Form, Genre, and Historicity of the Wilderness Temptations of Jesus in the Gospels: A Response to Jonathan Burke (Part 1)

1.       Introduction

Jonathan Burke has written an article entitled Literary genre of the wilderness temptation which is part of a larger apologetic series defending the Christadelphians’ non-mythological exegesis of Satan in the New Testament. He has expressed essentially the same ideas in another article which criticizes my own exegesis of the Synoptic wilderness temptation stories (TS). Burke regards my exegesis as “idiosyncratic”, a “litany of error” which “demonstrates a complete lack of familiarity with the relevant scholarship.”[1]

Burke’s main point is that the Synoptic wilderness temptation story should not be read as narrative. While Burke assumes “genuine historical events underlying the temptation accounts,” he does not think the passage is to be taken at face value. What then are we to make of the detailed exchange between Jesus and ὁ διάβολος contained in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13?

Rather than being read as historical narrative, the temptation account is generally understood to take the form of haggadic midrash (non-historical commentary used to illustrate interpretations of the sacred text).

This is the central claim of Burke’s short article. Similarly, in his critique of my claim that the Gospels (including the TS) belong to the narrative genre, Burke states, “This claim is contradicted by the scholarly consensus; the genre is haggagic [sic] midrash, not narrative.” However, these are untidy statements, for several reasons. The first reason is that Burke does not substantiate his claim that the scholarly consensus regards the TS as belonging to the genre of haggadic midrash. He cites three scholars, two of which refer to a resemblance between the temptation story and midrash, and only one of which claims that the TS is haggadic midrash. Moreover, none of these scholars say that this is the scholarly consensus, and as we shall see, there is debate about the extent to which ‘midrash’ is a helpful category for understanding the TS.

A further reason why Burke’s claim is untidy is that it conflates different kinds of biblical criticism. The claim that the TS is a haggadic midrash belongs largely to form criticism. This is quite distinct from, for instance, historical criticism, redaction criticism and narrative criticism. It may help to bridge the gap between history and the TS as a final literary product, but it is of limited value in determining the intended meaning of that final product. Similarly, by his repeated use of the term ‘historical narrative’, Burke conflates two issues: (1) whether the TS in the Gospels belong to the genre of narrative, and (2) the historicity of the TS. Along the same lines, some of Burke’s claims are exceedingly vague: he defends “the idea that Jesus’ temptation was figurative, symbolic, or visionary.” However, ‘figurative/symbolic’ and ‘visionary’ are two very different ideas, and Burke does not state which of them he endorses. Nor does Burke clarify whether this claim refers to Jesus’ temptation historically, in pre-Gospel tradition, or in the text of the Gospels (or all of the above?) Nor would the presence of symbolic or visionary elements in the TS conflict with it being a narrative, or with its historicity.

My thesis here is that the temptation stories in their final, canonical form in all three Synoptic Gospels[2] constitute a mythical narrative which the writers depict as actual events in Jesus’ life and which introduce a conflict between Jesus and Satan which continues through the story. It is in this form that the TS is authoritative for the teaching of the Church. I will further argue that, provided the interpreter presupposes a worldview which allows for the supernatural, there is no reason to doubt the basic historicity of the narrative.

2.       The TS as haggadic midrash

Among the most detailed recent critical studies on the TS has been Robbins' monograph, The Testing of Jesus in Q. He discusses two terms – midrash and myth – which in his view

have added as much smoke as substance to the discussion… Most scholars who talk about this narrative use both of these terms, but sometimes they mean different things by them, and sometimes it would seem that they mean nothing.[3]

He attributes the identification of the TS as haggadic midrash to Gerhardsson. He notes that “There is a confusion of referents among scholars when some speak of midrash as a literary genre and others speak of it as an exegetical method.”[4] Robbins subsequently declares:

I will largely refrain from referring to the Temptation Narrative as a midrash, though it is not because I feel it is entirely inappropriate. It is simply that midrash brings a messiness with it that seriously impugns its ability to serve as a useful index of literary function or form.[5]

Robbins goes on to refer to Chilton’s study, which states, “When one applies the word ‘Midrash’ generically, it is patent that the New Testament does not belong to this category.”[6] Chilton further criticizes Gerhardsson’s term ‘haggadic midrash’ (adopted by Burke) because it suggests a specific sub-genre yet Gerhardsson offers no other examples of it from the New Testament or rabbinic literature!

Robbins is prepared to countenance the TS as ‘midrash’ (lower case m) which is used in scholarship for “just about every kind of Jewish interpretation of Scripture,”[7] but he is not prepared to refer to them as ‘Midrash’ (upper case M), meaning “a very specific generic category of Jewish exegesis and exposition.”[8]

Another challenge to midrashic reading of the TS comes from Kloppenborg, who analyzes the pericope as it hypothetically existed in Q. He emphasizes that this dialogue has a “relatively detailed narrative framework” and that the TS belong “to a narrative genre which uses speech as the servant of the narrative.”[9]

He then turns his attention to form-critical matters. He notes of this pericope,

Some regard it as a sayings form and hence as little different from the rest of Q. Albertz called it a controversy story,[10] while others compared it with rabbinic exegetical debates or with haggadic midrashim.[11]

He challenges all of these claims. Of particular note, he states, “In view of the dramatis personae, the mythic setting and the fact that the purpose is not exegesis, the analogy of a ‘rabbinic dispute’ is not apposite.”[12] This clearly runs contrary to Burke’s claim that “the aim of the temptation account is to explicate the relevance of Biblical passages to Jesus’ messianic mission”. Kloppenborg regards the TS as “a scribal creation” rather than a product of oral tradition, and in terms of form he prefers “the motif of the temptation or ordeal of the wise and faithful man”, such as those in the biblical and extra-biblical stories about Abraham and Job.[13]

As for the (hypothetical) positioning of this pericope within Q, Kloppenborg remarks on its “conformity with a typical biographical pattern” which for him confirms “that Q was moving toward a narrative or biographical cast.”[14] In summary, already within Q, the TS has a mythic setting and approaches a biographical, narrative framework.

Gibson likewise notes, “It is often claimed that form-critically, the closest parallels to the Q temptation story are to be found in the accounts over the Law or the interpretation of Scripture in Haggadic midrash.”[15] He allows a limited element of truth in such claims, provided we limit ourselves to the dialogue part of the TS (though he does not claim that this dialogue is a haggadic midrash). However, he argues that

when we take the story in its entirety and consider form-critically and from a literary critical and thematic point of view, the shape given it both by the notice of the Baptism (Mt. 3.13, 16-17//Lk. 3.21-22) and by the frame of Mt. 4.1-2, 11//Lk 4.1-2, 13, then the story’s closest and most complementary parallels are those stories in biblical and related literature given over to portraying a ‘servant of God’ or the pious person subjected to trials in order to determine or display the nature or extent of his or her faithfulness[16]

Gibson further argues that “the narrative theme of Mt. 4.1-11/Lk. 4.1-13 – Jesus being subjected to a pre-ministry peirasmos carried out by the Devil – is not original to Q, but has been taken up by Q from an early, pre-Q, even possibly pre-Easter, tradition.”[17] He regards Mark’s TS as probably independent of that in Q.[18] Like Kloppenborg, however, Gibson takes the TS as it now appears in Matthew and Luke as “an original composition, created ‘at one go’ in its present form” (in Q).[19]

Finally, Stein, in listing various options for the source of the TS, states, "It is unlikely that the temptations simply arose out of midrashic reflections on various OT passages, such as Deut 6:10-16; 8:1-9:22."[20]

In short, the TS in its pre-canonical form was broadly 'midrashic' inasmuch as it contained exegesis of OT texts, but there is little support for viewing its literary genre as 'Midrash'. Matthew and Luke incorporated this traditional material within a wider biographical narrative about Jesus. Some formal similarity between the TS and midrash may be acknowledged, but this form-critical observation is not decisive for questions of narrative function in the Gospels nor of historicity.

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[1] Unfortunately, Burke has chosen to interact only with a blog post in which I briefly outlined ten exegetical points without citing any sources. In the post, I referred the reader to more detailed treatments of these points which do cite scholarly sources (here and here). Burke neglects to cite either of these, so it is not clear whether he has even bothered to read them!

[2] We will, however, for the most part confine our discussion to the Matthean and Lukan versions.

[3] Robbins, C.M. (2007). The Testing of Jesus in Q. Bern: Peter Lang, p. 10.

[4] Robbins 2007: 12.

[5] Robbins 2007: 12.

[6] Chilton, B. (1983). Varieties and Tendencies of Midrash: Rabbinic Interpretations of Isaiah 24.23. In R.T. France & D. Wenham (Eds.), Gospel Perspectives (Vol. 3): Studies in Midrash and Historiography (pp. 9-32). Sheffield: JSOT Press. Here p. 10.

[7] Robbins 2007: 13.

[8] Robbins 2007: 13.

[9] Kloppenborg, J.S. (1987). The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, pp. 246-247.

[10] Stern is another advocate of this view; he likens the TS to “exegetical duels between rabbis and heretics” found in rabbinic literature (Stern, D. (2011). Midrash and Parables in the New Testament. In A.-J. Levine & M.Z. Brettler (Eds.), The Jewish Annotated New Testament (pp. 565-570). Oxford: Oxford University press, p. 567).

[11] Kloppenborg 1987: 257-258.

[12] Kloppenborg 1987: 258. Emphasis added.

[13] Kloppenborg 1987: 260.

[14] Kloppenborg 1987: 262.

[15] Gibson, J.B. (2004). Temptations of Jesus in Early Christianity. London: Bloomsbury, p. 84.

[16] Gibson 2004: 84. See the primary sources cited here by Gibson.

[17] Gibson 2004: 93.

[18] Gibson 2004: 41.

[19] Gibson 2004: 94.

[20] Stein, R.H. (1993). Luke: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, p. 140 n. 40.

The temptations of Jesus and Roman Law

Four decades ago, David Daube, a scholar whose expertise in ancient law produced a "near revolution in New Testament studies",¹ published a book whose rather dull title, Studies in Biblical Law, conceals its fascinating contents. The work illustrates numerous biblical texts whose meaning is illuminated by the background of ancient law. One of the topics treated in the book is law governing the transfer of land from one owner to another. Daube explains the concept as follows:

In Roman law there was a mode of transfer of ownership called traditio. If you wished to make over a thing to me, you 'tradited' the thing to me, that is to say, you put me in possession, in control, of the thing, and the moment you had done this it became mine. As is to be expected, the Roman jurists had a great deal to say about what amounted to control, about what exactly was needed in various circumstances for control, and with it ownership, to pass from one party to the other. Everything would be clear, for example, if in order to pay you I took a coin and handed it over to you. You would now have command of the coin, traditio would manifestly be completed, the coin would therefore belong to you and my debt would be paid...Special problems arose in the case of land and buildings. Evidently, these cannot be delivered as simply as movables; they cannot be physically handed over by the former owner to the new like a horse or a sack of corn. In this dilemma, the Romans appear to have recognized a way of transferring control without a literal 'handing over'. More precisely, there appears to have been an ancient rule concerning land and buildings, to the effect that, provided you took me to the spot and pointed out the property to me, this counted as traditio: I acquired control and the transfer was good. It was not even necessary for me to step on the land or touch it with my hands: I might seize it, it was held, with my eyes.²

Daube reminds the reader of what might seem obvious: a change of ownership only took place when the owner explicitly or implicitly expressed the intention to transfer the property. The particular type of traditio that Daube is referring to is known technically as traditio longa manu (literally, 'delivery with the long hand'), defined as

A form of traditio in which the thing to be transferred to the acquirer was placed with his knowledge and consent in his sight (in conspectu) so that he might take possession thereof whenever he pleased.^{3 4}

Du Plessis similarly explains that traditio longa manu occurred

when the property was indicated or pointed at, providing that it was within sight of the parties and capable of being taken at once into the transferee's control. This type of delivery was of obvious relevance in cases where the thing to be delivered could not easily be handled, e.g. land or heavy movables⁵

Although this ancient legal concept (which is still in use today in some jurisdictions such as South Africa⁶) is known to us primarily through Roman law, Daube argues for the possibility that it was also used by the ancient Hebrews. Daube identifies three biblical narratives which he believes reflect this legal principle. Two of these relate to promises of land by God in the Pentateuch: to Abraham (Genesis 13:14-15) and to Moses (Deuteronomy 3:27-28; 34:1-4). The significance of the legal background is that, if Daube is correct, these statements by God concerning land which Abraham and Moses were asked to survey with their eyes constituted legally binding contracts. For instance,

When God led [Moses] to the top of a mountain and from there showed him Palestine, he was not merely granting him a last personal wish, but was performing an act with a definite legal effect. God, the owner, pointed out the land to him, fines demonstrabat, indicated to him the boundaries of the territory, and thereby made him its sovereign.⁷

Daube adds that the detail given in Deuteronomy 34:7 that Moses' "eye was not dim" may be intended to stress that "Moses saw the land full well, that in spite of his age he was capable of controlling and validly taking it with his eyes."⁸ Of course, in spite of these transactions with God taking place, both Abraham and Moses died without having physically enjoyed ownership of the land (Acts 7:5; Hebrews 11:13). This could be compared to the 'already/not yet' eschatology found in the New Testament. Just as believers in Christ have the legal sentence of condemnation lifted immediately but do not experience the benefits physically until the resurrection (Romans 8:1, 11), so Abraham and Moses were granted legal title to the land immediately but will not physically possess it until the resurrection.

Another interesting biblical example of the traditio longa manu principle is found in the wilderness temptation narratives of Matthew 4 and Luke 4. One of the devil's temptations (third in Matthew's order and second in Luke's) reads thus:

8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’” (Matthew 4:8-10 NASB)

5 And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.’” (Luke 4:5-8 NASB)

Daube comments as follows on this passage:

The other narrative containing the idea of transfer of land by pointing it out and seeing it, many centuries later than that of Abraham, is the narrative of the temptation of Jesus, with Satan's offer of all the kingdoms of the world...I am not suggesting that there is any emphasis on the legal points; all that I mean to say is that the notion of transfer of ownership by one party offering and pointing out the object and the other accepting and seeing it is here noticeable in the background. Indeed, it is no mere coincidence that the property to be transferred is here offered from a high place, as in the case of Moses and in that from the Digest where 'my vendor from my tower points out neighbouring land to me'. It would be easier thus to overlook the land, fines demonstrare. Satan was a good lawyer, and, incidentally, aware how attractive the glory of the world must look when you are so placed that you can take it all in at one glance: the transaction that he contemplated failed only through non-acceptance by the other party.⁹

What implications does this legal background have for our interpretation of the devil in this narrative? Firstly, there is good reason to believe that the legal principle of traditio longa manu would have been understood by the authors of the Gospels (who, if tradition is correct, were educated men - a tax collector and a physician, respectively). The same is true of the addressee of the Third Gospel, "most excellent Theophilus" (Luke 1:3), a form of address which "seems to indicate a specific person of high social standing."¹⁰ Thus, while Daube is correct that the narratives do not emphasize the legal aspect of the temptation, both the Evangelists and educated readers such as Theophilus are likely to have taken the legal connotations into account when forming their understanding of this event.

It is significant that in Luke, the devil claims the authority to be able to transfer ownership of the land to Jesus.¹¹ He then offers to do so, with the legal setting indicating that the transfer could be effected immediately if Jesus agreed to his price. When the temptation is read in this light, there is no escaping the transactional nature of the exchange. A transaction, however, requires two parties. It cannot be interpreted as a struggle within the mind of Jesus. Just as one cannot worship oneself, so one cannot transfer property to oneself. Attempts to read the whole episode figuratively break down decisively at this point because they render both the devil's offer and the devil's demand meaningless.

Daube's comment that "Satan was a good lawyer" is also intriguing inasmuch as Satan is depicted as a heavenly lawyer (more specifically, as God's overzealous prosecutor) in the Old Testament (Job 1-2; Zechariah 3), an idea also found in New Testament texts such as Luke 22:31, Jude 9 and Revelation 12:10.

Finally, although this is a point I have addressed elsewhere, it is worth emphasizing another point of contact between the temptation narratives and Deuteronomy 34 cited above. A figurative, 'psychological' interpretation of the temptation narrative has sometimes been defended on the grounds that there is no mountain on earth from which one can see all the kingdoms of the world (even when one considers that 'the world' here is probably restricted to the Roman Empire and its environs). However, the same problem occurs in Deuteronomy 34:

Here the phrase 'as far as Zoar' refers to the southern end of the Dead Sea, which is not visible from the summit of Mount Nebo, because of the mountain range extending from the viewer's left that blocks the view such that only the northern part of the Dead Sea is visible. Moses was given a vision of the promised land in its entirety that no tourist today can see without ascending into the skies. Perhaps this fact helps to explain the subsequent tradition known as The Assumption of Moses, with its account of Moses being taken directly to heaven rather than dying a natural death. Jude 9 appears to refer to such a tradition, which was apparently well known in early Jewish circles. At any rate, it would require such an airborne experience for Moses to actually see all that the biblical text says he saw in his vision from the summit of Mount Nebo.¹²

I doubt that anyone would claim that in the narrative of Deuteronomy 34, "Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah" refers to a figurative event in Moses' mind. It is clear that Moses really did ascend a mountain; and yet the details of the land he was shown indicate that the vision had a supernatural element to it. Why can we not interpret the Gospel temptation narratives in the same way? This would not be the only case of a transcendent experience occurring on a mountaintop in Matthew (cf. 17:1-8; 28:16-20). Thus, the fact that no mountain exists from which the whole Roman Empire may be seen with natural vision no more implies that the whole temptation is figurative than the fact that Zoar cannot be seen from Mount Nebo implies that Deuteronomy 34 is figurative.

Professor Daube's insights contribute to the substantial body of evidence that the devil who tempted Jesus was an external personal being.

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1 Davies, W. (2000, April). A Gentle Hawk. Retrieved October 31, 2014, from http://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/daube/davies.html^↩
2 Daube, D. (1969). Studies in Biblical Law. New York: KTAV Publishing, pp. 26-27.^↩
3 Berger, A. (1968). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law. American Philosophical Society, p. 740.^↩
4 See also Buckland, W.W. (2007). A Text-Book of Roman Law: From Augustus to Justinian. Cambridge University Press, p. 227.^↩
5 Du Plessis, P. (2010). Borkowski's Textbook on Roman Law. Oxford University Press, p. 181.^↩
6 Van der Merwe, C.G. & Du Plessis, J.E. (Eds.). (2004). Introduction to the Law of South Africa. Kluwer Law International, p. 215.^↩
7 Daube, op. cit., p. 28.^↩
8 Daube, op. cit., p. 39.^↩
9 Daube, op. cit., pp. 35-36.^↩
10 Bock, D.L. (1994). Luke 1:1-9:50. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, p. 63.^↩
11 This need not actually imply that the devil actually had this authority, since the devil is a liar (John 8:44; Revelation 12:9). However, for the offer to be tempting, the devil's claim would need to be at least credible. To this end it is worth noting that Jesus and the New Testament writers regarded the devil as having considerable power, to the point of being referred to as "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31; cf. Acts 26:18; 1 John 5:19; Revelation 2:13).^↩
12 Christensen, D.L. (2002). Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12. Mexico City: Thomas Nelson, p. 871. Emphasis added.^↩

The devil's demand of worship from Jesus

In the previous two posts we looked at the setting of the third of Jesus' wilderness temptations (second in Luke's ordering) and then more specifically at the devil's offer of world power to Jesus. We now turn our attention to what the devil tempted Jesus to do. Our main objective is again to assess the Christadelphian interpretation that the temptation narratives are figurative representations of an internal struggle, in which ho diabolos (the devil) is a personification of the evil inclination (Hebrew yetzer hara) within Jesus' heart.

Our focus is again on the third temptation (second in Luke's ordering) because it is the most problematic for Christadelphians:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” (Matthew 4:8-10 NRSV)

5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” (Luke 4:5-8 NRSV)

Anthony Buzzard succinctly stated the difficulty that the Christadelphian interpretation faces here: "It is most unnatural to think that Jesus invited himself to fall down before himself and worship himself!".¹ To this, Christadelphian apologist Jonathan Burke responded:

It is not argued that Jesus 'invited himself to fall down before himself and worship himself'. It is argued that the narrative represents the internal struggle in Christ using the language of personification.²

In this response, Burke does not say what Jesus was actually tempted to do. Following on the precedent of the other two temptations, it stands to reason that Jesus was actually tempted to do something concrete, and the text tells us what it was: to fall down and worship the devil (ho diabolos). Burke, however, proposes a figurative interpretation of what Jesus was tempted to do:

"The temptation represents Christ as the one having power to elevate himself, and self-worship, rather than the worship of God, is both the requirement and result."³

Thus, although Burke denies that Jesus was tempted to fall down before himself and worship himself, he affirms that Jesus was tempted to self-worship (i.e. worship himself!) The only difference between what he denies and what he affirms is the 'falling down' part. Thus it appears that Burke believes Jesus was tempted to worship himself in mental attitude and not in a physical act of obeisance. The problem is that the text of Matthew says "fall down and worship me". That this is a demand for a physical act of worship is even clearer in the Greek than in the English.

The Greek verb translated "worship" in both Matt. 4:9 and Luke 4:7 is proskuneo. The most respected lexicon of ancient Greek defines this verb thus: "to express in attitude or gesture one’s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure, (fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully".⁴ While Christadelphians might seize on the words "in attitude", it is plain from the list of synonyms that even this refers to an outwardly expressed attitude and not merely a mental state.⁵

There is no known evidence that proskuneo was ever used as a reflexive verb (i.e. in relation to oneself) in ancient Greek. The only known use of this verb with an abstract direct object is a reference to worship of wealth by Philo, in which he explicitly stated he was using "figurative language".⁶

Greeven further emphasizes the "concreteness" of the term, observing that, as used in the New Testament, "Proskynesis demands visible majesty before which the worshipper bows".⁷. Thus, in order to take proskuneo in the sense of figurative self-worship instead of physical other-worship, one must give it an unprecedented meaning.

Furthermore, although the mere use of the word proskuneo virtually settles the matter, both Matthew and Luke qualify it with another word which makes the physicality of the worship even more explicit. In Matthew, the qualifier is the participial form of the verb pipto, which means "to move with relative rapidity in a downward direction, fall".⁸ It usually has a literal sense, and one of the lexical meanings is "fall down, throw oneself to the groundas a sign of devotion or humility, before high-ranking persons or divine beings".

There are also figurative meanings of pipto which include to fall in a transcendent or moral sense. It might be argued that Jesus' evil impulse tempted him to fall (morally) and elevate himself in self-worship. However, this would again be an utterly unprecedented meaning. The words proskuneo and pipto modify each other in two passages of the LXX and eleven other passages in the New Testament, and in every single instance they clearly denote a physical act of worship (2 Chr. 20:18 LXX; Dan. 3:4-15 LXX; Matt. 2:11; Matt. 18:26; Acts 10:25; 1 Cor. 14:25; Rev. 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 11:16; 19:4; 19:10; 22:8). Particularly noteworthy are the two other Matthean texts:

"On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down (pipto) and paid him homage (proskuneo). Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." (Matt. 2:11)

"So the slave fell to the ground (pipto) and prostrated himself (proskuneo) before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.’" (Matt. 18:26)

Thus, when used together, pipto and proskuneo depict a physical act of homage. It is all but certain that this is what the devil demanded of Jesus in Matt. 4:9; this is undoubtedly how most readers in the first century would have understood the narrative. To take this text as a temptation to figuratively worship oneself requires abandoning the usual lexical and syntactical meaning of these words and giving them a sense which is foreign to Matthew, to the New Testament, and to the ancient Greek language!

The verb pipto does not appear in Luke's parallel account. Nevertheless, while most Bible translations render the key phrase in Luke 4:7 simply as "if you worship me", there is also a qualifying word in the Greek here which makes the physical nature of the temptation explicit. This is the adverb/preposition enopion, which primarily means "before; in the sight of; in the presence of".⁹ Thus a more literal translation of this phrase in Luke 4:7 is, as the NASB has it, "if you worship before me" (the NASB has 'bow down before me' as a marginal rendering; Young's Literal Translation also translates 'bow before me'). This makes it clear that the worship was to take place in front of or in the presence of some external party. This word is superfluous if the temptation refers to self-worship.

Once again, if we look at other occurrences of proskuneo with enopion in Scripture, we find that it always denotes a physical act of worship (2 Kings 18:22 LXX; Ps. 22:27-29 LXX; Ps. 86:9 LXX; Isa. 66:23 LXX; Rev. 3:9; 15:4). Typical is Rev. 15:4b: "All nations will come and worship before you, for your judgments have been revealed".

Responding to Buzzard's analysis of the verb proserchomai in Matthew 4:3 (also problematic for Christadelphians), Burke writes that Buzzard

"deliberately over translates the Greek...in order to create the sense of a greater distinction between Christ and the satan, giving the false impression that the text wishes us to understand that Christ and the satan are two separate individual beings".¹⁰

Regardless of whether or not Burke's statement is accurate with regard to Matt. 4:3, we have seen that the Greek text of Matt. 4:9 and Luke 4:7 unmistakably create a distinction between Christ and the devil/Satan, demonstrating that they are two separate individual beings. Given that Matthew and Luke use the language of physical worship, it simply is not plausible that Jesus was tempted to engage in an act of obeisance either to himself, or to his personified 'evil inclination'.

We can say with certainty, then, that the text indicates Jesus was tempted to physically bow down before the devil. In view of this, the only way to sustain the Christadelphian 'internal struggle' interpretation is to take the temptation narrative figuratively at a more fundamental level. That is, none of the temptations actually happened as such; instead, they use vivid pictures to portray Jesus' battle with his evil inclination.

The problem with this approach is that the other two temptations are clearly concrete: Jesus was literally in the wilderness, was literally hungry and was literally tempted to turn stones into bread to satisfy his hunger. Similarly, Jesus was literally placed atop the temple pinnacle and tempted to throw himself down to test God's providential care. Neither 'turning stones into bread' nor 'throwing himself down' can be understood metaphorically. Consistency thus dictates that we take the temptation narratives at face value as concrete events in the life of Jesus. The idea that ho diabolos refers to a personification of an abstract entity is grammatically impossible and must be rejected. Jesus was tempted to physically worship a concrete personal being external to himself.

In fact, this conclusion brings Christadelphians back to the interpretations of the founders of their movement, John Thomas and Robert Roberts, both of whom identified ho diabolos in the temptation narratives as an unknown human tempter.^{11 12} This earlier interpretation makes better grammatical sense, but is also fraught with difficulties. It fails to account for the definite article: the tempter as opposed to a tempter. It also fails to account for the reappearance of ho diabolos/ho satanas elsewhere in the Gospels, and indeed, the prominence of this theological term throughout the New Testament.

If we attempt to ascertain the identity of ho diabolos just from what the temptation narratives tell us, we can infer that the tempter (a) knew Jesus' identity at the outset of his ministry (as the demons also did), (b) had the supernatural power needed to place him atop the pinnacle of the temple or induce a visionary experience, and (c) could make a credible claim to absolute temporal power. As there was no human being external to Christ who met these three criteria, we are left with only one possibility: ho diabolos refers to a supernatural personal being.

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1 Buzzard, Anthony F. Satan, the Personal Devil. http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/satan.htm ^↩
2 Burke, Jonathan. 2007. Satan and Demons: A Reply to Anthony Buzzard. Can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/a/dianoigo.com/dianoigo/Jonathan_Burke_Satan_and_Demons.pdf, p. 40.^↩
3 Burke, Jonathan. op. cit., p. 181.^↩
4 Arndt, W., Danker, F.W. and Bauer, W. 2000. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 882.^↩
5 See, for instance, the first definition of 'attitude' at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/attitude^↩
6 Philo of Alexandria. Delineation of the Mosaic Legislation for non-Jews, Book 27, IV.25.^↩
7 Greeven, H. 1968. proskuneo. In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 6. ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, tr. Geoffrey Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 765.^↩
8 Arndt, W., Danker, F.W. and Bauer, W. op. cit., p. 815.^↩
9 Arndt, W., Danker, F.W. and Bauer, W. op. cit., p. 342.^↩
10 Burke, Jonathan. op. cit., p. 37.^↩
11 Thomas, John. 1867. Elpis Israel: Being an Exposition of the Kingdom of God; with Reference to the Time of the End, and the Age to Come. 4th edition, p. 78.^↩
12 Roberts, Robert. 1880. Seasons of Comfort at the Table of the Lord: Being Fifty-two Addresses, Etc. Birmingham, No. 51.^↩

The devil's offer of the world to Jesus

This is the second part of a trilogy on the wilderness temptation narrative recorded in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. More specifically the series is examining the third temptation (second in Luke's ordering) and evaluating the Christadelphian view that the temptations were an internal struggle in Jesus' mind, with ho diabolos (the devil) being a personification of the evil inclination (in Hebrew, the yetzer hara). The previous installment looked at the setting of this temptation. Now we will examine the devil's offer to Jesus. In this case we will follow Luke's account because it offers more detail:

5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” (Luke 4:5-8 NRSV)

A key feature of the Lucan narrative that must be explained is the devil's claim to exercise power over the kingdoms of the world and give it to whomever he pleases. Under the Christadelphian interpretation this statement comes from the personified yetzer hara, representing the dark side of Jesus' thought process which is opposed to the will of God. It is attempting to persuade Jesus to take a wrong course of action. If this is really what this passage conveys, it does so in very odd language.

We discussed in the previous post how a figurative dialogue between a person and a personification is quite foreign to the genre of the Gospels. Yet even if we allow the possibility of internal temptations being narrated in this way, it makes little sense for the personified yetzer hara to base its offer on a grandiose claim to temporal power. Notice that the other two temptations begin, "If you are the Son of God..." and thus use Jesus' privileged status as their jumping-off point. Why does the narrative deviate from that formula in this case? An appeal to Jesus' Messianic prerogative would be even more persuasive here. If this temptation consists of an urge from within to usurp temporal political power, it might have been phrased something like this:

"If you are the Son of God, march into Jerusalem and declare yourself king, for that is your right, as it is written, ‘Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom.’"

Instead, the tempter makes no reference to Jesus' right to rule but instead asserts his own! Christadelphians need to provide an explanation for why the introductory formula is so different for this temptation. Furthermore, if this dialogue is strictly internal and involves no third party, then what does "I give it to anyone I please" mean? To whom might Jesus' yetzer hara even hypothetically give authority over the kingdoms of the world other than himself?

It is apparent, then, that the way the devil phrases his offer to Jesus in Luke's account presents serious difficulties for the Christadelphian view. However, Christadelphians have suggested that to be a temptation must be plausible in order to truly tempt,NUM¹ and a claim to absolute political power from a fallen angel is not plausible. Let us then assume for the sake of argument that ho diabolos in this passage is an angelic being, and assess the plausibility of the claim and offer he made to Jesus.

We may first observe that, within the narrative, it is not necessarily the case that Jesus was aware from the beginning who his interlocutor was. Elsewhere in the New Testament we read that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), so it is not impossible that the devil presented himself to Jesus as an angel. The devil does not introduce himself to Jesus; it is the narrator who makes the reader of the Gospel aware who the tempter was. In Matthew's account, after the final temptation Jesus says, "Away with you, Satan!" which makes it possible that the offer of illicit political power and the demand for worship gave away the tempter's identity. However, this is only a conjecture, and perhaps not a likely one given Jesus' remarkable powers of discernment (Matt. 9:4; Luke 9:47; John 1:48; 2:24; 6:64).

If we judge that Jesus knew who stood before him, would this then render the temptation a "sham" as Christadelphian writer Thomas Williams put it?² Scholars have identified the devil's statement in Luke 4:6 as an allusion to God’s claims in Jeremiah 34(27E):5 LXX and Daniel 4:31LXX, and as such “Luke pictures Satan as usurping God’s prerogative to confer authority on whomever God wishes.”³ Does this mean the devil's offer was implausible? Yamazaki-Ransom provides useful insights on this point:

“In the Lukan temptation narrative, Satan claims to be the lord of the world. Is he telling the truth? The answer is both yes and no. On the one hand, although Satan is not a reliable character in the narrative, the implied reader is expected to take Satan’s claim at face value. First, Jesus does not deny Satan’s claim. Second, Paul later describes his ministry as opening the eyes of the people ‘so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power (exousia) of Satan to God’ (Acts 26.18). This assumes the reality of Satan’s exousia over people, although it is undermined by God through Paul’s ministry. Thus Satan’s power over the world is a real, not an illusory, one. On the other hand, as was just shown, he is not the true lord who deserves worship. For Luke the true Lord is God and Jesus, but not Satan. Thus Satan’s lordship over the world is a real but illegitimate one, one that is to be dismantled. The reality of diabolic authority over the world, and Jesus’ refusal to receive this authority from Satan, has great significance in Luke’s narrative.”⁴

Indeed, there are numerous New Testament passages which state or imply that the devil or Satan possesses power. Importantly, some of these texts are in Luke's writings (Luke 10:19; Acts 26:18). In John's Gospel, Jesus himself refers to the devil as "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11),⁵ and in John's first epistle he writes that "the whole world lies in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19).⁶ Paul too describes Satan as a powerful ruler (Eph. 2:2; 6:11-12). Finally, in Revelation the dragon (symbolic of the devil) gives power and authority to the beast (symbolic of an earthly empire) (Rev. 13:2 cf. 12:9). In this last case the devil's power is explicitly political in nature.⁷ Hence, as one commentator writes concerning the devil's claim to Jesus, “In a way clearly parallel to the scenario painted in Revelation 13, we discover that the world of humanity is actually ruled by the devil.”⁸

Where did this notion of the devil possessing political power come from? Behind it lies "the idea of angelic beings ruling over earthly kingdoms" which "has a long tradition, both before and after the New Testament."⁹ Several Old Testament texts develop this idea, most notably Daniel 10, and while it is not prominent in the New Testament, it is found in Revelation 12-17 and may be presupposed in other New Testament texts such as Luke 10:1, Acts 16:9, 1 Cor. 4:9, 6:3 and 1 Tim. 3:16.¹⁰

Therefore, far from being preposterous we find that the devil's claim here is consistent with the overall testimony of the New Testament. The devil did have some basis for claiming to wield great political power, and as such his offer to confer this power on Jesus in exchange for worship was at least plausible. It is to this demand for worship that we shall turn our attention in the next post.

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1 See the entry on the temptations of Jesus in the Wrested Scripture resource at http://www.wrestedscriptures.com/b07satan/matthew4v1-11.html^↩
2 Williams, Thomas. The Devil: His Origin and End. See under The Devil that Tempted Christ at http://www.republic-christadelphians.org/files/The_Devil_-_His_Origin_and_End.htm^↩
3 Carroll, John T. 2012. Luke: A Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press, p. 103.^↩
4 Yamazaki-Ransom, Kazuhiko. 2010. The Roman Empire in Luke’s Narrative. Continuum, pp. 95-96.^↩
5 For an important study of this title in John, see Kovacs, Judith L. 1995. "Now shall the Ruler of this world be driven out": Jesus' death as cosmic battle in John 12:20-36. Journal of Biblical Literature 114(2): 227-247. ^↩
6 That 'the evil one', 'the devil' and 'Satan' are synonyms can be seen by comparing the three parallel accounts of the parable of the sower in Matt. 13:19, Mark 4:15 and Luke 8:12; cf. Matt. 13:38-39. That John also uses the term in this way is apparent from comparing the similar language in 1 John 3:12 and John 8:44.^↩
7 See comments in Morris, Leon. 1988. Luke: An Introduction and Commentary. Eerdmans, p. 113.^↩
8 Green, Joel B. 1997. The Gospel of Luke. Eerdmans, p. 194.^↩
9 Yamazaki-Ransom. op. cit., p. 93.^↩
10 Wink, Walter. 1984. Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. Fortress Press, pp. 34-35.^↩