Interesting. I sort of bought the argument from embarrassment, and I do struggle to see how it would fit as a literary invention, but that might be showing a lack of imagination on my part.
One possible solution is that Jesus was baptized by J. Bap. but he was just one of hundreds and not particularly remarkable at the time. Then again, if Jesus’ discipleship to J. Bap. was both unmemorable at the time and embarrassing later, there would be no need to include it in the Gospels.
Maybe there could be some in between, where Jesus was, already at the time, remarkable enough for people to remember that he started off as a follower of John, but not remarkable enough for John to pay him too much mind until John was preparing to die.
Mark was obviously not too embarrassed to include it
As I think of it, embarrassing details are interesting because how embarrassing the detail was is only half the equation, the other half is how notorious that fact was to the author’s audience. If something is embarrassing our first instinct is to deny it, or at least not mention it. One is only forced to steer into the curve and acknowledge an embarrassing fact when that fact is already so well established that there is no way to gloss over it or deny it.
If it was a notorious fact that Jesus started off as a disciple of John the Baptist, a Christian writing a biography of Jesus many not have had any choice but to mention it–like a politician facing a particularly damning news story, there comes a point where neither denying the story nor ignoring the story is going to work. Although in his mentioning it, we might expect such a Christian author (just like a politician spinning a scandal) to re-frame that well known fact to change its significance. For example, he might cast the story so that its significance goes from being a submission of Jesus to John and becomes instead a divine testimony to Jesus’s mission–a divine testimony that exceeds anything that even the popular John had for himself. . . which happens to be what we get in Mk 1:10-11.
My inclination is to take the baptism at the opening of Mark as Marks attempt to take the narrative back by turning an embarrassment for Christianity into a testimony of the truth of Christianity.
Matthew was definitely embarrassed by the story, but Mark was obviously not too embarrassed to include it.
Well Mark might not be embarrassed because he’s already depicted Jesus as a pious human being seeking repentance and forgiveness.
…so John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And the whole Judean region and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him and were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.
…In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
There is absolutely no indication from Mark that Jesus approached his baptism differently than anyone else. The difference is that at his baptism, Jesus was adopted by God as his divine son.
@rickgill
Concerning Matthew 14:2,“This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him”, another interpretation is that the author of the gospel of Matthew, some of John’s followers, and Herod as well believed John the Baptist to be the prophesized return of Elijah. Much as there is a Christian expection of Christ’s Second Coming, there was (and continues to be) a Jewish expectation of Elijah’s second coming as a result of Malachi 4:5: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
“For all the (Books of the) Prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come [i.e. who was prophecized to come].”(Matthew 11:13-14)
Luke also acknowledged that John the Baptist – even though not yet born – would come “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17) as declared through an angel to Zechariah. Given that spirit (ruah) can also be translated as breath in Hebrew with human spirits thought to have originated from the divine breath that animated Adam from a clay statue to a living being in Genesis 2:7, Luke 1:17 is essentially claiming that John the Baptist possessed the spirit/soul of Elijah, thus making John the Baptist “risen from the dead” (Matthew 14:2) as the resurrected Elijah. Luke goes further to claim that John the Baptist possessed “the power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17), hence why “these powers are at work in him” (Matthew 14:2).
The author of the gospel of John belonged to a sect of early Christianity that did not agree that John the Baptist was the Elijah and thus had his John the Baptist outright deny those claims:
“And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.””(John 1:21)
John the Baptist came back from the dead in the person of Jesus?
Jesus is not recorded holding his decapitated head.
A cephalophore (from the Greek for “head-carrier”) is a saint who is generally depicted carrying their own severed head. In Christian art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading.
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