Portal:Bible/Featured article/October, 2009

The temptation of Christ in Christianity, refers to the temptation of Jesus by the devil as detailed in each of the Synoptic Gospels, at Matthew 4:1–11, Mark 1:12–13, and Luke 4:1–13. According to these texts, after being baptized, Jesus fasted for forty days and nights in the desert. During this time, the devil appeared to Jesus and tempted him to demonstrate his supernatural powers as proof of his divinity, each temptation being refused by Jesus with a quote of scripture. The Gospels state that having failed, the devil departed and angels came and brought nourishment to Jesus. Mark's account is very brief, merely noting the aforementioned events, but giving no details about them, not even how many there were. Matthew and Luke on the other hand, describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and the devil. Since the elements of the narrative that are in Matthew and Luke but not Mark are mostly pairs of quotations, rather than detailed narrative, many scholars believe that these extra details originate in the Q Document. The story of the Temptation is one of the notable Omissions in the Gospel of John. (more...)