I should think, given (a) that the "temptation" narrative has long
preceded the crucifixion account and (b) that it is well established by
the time of the crucifixion that Jesus is indeed God's Son *and* sees
himself as such, that the real question here is: *doesn't the meaning of
the expression as the Devil uses it help us to understand how it is to
be taken within the crucifixion account, not vice versa. It is the fact
that EI hUIOS EI TOU QEOU has *already* been said, and that the reader
knows it has already been said, and with what meaning, that sets up the
irony and the tension in the crucixion story. The reader is thereby
clued into the fact that here at the crucifixion (a) the opponents are
acting, knowingly are not, as the Devil did to Jesus in the wildernessJ
and (b) Jesus is once more being subjected to the testing he underwent
at the hands of the Devil. Will he give in now?
And in regard to the following which you wrote in another post:
>
> My feeling would therefore be that the elements of dramatic irony
> present in the Passion Narrative come in to Matthew from his
> source in Mark. The classic is Matt. 27.27-29 // Mark 15.17-19: the
> crown of thorns, the scarlet robe, "the king of the Jews", to the
> persecuters a farce but to the reader Jesus' coronation.
I need to note: In Matthew as well as in Mark we find a raft of
indicators that show that the crucifixion story is being paced within
the interpretative context provided by the story of the testing og God's
son as told in Wisdom 2. The curious thing here, however, is that
Matthew seems to take *more* pains than Mark does to make sure that one
does not miss the fact that Jesus is here reacpitulating the testing of
the Son recounted in Wisdom 2. Moreover, one of the ways he does this is
by placing on the lips of Jesus' mockers the words of the Devil from
Matt. 4:3 and 4:6! (compare Wis. 2:13, 16-17). What I am noting, then,
is that,
accepting Matthew's use of Mark (sorry Ward!), and therefore accepting
also the fact that he has taken over the Wisdom 2 theme *from* Mark,
Matthew's additions here not only have the effect of dotting the "i's"
and crossing the "t's" of Mark's account to make sure that the crucixion
story is tranparent to its backgound but also indicate that within the
crucixion story that
Matthew is indeed ironic, and that here, as nowhere else, he has allowed
that sense of irony to have full play.
Does this make any sense?
Yours,
Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000@ameritech.net
jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu