Jeffrey Gibson

I'm revising some older work on what commentators have said with respect to the question of what the Devil is "up to" in the Matthean and Lukan versions of the story of Jesus Wilderness "temptation" (Mt. 4:1-11//Lk. 4:1-13). So far as I can see, there are five positions.

In the Matthean and Lukan versions of the Wilderness "temptation" story the devil is trying to discover:

(1) if Jesus would act to his own advantage, and independently of God, with respect to his physical needs, particularly his need for sustenance, and thus fall prey to such forbidden things as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life";

(2) if Jesus would act to his own advantage with respect to his psychological needs, particularly the need to be certain that he was "the Son of God", and thus show a profound mistrust in God;

(3) if Jesus would be willing to compel others through Schauwunderen, and more particularly ones that would instantly be recognizable and accepted as a phenomenon authenticating a claim to Messiahship, to accept him as "the Son of God/Messiah", and thus not only make concessions to unbelief, but render unlikely, if not impossible, the response of radical faith which later in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke Jesus demands from all who are confronted by what he says and does.

(4) if, in the interest of securing what God wishes him to secure, Jesus would be willing to chose a way of being God's Son that is not God's way and would attempt to use means of obtaining what God has determined he would obtain that are not, according to Matthew and Luke, God's means.

(5) how resolved Jesus is to hold on to a particular costly and seemingly foolish pattern of sonship -- that of the εἰρηνοποιός -- with which he is already familiar and to which he is presented at the time of his Wilderness "temptation" as having already been called.

I'd be glad to hear from List Members if there are any other scholarly positions I haven't listed.

I'd also like to be as complete as possible about who stands where. So I'd be grateful as well if List members would give me the names of those you know to be advocates of one or the other (or of several) of the listed (and unlisted) stances.

With thanks in advance for help with this.

Yours,

Jeffrey

spin

In a film I once saw, called "Van Helsing", there was a character called -- naturally enough -- Igor and Igor in one scene was torturing a monster loudly. Dracula, disturbed by the racket, says, "do you haaave to dooo thaaat?", to which Igor responds innocently, "but master, that's what I do!" And that is sufficient in this comedy horror film to justify the motivation of the character to the audience. (The monster that Igor is torturing is instrumental to the film.)

In short, why Igor was torturing the monster is fundamentally irrelevant to the story, as why the old witch preferred to eat Hansel and Gretel rather than other sources of nutrition or why Antonio was so down in the dumps at the start of Merchant of Venice was irrelevant to their stories. One could point out from Greek tragedies through to some of Becket characters via the Towneley and York dramatic cycles where it is normal to present acts whose interest lies in the effects they have on the central figure or issue rather than the reasons for them.

This is not answering the OP's question regarding other scholarly positions as to the motivation of the devil, but I'm not sure that the basic question of the devil's motivation need have been considered in the original writing. We've seen the adversary in Job put the central figure to testing and the motivation is not provided: it seems more like Igor and "that's what I do!" We're more interested in Job -- just as, in the case at hand, we are more interested in Jesus and his strength of will in the face of temptations that mere sons of man would certainly have succumbed to.


spin

Jeffrey Gibson

Umm ... it isn't??

And these "temptations that mere sons of man (a term not used in the story) would have succumbed to" were what exactly?

Jeffrey

spin

If you don't like the response, don't worry about it. I was merely providing you another alternative. (The answers to your questions, if necessary, are 1) no and 2) all power from all the kingdoms of the world.) Hopefully someone else can give you what you want.


spin

djrafikie

erm.. the devil is the god of all of the earth, according to the bible.
I guess he's busy being that.

dog-on

Is this a good translation of Matthew?

This one, from Luke, as well?


If so, God has sent JC to be tested. The devil is simply reading from the script. Personal motivations from good ol' Lucifer are unnecessary and, in fact, irrelevant, imo. These are infact, God's questions and Luci is simply the mouthpiece, like in Job (as Spin already pointed out).

2-J

I'm sure this isn't very scholarly but it'll be enjoyable to get my thoughts in order about this one. This is what I have always thought. It's actually a combination of the options mentioned.

With the first temptation, the possibility of having bread, this seems a temptation of the first kind " to see if Jesus would act to his own advantage, and independently of God, with respect to his physical needs". Jesus was wholly human as well as being wholly divine, so he would have presumably been feeling great hunger and deprivation. But the fasting had a holy spiritual purpose so to give in to temptation wouldn't have been right. It was an achievement not to give in because of his human nature.

Then he is offered power. Lust for power to a greater or lesser degree is present in most people. This would come under the second heading (psychological needs) but also physiological in that those in power can gratify their physiological desires as well. But Jesus would have had to worship the devil to gain the power, which is obviously wrong as you should only worship God.

Finally the Devil tries to get him to throw himself off the temple, which would have been a frivolous display of his / God's power and protection - rather vulgar, pointless and thus immoral, the wrong thing to do.

So I suppose I always saw it as part of the Cosmic Battle motiff. Jesus is God's son and has a mission. But he's human and can be tempted with human-like temptations (physiological, psychological, complacency / arrogance). The Devil acts on his own initiative. (Remember, Judas is usually held to have acted on his own accord, even though Jesus knew it was time to go to Jerusalem and that his death was imminent. Individuals acting on their own initiative is compatible with God's plan being carried out. So even if we interpret the Spirit leading Jesus literally, doesn't mean the Devil didn't choose of his own accord to go and tempt Jesus, by his own chosen methods). Presumably if the Devil had succeeded in tempting Jesus into a life of sin, God's / Jesus' plan for the salvation of humanity would have been dashed.

Jeffrey Gibson

The problem with all of this is that you labor under the unfounded and linguistically unsupported assumptions that the verb peirazw means "enticement" and especially "enticement into sin", and that it was thought in the ancient world that those who engaging in subjecting others to the experience denoted by this verb did so to get those they subject to do something.

For a refutation of this, see my article on "testing" in the Dictionary of New Testament Background (or via: amazon.co.uk) as well as the seminal study on the topic by J.H. Korn entitled PEIRASMOS: Die Versuchung des Glaubigen in der greischischen Bible (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1937),.

Jeffrey

Toto

Jeffrey Gibson on B-Greek

I'm not sure I understand the difference between tempting and testing in this case. I understand Satan as testing Jesus by tempting him with wordly goods and power, etc. I don't know of an interpretation where Satan was a marketer trying to get Jesus to consume a product.

Toto

More on this issue from Jeffrey Gibson online here