I need help locating the WT magazine that had a question from readers answer stating the tempting of Jesus was a parable. It was some time around May 2001.
Any help would be appreciated.
HCM
Question from Readers, date?
by HoChiMin 4 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
blondie
I am looking for the more recent QFR but here is an older one.
Per the following, Satan did not visibly appear to Jesus, was not taken literally to the temple battlement, and there is no literal mountain that you can see all governments from. Perhaps that’s why you have the idea of a parable.
*** w61 3/1 160 Questions from Readers ***
In what form or manner did Satan come to tempt Jesus? Did he appear in the form of a man, or was it only a voice that Jesus heard? Also, how is it that Jesus would allow Satan to take him along out of the wilderness and, in fact, right through the city to and on top of the temple? Was Jesus taken bodily to the top of the temple?—D. A., Sierra Leone.At Jude 6 we read regarding the angels that “forsook their own proper dwelling-place” that God “has reserved [them] with eternal bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day.” The Watchtower, October 1, 1955, pages 594, 595, after showing that this darkness is a spiritual and not a literal one, goes on to say: “Their being ‘reserved with eternal bonds’ evidently means also that they are no more permitted to materialize in the flesh as before the Flood. This power of materialization was exercised by God’s faithful angels, including Jesus Christ, for thousands of years after the Flood, down into the day of Christ’s faithful apostles, according to God’s will and to serve his holy purposes. But the sinner angels were not allowed to use this power longer, for they would misuse it.” In view of this we must conclude that Satan the Devil also was prohibited from materializing in order to tempt Jesus.
As for Jesus’ permitting Satan to take him along to the battlement of the temple, it does not seem reasonable to place a literal construction on all that appears in the account of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Certainly there is no mountain from which one could be shown “all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” So too, we must reasonably conclude that Satan did not literally, bodily, physically, take Jesus “along into the holy city” and station him “upon the battlement of the temple.” Such was not at all necessary for the temptation to have force.—Matt. 4:3-10.
*** w61 5/1 285 Do You Remember? ***
Did Satan appear visibly to Jesus in the wilderness?
It is not likely, Since Satan had been restrained in chains of darkness along with the other demons since the Flood.—P. 160. -
HoChiMin
Wow Blondie;
1961 I had no idea it went back that far. I had mentioned this to a witness friend who asked some current elders, they all answered that it was literal. They must read a lot hey?
Thank You
HCMPS ; is your name from an old Clint Estwood movie, The Good The Bad and the Ugly.
-
blondie
No, just a nickname my soccer coach gave me because he couldn't remember my name.
-
blondie
When getting an answer from an elder, always ask for the Scriptural backing (chapter and verse) or at least they should direct you to the proper publication (where the scriptures should be) (page and paragraph(s)). If not, they are training you to say "An elder told me" rather than "The Bible says."
Galatians 1:8 ***
8 However, even if we or an angel out of heaven were to declare to YOU as good news something beyond what we declared to YOU as good news, let him be accursed.(Of course, there might be some "new light", HoChi, year 2000 and 2001 are not on the WT-CD and I have to check the old-fashioned way, read)