This recapitualtion view is, however, not without its detractors. See, for instance, the claims of such scholars as G. Kittel (ἔρημος, ἐρημία, ἐρημόω, ἐρήμωσις, TDNT 2, 657-660, esp. p. 658) and H. Reisenfeldt ('The Messianic Character of the Temptation in the Wilderness', in his The Gospel Tradition [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970], 75-93, esp. p. 85) that for all that Q 4:1-13 and the story of Israel's Wilderness temptation in Deut 6-8 have in common, there are three points at which the two accounts allegedly differ so significantly that the Israel/Jesus identification and 'recapitulation' contention seem difficult to maintain: first, in Deut 6-8 Israel is tested by God, whereas in Q 4:1-13 Jesus' πειρασμός is carried out by the Devil; second, Israel was in the wilderness for forty years whereas Jesus is described as being there forty days; and, third, in substance the temptations of Jesus are different from the temptations of Israel in the wilderness in that they are addressed to a 'son' depicted as having the power to perform miracles and center in whether or not he would exploit that power for his own benefit, while Israel's temptations are addressed to a 'son' who has no such powers and bear only on Israel's faith and confidence in its God.

See, too, the more recent caveat against the identification/recapitulation assumption made by A. Jacobson in his The First Gospel: An Introduction to Q (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1992), 87-88. While not subscribing to the objections raised by Kittel and Reisenfield, and while admitting that the notices in Q 4:1-13 concerning the wilderness setting, testing, 40 days, a bread miracle, a view of all the kingdoms of the world, hunger, and Jesus' obedience are all "possible allusions to deuteronomic and Exodus traditions" (p. 88), Jacobson still prescinds from accepting the idea that the Deuteronomic story of Israel's wilderness temptation forms the primary background against which Q 4:1-13 is to be set and interpreted or that Q intended to present Jesus as the faithful son who stands in contrast to the faithless generation addressed by Moses in Deuteronomy 6-8. His grounds for doing lie in his judgement that

... few of the possible allusions point unerringly to Deuteronomy [emphasis mine]. Deuteronomy mentions manna but not bread from stones. The mountain top view is only vaguely similar to Moses' view; among other things, one view is of the promised land, the other of "this world." Moreover, though Mark (and following him, Luke) has Jesus being tempted during the forty days in the wilderness, Matthew (apparently representing Q) has Jesus tempted after the forty day fast. If Q had had in mind the identification Jesus=son of God=Israel tested in the wilderness, it would seem that the details would have been arranged to fit better, at least if such an identification was the main point of the account (p. 88).

In answer to the objections raised by Kittel and Resienfeld, we should observe, however, that the first of them ignores the fact that, given the import of the notice in Q 4:1-2 of the Spirit's activity of leading/impelling Jesus into the wilderness, Jesus' πειρασμός, though noted as carried out by the Devil, is presented from the first in the Q story as originating with, and determined by, God and as under God's direction (on this, see F.C. Grant, An Introduction to New Testament Thought [New York: Abingdon, 1950], 208; and especially E. Fascher, Jesus und Satan [Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1949], 31). The second objection is forced. The denial that the reference to forty days in Q 4:2 is meant to recall Deut. 8.2-4 and its recapitulation of Israel's experience of forty years of wilderness 'temptation/testing' not only neglects the fact that the emphasis in both Q and in Deuteronomy is not upon the actual span of time elapsed but on the point that the respective spans are fixed and for a purpose. It also fails to see that already in the Pentateuch itself, that is, in Num 14:34, where Yahweh, appointing an appropriate punishment for Israel's murmuring against him after her scouting party spent forty days spying out the land of Canaan, states:

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for every day a year, you shall bear your iniquity, forty years, and you shall know my displeasure (RSV),

forty years and forty days can be corresponding periods (on this, see Gerhardsson, The Testing of God's Son, 42-44; W.L. Kynes, A Christology of Solidarity: Jesus as the Representative of His People in Matthew [Larkham - New York - London: University of America Press, 1991], 30). Moreover, as A. Meyer has observed ("Die evangelischen Berichte uber die Versuchung Christi", in Festgabe H. Blümner übericht zum 9, August 1914 von Freunden und Schülern [Buchdr. Berichthaus: Zurich, 1914], 447), since the period in question is associated with an individual and not a people, a reference to days instead of years is more appropriate if the purpose for which the period has been fixed is to be achieved. And the third objection is exegetically flawed. As we will see presently, its main assumption - the presupposition that Jesus is depicted in Q 4:1-13 as one having the power to work miracles - has no grounding in the text.

As to Jacobson's objections, it seems to me that the judgment upon which it is based begs the question. It is by no means clear that the 'fit' between the details of the Q temptation story, on the one hand, and Deut. 6-8 and the exodus traditions alluded to there, on the other, had to have been exact in order for those details to have been taken as pointing to Deuteronomy and the story of Israel's testing that it summarizes, at least for the original audience of the Q story. Indeed, the fact that both Matthew and Luke seem to have read the Q story as thoroughly embedded in Deut 6-8 (on this, see Davies Allinson, Matthew 1: for Matthew and Fitzmyer, Luke 1-9, for Luke) is strong evidence that this alleged necessity was not the case. More importantly, Jacobson's claim that the details in Q concerning bread from stones and the mountain top view are not as precisely aligned with Deuteronomic references to manna and Moses on Mount Nebo as they should be if Q had intended a Son=Israel identification is, notably, grounded in the unargued assumptions (a) that the Deuteronomic notices about manna and Moses on Mount Nebo are the only bread and mountain themed references within Deuteronomy and (b) that without unerring allusions to the manna and Moses references, no identification of Jesus with the Deuteronomic son of God, Israel, was being (or could possibly be) made.