Was Jesus Tempted in the Wilderness?

Looking Behind the Lenten Fast

As the Christian calendar marks the beginning of Lent, I thought it would be fitting to turn to the episode which inspires the fast: Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.¹

In this scene, the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert after his baptism. There he spends forty days being tempted by Satan, before embarking on his public ministry.

Historically, this narrative is extremely curious, for there are two quite distinct versions of it in the Synoptic Gospels. In Mark, we find the summary I just sketched:

The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him (1:12-14)

Yet in Matthew and Luke, we find an expanded version, which presents a dialogue between Jesus and Satan.² Having been offered several temptations (for bread, for deliverance, for worldy power),³ Jesus overcomes each by drawing on scripture.

As historians, what are we to make of this episode? Did Jesus really go into the wilderness for forty days and nights and have a conversation with the devil? Or are we to see this as a profoundly meaningful, yet ultimately ficticious story about Jesus?

Let us look at some arguments for its historicity, before considering the other side.

The Historicity of the Story

There are two main reasons to think that Jesus went into the wilderness:

The first is that this event is found in two versions which may be independent. While Matthew and Luke have Mark’s shorter story, they each prefer to narrate a longer version of it. Assuming that Matthew and Luke did not use each other, they have independently used a version of this story which antedates either Gospel.

We therefore have two sources for this event: one appears, in a very neat form, in our earliest Gospel (c. 70 CE), while the other appears in what scholars refer to as ‘Q’, which many scholars would argue precedes the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.⁴ As far as sources go, then, we have a relatively early memory of the event.

The second reason is that it seems plausible that a prophetic figure like Jesus might fast in the wilderness. We know that John the Baptist, Jesus’ own mentor, lived in the wilderness, perhaps following the prophetic model of Elijah, as did other Jews. And we also know that John’s disciples fasted (e.g. Mt. 9:14). So there is nothing especially implausible about the idea that a follower of John would fast in the wilderness.⁵

The Non-Historicity of the Story

On the other hand, there are a few reasons to be cautious about the historicity of this event (aside from its miraculous character, which lies beyond the historian’s purview.)

a. Parallels with Rabbinic Literature

One historical problem concerns Jesus’ dialogue with the devil, found in Matthew and Luke. As several commentators point out, this bears a number of similarities with rabbinic dialogues, in which two rabbis trade bible verses (e.g. b. Sanh. 97b).

A more striking parallel, however, concerns a rabbinic story in which Satan and Abraham debate one another, each quoting biblical texts. Here I quote it in full:

On the way Satan came towards him and said to him, 'If we assay to commute with thee, wilt thou be grieved? . . . Behold, thou hast instructed many, and thou hast strengthened the weak hands. Thy words have upholden him that was falling, and thou hast strengthened the feeble knees. But now it is come upon thee, and thou faintest' (Job 4.2-5). He replied, 'I will walk in my integrity' (Ps 26.2). 'But', Satan said to him, 'should not thy fear be thy confidence?' (Job 4.6). He retorted, 'Remember, I pray thee, whoever perished, being innocent?' (Job 4.6). Seeing that he would not listen to him, he said to him, 'Now a thing was secretly brought to me (Job 4.12); thus have I heard behind the curtain, "the lamb for a burnt offering but not Isaac for a burnt offering"'. He replied, 'It is the penalty of a liar, that should he even tell the truth, he is not listened to' (b. Sanh. 89b).

From these parallels, it should be readily apparent that the narrative in the Gospels is the sort of story which could have been penned by a Jewish scribe, similar to the dialogue of ‘testing with many trials’ we find here between Abraham and Satan.