Don't Know Much About the Bible - Kenneth C. Davis [149]
PLOT SUMMARY: THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST
After his baptism, Jesus heads for the desert wilderness, where he spends forty days, a number of obvious meaning to devout Jews. Moses spent forty days in the wilderness before receiving the Ten Commandments, and then the Children of Israel spent their forty years in the desert. The symbolism would not have been lost on people of Jesus’ day. Three of the Gospels report that Jesus was tested during this period. Each Gospel names Jesus’ adversary differently. He is the “tester” in certain translations of Matthew, Satan in Mark, and the Devil in Luke. The description in Mark is brief: Jesus was in the desert, was tempted by Satan, and the angels waited on him. Both Matthew and Luke describe a more elaborate, three-part temptation. First, Jesus is urged to turn stones into bread. Citing Deuteronomy, Jesus answers,
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God.”
Taken to the top of the Temple, Jesus is told to throw himself down and the angels will save him. He replies from Deuteronomy, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” And finally from a high mountain, Jesus is shown all the kingdoms of the world and told he can have it all. Jesus answers again from Deuteronomy, “Worship the Lord your God and serve only him.” (That is the order in Matthew; it is slightly different in Luke.) Jesus’ references to Deuteronomy, one of the Books of Law, would have reminded people once more of the connection between Jesus and Moses.
BIBLICAL VOICES
As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. (Matt. 4:18-20)
What’s the difference between a disciple and an apostle?
Jesus spent the rest of his life in and around the Sea of Galilee, except for his journey—or annual visits, according to John—to Jerusalem. The Sea of Galilee, or Lake Tiberias, is about twelve and a half miles long and eight miles across at its widest point. The Jordan River enters in the north and flows out due south toward the Dead Sea. Galileans of biblical times were considered country bumpkins or “hicks” to the more cosmopolitan residents of Jerusalem. The common attitude to people of this area was expressed by a future follower of Jesus named Nathaniel in Mark who asks, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” when told about Jesus. Thought of as little better than the shepherds of the Nativity on the Judean social scale, a collection of fishermen from Galilee was not exactly the “Dream Team” that would save Israel and defeat the Roman empire.
In Luke, the account varies slightly when the fishermen are convinced to follow Jesus after he instructs them to cast their nets even though they say they have caught nothing. They catch so many fish their nets nearly break. In Matthew, the four fishermen—Simon, Andrew, James, and John—simply leave their nets and their boats, and follow Jesus. There is still a different version of the call of the first disciples in John, where Andrew is mentioned as a disciple of John the Baptist, who tells his brother Simon about Jesus; there is no mention of “fishing for men” and leaving nets behind. Gradually Jesus singles out twelve followers as his disciples, the number symbolically representative of the twelve tribes of Israel.
THE TWELVE DISCIPLES
(Named in Matthew 10, Mark 3, and Luke 6)
Simon, whom Jesus nicknames Cephas (Aramaic for “rock”) or Peter (from the Greek petra for “rock”).
Andrew, Simon’s brother, who is later mentioned in