Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§11.7 Beginning from the Baptism of John
sus' forty days in the wilderness and Israel's forty years in the wilderness. 193 But
the idea of the 'testing'/'temptation' of the righteous is deeply rooted in Jewish
tradition. 194 (3) Furthermore, there may be echoes of other episodes in Jesus'
mission of which there were rather more witnesses: the expectation engendered
by reports of a feeding miracle (cf. particularly John 6.26); the request for a miraculous
sign, also represented as a 'testing', peirazein (Mark 8.11; Matt. 16.1/
Luke 11.16); and Jesus' affirmation that only God could demand total allegiance,
again in response to a 'testing' (peirazein) question according to both Matthew
(22.35) and Luke (10.25). 195 (4) Finally, the emphasis on temptation in regard to
Jesus' sonship (Q 4.3, 9), as in the case of the heavenly voice at Jordan, suggests
that the story of the temptation took its present shape only when the conviction
regarding Jesus' divine sonship had taken firm and definite shape in the common
faith of Jesus' disciples. 196
The temptation tradition, therefore, can hardly be said to bear the marks of
an impact made directly by Jesus, either 'there and then' or in his later teaching.
The narrative attests an impact made, as it were, at one remove. An impression
made by Jesus, perhaps through his whole mission, is dramatically represented in
this story form. 197 That could mean that his disciples thought of Jesus as with-
193. Clearest in Matthew which is almost a midrash on Deuteronomy 6-8 (Jesus quotes
from Deut. 8.3; 6.16; and 6.13); see particularly B. Gerhardsson, The Testing of God's Son
(Matt. 4.1-11 & Par.) (ConBNT 2/1; Lund: Gleerup, 1966); 'a haggadic tale' (Davies and
Allison, Matthew 1.352). The echoes of the manna miracle are strong (Exod. 16.4; Deut. 8.2-3;
cf. John 6.25-34), and in the third temptation there may be an echo of Moses on top of Pisgah
looking over the Promised Land (Deut. 3.27; 34.1-4); but other motifs are evidently at work too
(see further Davies and Allison ad loc). However, the allusion to the wilderness as a period of
testing is clear (note the. use of peirazein/peirasmos in Exod. 15.25; 16.4; 17.7; 20.20; Deut.
4.34; 8.2; 33.8; Ps. 95.9; Wisd. 11.9; 1 Cor. 10.13; Heb. 3.8-9). For a concise treatment see
W. Popkes, EDNT 3.65-66.
194. Abraham (Gen. 22.1; Sir. 44.20; Jdt 8.26; 1 Mace. 2.52; Jub. 19.8), Job, David (Ps.
26.2), Hezekiah (2 Chron. 32.31), Daniel (1.12, 14), Tobit (Tobit 12.14S), Judith (Jdt 8.25), and
the righteous (Wisd. 2.17; 3.5; Sir. 2.1; 4.17; 33.1).
195. Mark and Matthew also regard the question about tribute to Caesar as a 'test'
(peirazein) question (Mark 12.15/Matt. 22.18), in answer to which Jesus sets in antithesis worldly
power and the duty owed to God, as in the third temptation according to Matthew (4.8-10).
196. Cf. Luz, Matthäus 1.160.
197. Jeremias argues that the temptations all boil down to the same temptation: 'the
emergence of Jesus as a political Messiah'. Since that issue has no Sitz im Leben in the early
church, the nucleus of the temptation story probably goes back to a pre-Easter tradition (Proclamation
71-72). Wright argues that 'some kind of experience, early in his career, in which Jesus
believed himself to have won an initial decisive victory over the "real enemy", must be postulated
if we are to explain what was said during the Beelzebul controversy' (Jesus 457;
similarly Allison, 'Behind the Temptations of Jesus' 207-13); on the latter see below §12.5d,
particularly n. 371.
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