Gamera

40 is clearly a symbolic number, which hooks up with Old Testament themes. Just as the authors of the Hebrew scriptures us "1,000" to mean "a lot", (and just like we use a second to mean a short interval), so too the authors of the NT used 40 to symbolically mean a testing period. It wasn't a literal 40 days. It's just a way of saying, a period of testing.

If you got a sec, I can explain in more detail.

Gamera

Because the whole point is, he's also a man.

Amaleq13

Not to anyone thinking rationally.

Steven Carr

Especially if you don't regard food as a gift from God, but as a distraction from spirituality.

Flesh bad, spirit good, is one way of summing up the message of Jesus fasting for 40 days.

Steven Carr

You mean that without fasting, Jesus would never have become spiritual enough to meet Satan?

James Madison

Gamera:

How, exactly, do you reach the conclusion the "40 days" phrase is not literally talking about 40 days? I understand the "symbolism" argument you are making but it must be admitted sometimes a "second" means literally a "second" as opposed to "a short interval".

Chili

The children of Israel spend 40 years in the desert without the 40 day fast but they died (nonetheless = loss of salvation) while Jesus learned to walk on water before he entered the promised land Galilee. The silencing of John speaks on this and contains the mechanism to replace circumcision with Baptism for the new religion down the road.

aa5874

Gamera, the verse says forty days and forty nights, see Matthew 4:2. It appears to mean 40 consecutive 24-hour periods, how can you just make up your own stories?

And, with your definition of forty days meaning 'a period of testing', I now ask you what words in the entire Bible translate to 40 consecutive 24- hour periods?

Steven Carr

Why would Jesus have to be tested?

Didn't God already know that God the Son was sinless?

And why does testing mean 'Are you tempted to enjoy God's gift of food?'

aa5874

The fasting of Jesus appears to me to be part of the criteria to fulfill the ' man without sin', the 'Christ'.

If we look at Matthew 4:3, .....'It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Only when all the criterias are met and He rises from the dead will he be declared to be 'The Christ'.

By the way, I have done a little fasting on two occasions for approx 4-5 days, taking only fluids. My experience is that I dId not feel hungry at all after the third day. I actually felt a sense of well being and played soccer for at least an hour during one of the fasting sessions. I don't really think that a person would feel hungry after a 40 day fast. Your body will be in a different zone.