lpetrich

"NET Bible": Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their grandeur.

I've decided to calculate that mountain's location and height; I've worked from the latitudes and longitudes in <a href="http://stutzfamily.com/mrstutz/LatLong/latlonglist.htm" target="_blank">http://stutzfamily.com/mrstutz/LatLong/latlonglist.htm</a> and an average Earth radius of 6371 km -- it's straightforward analytic geometry to calculate the location of the point visible at the horizon of three cities.

Confining myself to Old World kingdoms, I've chosen the Roman Empire, India, and China as representative existing ones. Using Lisbon (western end), New Delhi (rather approximate for ancient India), and Beijing (northeast end), I find that that point is above St. Petersburg, Russia at 2500 km!

Now it just so happens that I had once visited St. Petersburg about 30 years ago, and I did not notice any 2500-km mountain there.

Asha'man

I think you have overlooked an important piece of information: the lack of air at altitude. If you go high enough, your oxygen starved brain will begin to hallucinate, and you can easily see both the entire earth and the elephants it is resting on. If you stay long enough, you can see the turtle that the elephants are standing on.

CX

It seems to me first you would need to establish that the temptation accounts are historical before you go about trying to discover where these events occured. Otherwise it's like reading Peter Pan and trying to determine the precise location of Neverland.

beachbum

Neverland is someplace in Michael Jackson's underwear isn't it?

Pantera

The usual apologetic explaination would be that Satan showed Jesus the kingdoms in a vision, rather than him being literally able to see them all.

The other possibility would be that the Gospel authors were'n too well educated and thought that the world was (a) flat and (b) pretty small.

CX

Nah. At the very least ALk and AMt seem to be highly educated (moreso ALk). That they wrote such articulate Greek is one clue to that. I think the more reasonable explanation is that these are reworkings of existing stories. It is also pretty possible that this is theological tractate and not intended literally. We see a lot of creative effort in the gospel accounts. The primary goal is to frame Jesus' sayings and provide context for the various theological aims of the evangelists. Only if we assert that the gospels are literal histoico-biographical accounts do we get into ridiculous arguments like what mountain Jesus was tempted on.

Grumpy

Jesus was impervious to anoxia, of course. This is what allowed him to survive this vertiginous height. Besides, it's obvious that the "mountain" in Matthew 4:8 is located on The Moon.

(My pet theory, and I'll thank you for letting me share it once more.)

lpetrich

Grumpy's theory would certainly fit for the example kingdoms I've used, but there is the question of what else one would see; here's an expanded version of Matthew 4:8:

And the Devil took Jesus Christ all the way to the Moon, supplying him with air to breathe at that airless desert world.

And Jesus Christ saw the Earth hanging in the black starry sky like a white-streaked blue pendant.

And the Devil said to him, "All of that beautiful world will be yours if you decide to follow me."

gravitybow

I've never understood this temptation. How can you be tempted with a speck when you own the entire grandeur of the cosmos including the speck? It's no different than if Satan offered a penny, knowing that your Dad was holding on to trillions of dollars in assets that belong to you anyway, and that one day you would also return to claim the penny. The mere mortal that I am couldn't be swayed by such a laughably lopsided offer, so how could a man-god?