Jericho: Mount of Temptation
From its position above the plain of Jericho, west of the city, the Mount of Temptation affords a good view of the Dead Sea, the north of the Judean Desert, and the Hills of Jerusalem. The mountain is described in the New Testament as the Mount in the Wilderness, where Satan tried for forty days and forty nights to tempt Jesus, promising him the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:1–11). Christians started to live as hermits in the caves scattered over the mountain slopes in the 4th century A.D. In the 19th century a Greek Orthodox monastery was built on the hilltop, financed by the Russian Church. The monastery is called the Quarantal, a mis pronunciation of the Latin word for forty.
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