Christ's temptation in the wilderness is recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 4:1-11//Luke 4:1-13//Mark 1:12-13. I have discussed this event in the life of Christ as, alongside Jude 9, the strongest evidence of an external supernatural Satan in the New Testament:
In this post, I will focus on this event in the New Testament and the topic of the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of the Bible.
In the accounts in Matthew and Mark, after Satan departed, angels came to minister to Christ. In Matt 4:11, we read:
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Mark 1:13 reads:
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
Interestingly, Joseph Smith in the JST altered the text in Matthew but not in Mark, showing that the JST is not to be understood as being inspired in every change Joseph Smith made to the KJV (alas, there are many LDS who, functionally, are JST inerrantists, who treat the JST as the "final word" when it comes to the text of the Bible). Matt 4:11 in the JST reads:
And now Jesus knew that John was cast into prison, and he sent angels, and, behold, they came and ministered unto him.
However, Mark 1:11 in the JST (corresponding to v. 13 in the KJV) reads as follows:
And he was there in the wilderness forty days, Satan seeking to tempt him; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
In the Matthew text, the angels ministered to John the Baptist; in Mark, the angels ministered to Jesus, as it reads in the KJV of both Matthew and Mark. Indeed, with respect to evidence of the Greek NT manuscripts, the KJV of both Matthew and Mark are supported; there are no variants in any of the texts supporting John the Baptist being the recipient of angelic ministration instead of Jesus in Matt 4:11. Furthermore, there is a conflict within the JST as seen in JST Matt 4:11 and Mark 1:11 as seen above.
For those of us who do not hold the JST to be inspired with respect to every single change Joseph Smith made to the Bible, such is not a problem; it is problematic, however, to those who treat the JST as superior to the KJV (and other translations) in every respect.
And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses, or in other words, John the Baptist and Moses; and they were talking with Jesus.
Here, Joseph Smith replaced OT Elijah with John the Baptist, notwithstanding D&C 35:4 and other texts that show it was OT Elijah who was with Moses, not John the Baptist. Furthermore, in spite of rather desperate attempts to claim John the Baptist was with OT Elijah and Moses, this ignores the meaning of the phrase "or in other words." For a full discussion of OT Elijah and NT Elias, see my article:
