Chili

They compliment each other don't they? :thumbs:

Bright Life

If in saying "complement," you mean "don't agree with," then yes.

Chili

Yes well but that is a matter of perspective. I do not see them as synoptic (I think is the right word) but serial (I hope is the right word). Matthew is presented as the Jewish ideal of the promised messiah which is cleansed from Judaism in Mark and stuffed with insight in Luke to make it a working Gospel for Catholics in John.

Ulrich

Markian priority has been established, so it was actually the author of Matthew who took the Gospel of Mark and made it more palatable to a Jewish audience by inserting fulfilled Messianic prophecies. Too bad for the Biblical inerrantists that he made some telling mistakes in doing so.

Bright Life

View them as synoptic or serial as you see fit. Either way, they each claim to cover the same events, and they are incongruous in this coverage.

Chili

Well lets see if I can explain this this for you.

If satan is working in our conscious mind (rational thoughts are the handiwork of satan), and if you, or I, were in ecstasy for week while being entertained in Cana where the divine marriage of our conscious and subconscious mind is celebrated (lets call this the hypostatic union), do you not think that satan would get mighty pissed off to have lost a friend as it is reported in the other gospels?

John does not report any temptation in the desert for the simple reason that Jesus was not 'home' to be tempted, which must be obvious, I think, if he was in Cana for a whole week. Luke can see both sides. He first tells us who were at the wedding (in the [inspired] lineage just after the beatific vision took place), and later how satan went bonkers in Luke for a whole month after the temple ruckus in John where the promise was made to never enter the temple again but destroy it instead.

I mean the desert was only a desert in the sense that he was entertained by higher thoughts about greater things ahead.