Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Matthew 3:13-4:11, Baptism and the test in the desert
Jesus is baptized and hears the voice from heaven, then is led into the wilderness for forty days, where the devil tests him three times.
Matthew 3:13-4:11, in every translation this tool compares.
John hesitates to baptize Jesus but does it, and a voice from heaven calls him the beloved Son. The Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, where after forty days of fasting the devil challenges him to turn stones into bread, to throw himself from the temple, and to worship him in exchange for the kingdoms of the world. Jesus answers each time from Deuteronomy, and angels come and serve him.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/proselyte-baptism\/","n":"Ritual washing and convert immersion","s":"Jews washed often for purity, but one immersion happened only once: the bath a Gentile took on becoming a Jew. John's baptism and the church's took that shape.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/wilderness\/","n":"The wilderness","s":"The dry, empty country beyond the Jordan where John preached, Jesus was tested and a crowd was fed. It was hard ground, and it was where Israel's story with God began.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/messiah\/","n":"The Messiah, son of David","s":"The anointed king most Jews expected from David's line, who would free Israel from its enemies. Nobody expected him to be killed.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/the-satan\/","n":"The satan, the tempter","s":"The accuser, tempter and deceiver of Jewish belief, seen as the power behind human and political evil. In the Gospels he tests Jesus and is the strong man Jesus binds, and John calls him the ruler of this world.","r":""}
All three of Jesus' answers come from Deuteronomy's account of Israel tested in the wilderness for forty years (Keener). People credited magicians with turning stones into bread, and many hoped for a new Moses who would bring new manna. The highest point of the temple may be the southeast corner above the Kidron valley, where a fall meant certain death. Later rabbis called a voice from heaven the bat qol and ranked it below prophecy (Keener's notes). The cultural backgrounds article on Jesus' baptism and temptation sets the scene in an unsettled time, when Pilate's arrival as governor in place of Gratus in AD 26 stirred unrest, and places the baptism at Bethany on the far side of the Jordan (John 1:28); many put John's baptizing at a natural ford on the middle Jordan, near Tel Shalem. Wilkins puts the drop from the southeast corner at about 450 feet, or takes the pinnacle as a high temple gate, and the second-century writer Hegesippus said James the Just was thrown from the pinnacle (the Zondervan archaeology handbook).
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Matthew 3:17, 4:1-11, 4:3, 4:5-6 and 4:8-9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Matthew 3:17, 4:3, 4:4, 4:5, 4:7 and 4:10
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, article Jesus' Baptism and Temptation
- Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Matthew 4:5
- J. Randall Price and H. Wayne House, Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology, Matthew 4:5 The Pinnacle of the Temple
