe that the latter accounts of the event both originate in the Q Document . FASTING 's 1872 ''Christ in the Wilderness'']] According to Hill, fasting traditionally presaged a great spiritual struggle. The Israelites, as well as Elijah, and Moses individually, are described in the Old Testament as fasting for 40 days and nights, in the case of the Israelites doing so involuntarily and being slightly relieved by Manna , and so Jesus doing the same appears to be a deliberate comparison to these events. According to Clarke, at the time Forty was less a specific number and more a general expression for any large figure. France notes that fasting does not necessarily mean a complete abstinence from food and consequently that Jesus may have been surviving on the sparse food that could be obtained in the desert. Mark does not mention any fasting and although Luke implies it, it does not use the word. Gundry notes that Matthew seems to be a far more interested in presenting Jesus as having fasted prior to the events than the other gospels are. Jesus' fasting became the model for the practice of Lent in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, a ritual that lasts forty days, but is today a less than total abstinence. Protestants, in general, do not see this passage as a justification for Lent, and while Martin Luther felt that the Lent ritual was useful in focusing the minds of the faithful, he still considered it artificial. John Calvin felt the entire notion was silly and that if imitation was truly the path to salvation then believers ought to strive to walk on water or to turn water to wine. LOCATIONS 's ''The Temptation on the Mount'']] Each temptation takes place in a different setting. The first temptation, in both Luke and Matthew, is that of making bread out of stones, occurring in the same desert setting where Jesus had previously been fasting. Jones reports that the wilderness mentioned here has since the Fifth Century been believed to be the rocky and uninhabited area between Jerusalem and Jericho , with a spot on Mount Quarantina traditionally being considered the exact location, at which a Greek Orthodox Monastery now exists. The desert was seen as outside the bounds of society and as the home of demons, such as Azazel . Some have read this reference to the wilderness as a comparison to Adam in the Garden Of Eden , implying that Jesus will be a new Adam but one that doesn't make the same mistake. However, like most scholars, Gundry rejects this idea, stating that nowhere does Matthew's text imply such a comparison, but rather the desert is more likely an Allusion to the wilderness through which the Israelite s wandered during The Exodus , and more specifically to Moses. After the first temptation is rejected, the devil takes Jesus to a high ''pinnacle'' in what Matthew terms ''the holy city''. Most Christians consider that ''holy city'' refers unquestionably to Jerusalem and the ''temple'' to which the ''pinnacle'' belongs is thus identified as the Temple In Jerusalem , although the text is quite ambiguous in this matter since Matthew could easily name the location, and the question arises why he didn't. Luke's version of the story clearly identifies the location as Jerusalem. What is meant by the word traditionally translated as ''pinnacle'' is not entirely clear since the Greek word is almost identical to the word that translates as ''little wings''. Schweizer hence feels that ''little tower'' or ''parapet'' would be more accurate. Gundry lists three sites at the Jerusalem temple that would fit this description:
For the final temptation, the devil takes Jesus to a ''high place'', which Matthew is explicit about being a mountain, where ''all the kingdoms of the world'' can be seen. Due to the curvature of the earth, no such mountain could actually exist, and other interpretations have been put forward:
PURPOSE Simon Bening 's depiction of the devil approaching Jesus with a stone to be turned into bread]] Exactly what the devil was trying to achieve by these temptations has been open to debate - for example, the act of using divine power to produce bread is indicated elsewhere in Matthew as being perfectly acceptable for Jesus to perform, and so this cannot in itself be seen as wrong. The traditional view is that the devil on each occasion is trying to make Jesus commit a particular sin - Avarice by offering power over the kingdoms of the world, Gluttony by suggesting a way to relieve Jesus' hunger, and Hubris by suggesting that Jesus jump and rely on angels to break his fall. Most modern scholars do not accept this view, Jones for example noting that calling someone who has fasted for forty days gluttonous simply because they now desire food is really not very fair. Another view that was popular for a time was that the devil wasn't so much tempting Jesus as presenting him with the different options he could take to be a Messiah, and making him decide on one. Evangelicals, such as France point to the word usually translated as ''tempt'' as being more accurately translated as ''test'', i.e. that the devil was testing Jesus' understanding of his role rather than trying to lure him to sin. The rejected options under this interpretation being:
The majority viewpoint amongst scholars is that Matthew is here presenting Jesus as a new Moses , since not only is the devil described as tempting Jesus in a similar manner to the Israelites tempting God, but Jesus is presented as responding with Moses' own words. It is worth noting that while the Israelites accepts each situation, Jesus refuses to be tempted:
REJECTIONS ' ''The Temptation of Christ'' shows Jesus rebuffing Satan's proffered stone]] Jesus rejects each of the temptations by quoting from the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy . It is worth noting that the wording in the Masoretic Text , which forms the basis of most Christian translations of the Old Testament , is not as good a match. The three quotations are:
JESUS' BANQUET 's ''Angels Ministering to Christ in the Wilderness'']] Once the three temptations are over, the narrative has the devil depart and Jesus being serviced by Angel s. In the original Greek of Matthew, "devil left him" was in the Historic Present tense, indicating a lack of permanence, i.e. that the devil would later return to further tempt Jesus, which Luke spells out explicitly. While both Mark and Matthew mention the angels, Luke does not, and Matthew seems once again here to be making parallels with the old testament, in this case though with Elijah, who was fed by Raven s, rather than making a parallel with Moses. The word ''minister''/''served'' is often interpreted as the angels feeding Jesus, and traditionally artists have depicted the scene as Jesus being presented with a feast, a detailed description of it even appearing in ''Paradise Regained''. According to Clarke, this ending to the temptation narrative is a common literary device of using a feast scene to emphasize a happy ending, while to Jones this ending is proof that Jesus never lost his faith in God during the temptations. In the War Scroll found at Qumran , angels are described as forming an army to battle evil, which is somewhat at odds with most interpretations of the portrayal of angels here, but it could indicate that the angels in the passage should instead be interpreted as ''ministering'' to Jesus by driving off the devil. CULTURAL INFLUENCES The temptation of Christ has been a frequent subject in the Art and Literature of Christian cultures. In more recent times, to "turn stones into bread" has become a common phrase in American English . SEE ALSO
REFERENCES
EXTERNAL LINKS |
|
|