Bible Contradiction? When Jesus was tempted by the devil, what was the sequence of temptations?

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: When Jesus was tempted by the devil, what was the sequence of temptations?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Stones to bread, temple dive, kingdoms of the world

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry. 3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”” (Matthew 4:1-3)

“Then the devil *took Him along into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and he *said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written: ‘He will give His angels orders concerning You’; and ‘On their hands they will lift You up, So that You do not strike Your foot against a stone.’”” (Matthew 4:5-6)

“Again, the devil *took Him along to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”” (Matthew 4:8-9)

Stone to bread, kingdoms of the world, temple dive

“Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He was hungry. 3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” (Luke 4:1-3)

“And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I want.” (Luke 4:5-6)

“And he brought Him into Jerusalem and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here; 10 for it is written: ‘He will give His angels orders concerning You, to protect You,’” (Luke 4:9-10)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. The skeptic tries to pit Matthew 4 as affirming the claim “When Jesus was tempted by the devil the sequence of temptations were Stones to bread, temple dive, kingdoms of the world” against Luke 4 as affirming “When Jesus was tempted by the devil the sequence of temptations were Stone to bread, kingdoms of the world, temple dive.”  The variation is what is the second and third temptation which are reverse with Matthew 4 and Luke 4.
4. In handling the passages the skeptics cited it is important to know the context of what’s going on with the verses: Both passages are actually parallels of the same event which is Jesus facing Satan’s temptation while and after Jesus was fasting in the wilderness.
5. I do not think there’s a contradiction here.  I think Jesus was not tempted only three times by Satan in the wilderness but multiple times.  If we know anything about Satan’s strategy with our own temptation it is that Satan doesn’t tempt one time but an onslaught of much temptation to wear us down and make us given in.  Why would Satan when there’s so much more at stake with Jesus would Satan then only tempt Jesus three times and not multiple times with these three types of temptation?  It is better to understand both Matthew 4 and Luke 4 as records of three different types of temptations that Satan employed against Jesus.  So if there’s multiple onslaught of these temptations then Matthew and Luke’s record are about these various episodes of temptation while in the wilderness then its not strict chronology since Satan can switch up each time the different types of temptation he employs against Jesus.
6.  While Matthew 4 and Luke 4 mentioned Jesus was tempted after 40 days of Jesus’ fasting (see Matthew 4:2 and Luke 4:2) there’s possible indication that the temptation from Satan was happening during the 40 days duration itself.  Mark 1:13 in talking about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness has this to say: “And He was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild animals, and the angels were serving Him.”  In the Greek “being tempted” is a present participle that I take as temporal in function to indicate it was contemporaneous with the forty days Jesus was in the wilderness.  So if Jesus was tempted during the 40 days and after the duration of 40 days we shouldn’t be surprised that Satan has used these types of temptations multiple times and in different order and it would make sense to switch things up as a tactic by the guile deceiver.
7. I think point 4 through 6 is already sufficient.  Yet to go further technically and logically speaking the two chapters are not contradictory if we notice nothing in both chapters ever said the temptations only happened once and it was this order and nothing else, which the skeptic is assuming to make this a contradiction when it isn’t.
8. There is no contradiction here.  Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
9. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”

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