Loading...I continue now with a post that was produced for us by a fellow scholar in celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the blog. James McGrath has made several intriguing posts for us, and this one is particularly interesting. Is it possible that stories about Jesus — especially in the birth narratives were *originally* told about the future messiah, John the Baptist?? That the followers of Jesus took accounts originally told of John and edited them so that they now refer to Jesus? Very intriguing! Here’s James’s post.
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The Birth of John the Baptist:
Detecting a Source from John’s Followers Behind Three Early Christian Gospels
James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature, Butler University, Indianapolis
Anyone who has read my previous guest posts here, or who has read academic publications by Bart and myself, will know we share a great many interests in common: the historical Jesus, the development of Christology, extracanonical texts, and many more. As I have begun to turn my attention to my next major project, which is about the historical figure of John the Baptist, I find that my work falls once again at points of intersection between Bart’s interests and my own.
John the Baptist is the starting point of far more early Christian literature than readers today tend to notice. Mark’s Gospel begins with Jesus and then immediately turns to John. John’s family and the prediction of his birth is the focus in Luke’s Gospel before equivalent material about Jesus occurs. John’s name appears in the prologue to the Gospel of John before Jesus gets mentioned. The first detectable content in the hypothetical Q source is about John the Baptist. Among the sayings attributed to Jesus, one has him say John is the greatest human being to ever live (Matthew 11:11//Luke 7:28) while another links Jesus’ authority to that of John (Mark 11:27-33 and parallels).
One area that I have worked on which Bart hasn’t (yet, as far as I am aware) is the Mandaeans. They are the only Gnostic group to have survived continuously from ancient times down to the present day. Their sacred texts in a dialect of Aramaic hold John the Baptist in high esteem, while not viewing Jesus favorably. (That’s presumably why their texts do not feature in Bart’s work on extracanonical Christian texts: the Mandaeans aren’t Christians.) The Mandaean Book of John features an infancy story about John the Baptist that is in some ways similar to that in the Gospel of Luke. Comparing and connecting the New Testament Gospels, the second century Proto-Gospel of James (which Bart has written about before here on his blog), and Mandaean sources, it starts to seem likely there was an infancy story about John the Baptist before any was written for Jesus, and which influenced those about Jesus.
I won’t include texts from the aforementioned works here, which I am certain blog readers can look up online (there are public domain translations freely available online) or consult in one of Bart’s books that offers a translation. With respect to the Gospel of Luke, take a look at the first chapter and try to read it as though you are reading it for the first time. Skip the parts about Jesus. (That may sound shocking to some but it shouldn’t. After all, Luke tells Theophilus that he is going to write about important recent events that he has investigated and then immediately starts talking not about Jesus, but about John.) I suspect you’ll be surprised by just how easy it is to remove the Jesus-focused parts, as well as by the fact that we are left with a coherent infancy story about John when we do so. It is hard to know just how much of what is in the early chapters of Luke came from such a source. In some manuscripts, it is actually Elizabeth who utters the Magnificat! We can also remove the name “Jesus” in a few other places and be left with references to mother and child, or child and parents. Conceivably in Luke’s source about the birth of John those sections might also have been present but in their original context referred to John rather than Jesus. It is difficult to tell. We will return to this, however, once we note an intriguing connection with the Proto-Gospel of James. Before leaving Luke, however, had you noticed before that Zechariah says with reference to his son John that God has “raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69)? Hold that thought as well.
When we turn to the Proto-Gospel of James, the narrative is focused on Jesus, but then suddenly shifts gears in 22:3 which says, “But when Elizabeth heard that they were looking for John, she took him and went into the hill country to look for a place to hide him.” This is in the context of an expanded version of the story of the Magi and Herod the Great that up until this point has been focused on Jesus! Why does the story suddenly become one about John, born in Bethlehem, identified as the one Herod is seeking to eliminate? This too seems like it must be lifted straight out of a source available to the creator of the Proto-Gospel, a source that was about John the Baptist. Might the author of Matthew’s Gospel, like the author of Luke, have been drawing on a source about John in creating his infancy story about Jesus?
Now let’s bring some of the loose ends from our discussion of Luke back into the picture. In the Proto-Gospel, Herod sends people to ask Zechariah where his son is, and when he insists he doesn’t know, Herod gets angry and says, “His son is to be king over Israel” (23:2). As in Luke, here too we get the sense that John is a royal messianic figure. How that is to be reconciled with his priestly ancestry is unclear, but it would no more have stood in the way of convinced adherents of John’s than Jesus of Nazareth’s hometown prevented his supporters from finding a way to insist that he was really from Bethlehem. Perhaps the Christian authors drew on stories about John the Baptist in doing so. They may also have sought to give Jesus a more impressive miraculous conception than John’s. In the process, something that explained how John the priest could also be king would have turned into a potential liability, separating Jesus from David as ancestor by way of his paternal lineage. Presumably competition with John’s supporters and seeking to win them over was a more pressing concern at this point.
We also need to return to one other question we left unanswered when discussing Luke, the question of whether other material that in its present form now refers to Jesus might originally have been connected with John. Near the end of the Proto-Gospel Zechariah is killed. (The author adapts a story about the Zechariah who was martyred in 2 Chronicles 20:20-22 in a way that is interesting in its own right but we don’t have room to explore that here.) The Proto-Gospel goes on to say that after Zechariah was killed, they cast lots to find a replacement and as a result Simeon was chosen, adding that he is the one who had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before seeing the Christ in the flesh (24:3). Simeon has not been mentioned before in the Proto-Gospel, and his abrupt introduction here suggests that he probably was mentioned in the Baptist source used. This may be an indication that Simeon appeared in the nativity of John the Baptist known to all the early Christian authors we have been discussing, and that Simeon and his Nunc Dimittis originally referred to John.
I will be spending the 2022-2023 academic year researching the figure of John the Baptist. The infancy traditions about him are only one of the many aspects of his life and activity that are deserving or more attention than they have received. Even though a number of scholars have touched on this topic over the decades, there are still relatively few book-length treatments and articles specifically focused on it. I expect that most readers of this blog will agree that there is more to be said on the topic, since I am guessing few of you have encountered the idea that there is a nativity of John the Baptist detectable behind these early Christian texts, much less an effort to reconstruct it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic!
[For a sketch of what the reconstructed nativity of John might look like see the post on my blog “A Hypothetical Infancy Narrative of John the Baptist.”]
Very interesting! It is certainly known that the ancient stories often got recycled and/or mixed up and it is quite clear that John the Baptist is more feared and respected than Jesus in a number of biblical passages. The birth and death dates for John are also quite uncertain due to the confused or conflicting stories.
The jumping for joy in-the-womb story of Elizabeth is also one story that has always seemed a bit out of place – who would have passed that story along over time?
Joel Marcus’s book on John the Baptist provided quite a few perspectives on John that supports the idea that John was a much larger figure than what Christians are usually told. The Mandaean views are touched on in that book along with the concept of daily baptisms. The disconnects between John and Jesus seem quite large at times and it would be useful to know more about the places where these disconnects and attempted reconnects exist.
Thanks. It’s fascinating.
I look forward to the publication of your research on this topic!
Fascinating. I was not aware of birth narrative connections between John and Jesus. And thank you for providing several resource links to pursue. I look forward to your book.
Dr. McGrath, Do you agree that perhaps it was John The Baptist who taught us the Lord’s Prayer? Consider: “One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11:1 NIV) When his disciples ask him to teach them to pray, Jesus responds by reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Could John The Baptist be the actual composer of this prayer?
Great question! I’m not sure that the exact words of the Lord’s Prayer go back to John but I think the question that prompted it according to Luke indicates that there is, if nothing else, a continuity of emphasis and of concepts. This too is something I’m devoting attention to in my project. There are a couple of Syriac prayers that Christians circulated which claim to be prayers that John taught his disciples. I’m not persuaded they actually go back to John, but at the very least they indicate that Christians understood John to have prayed in a manner that Jesus subsequently also did, making John an influence on Jesus in this regard. The use of Abba in addressing God in these prayers is something that immediately jumps out at you.
This is an intriguing idea, one I hope to hear more about. Definitely worth taking a closer look.
Thank you, Dr James F. McGrath, for an interesting post. I owe you a debt for getting me interesting in the Mandaeans and Nabateans. They have proved interesting rabbit holes to dive down while trying to escape my own research projects.
Glad to hear it! Hope you’ll continue to dabble in the study of the Mandaeans and perhaps even publish something at some point. The field is far too neglected and needs people to contribute even if it never becomes a major focus of theirs.
The context of Christology is to understand the true nature of Jesus the Christ, the Christ who in Luke appears to descend as a dove during baptism. The equally exciting question is that soon afterwards!! Jesus Christ experienced the temptation of the devil in the desert, the three circle, apparently material (bread), mental (will) and spiritual (God) temptations. These temptations were after, and not before Luke apparently told that Christ entered into Jesus. Is Luke trying to imply that the spirit of rebellion (the devil) thought he had a chance to tempt Christ as we currently see Christ in relation to God the Father, and an integral part of the Trinity. What does Luke seems to suggest here?
When Jesus immediately after becoming the divine Christ was tempted after baptism, an exciting question is both sequential and how to consider Christology.
It seems to me that this temptation of the triune Christ is closely related to a process of being a Christ, which Luke seems (to me) to suggest. I can’t help but think of the symbolic final temptation in John’s Revelation chapter 20 on the “path” to the “New Jerusalem” in relation to this sequence.
I think in the proto gospel the point is that Herod incorrectly concludes that John is the one to be king, thinking that Zechariah is protecting his sons whereabouts.
“Where have you hid your son? And he, answering, said to them: I am the servant of God in holy things, and I sit constantly in the temple of the Lord: I do not know where my son is. And the officers went away, and reported all these things to Herod. And Herod was enraged, and said: His son is destined to be king over Israel.”
To tell I think we would need more of the narrative. This seems like a fragment of something else. There was no reason, based on the story told in the Proto-Gospel as we have it, for Elizabeth to have been in Bethlehem and her son to have been endangered by Herod’s action. There is also no reason for him to become aware that Zechariah’s son escaped his massacre and to ask specifically about him, at least not in the story as we now have it.
Also note that in Luke 1:69 Zechariah says of John’s birth that God has raised up a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David.
So much that’s puzzling here, and it isn’t clear that your comment really wrestles with these details.
The fragmentary nature of the gospel should be put down to bad writing rather than a lost text. The gospel also assumes the reader knows Zechariah was struck dumb for a time. 10.9 – no need to look for a lost text there. It’s just be a badly copied fragment from Luke.
Zechariah is a priest in the temple in Jerusalem who has just had a son. If the order has gone out to kill all children under two the assumption of the writer is that everyone knows this priest has just fathered a child. So Herod sends officers to ask where he is. Just bad writing not fragments of a lost text.
Jesus is horn of salvation of Luke 1:69 not John. John is he in verse 76-77 who will go before the lord to give people knowledge of this salvation.
Perhaps, but the things you assert are not explicitly stated in the ancient manuscripts.
If the time came for Zechariah’s priestly course to serve in Jerusalem just as Herod ordered the children to be killed and Zechariah was known to be from Bethlehem and have recently had a son then the story makes sense. That isn’t the story Luke tells. He may have known a source with such details and have tried through his vague reference to the hill country of Judah to obscure John’s connection with Bethlehem. But then Luke knows nothing, as far as we can tell, of a massacre of children in Bethlehem (and of course also doesn’t think that Joseph and Mary are from Bethlehem the way Matthew does).
So hopefully you can see why I think this is not as straightforward as you suggest…
Yes maybe. Or maybe this is the author’s attempt to explain why some people, starting with Herod, mistook John for the Messiah (as in the canonical gospels).
He took the vague reference of the town in the hill country to mean Bethlehem and had Jesus and John both born there at the same time. Herod first mistakenly thought John was the child who was to be king and this error continued to the time that John reappeared in the wilderness.
And the proto gospel is just an error strewn attempt to harmonise Matthew and Luke.
That still doesn’t explain the sudden introduction of Elizabeth and John. There was no need to mention them at all if the author is simply retelling Matthew with some elements taken from Luke. That final segment seems like a fragment of a different story.
One reaches a point at which assuming authorial incompetence as the explanation for everything that is puzzling begins to seem unsatisfactory.
But whether the author is inventing these parts, or copying from a lost text, the sudden introduction of Elizabeth is strange regardless.
Why go for the lost text account if authorial incompetence will be forced on us either way?
Because a process like editorial fatigue, in which a person familiar with a source they are using fails to realize they have inadequately adapted it to what they have been writing when incorporating it into their new work, is well documented across the Synoptic Gospels and fits here too. Having the author invent this involves a whole other level of incompetence.
But in the case of the synoptics we know the other work exists, editorial fatigue is useful for working out which one came first. But I don’t think its strong enough to support the existence of an otherwise unknown piece.
Especially if the conclusion we’re trying to reach is that both Matthew and Luke lifted their entire nativity accounts from it.
I’m not saying that editorial fatigue provides evidence for the existence of a hypothetical source, only that it is at least as plausible an explanation as poor writing ability when it comes to explaining puzzling things in a text.
I’m not really trying to say that either Matthew or Luke necessarily lifts their whole nativity story from an earlier source about John. What I think at this stage is that the possibility deserves a systematic investigation of a kind that it has only received once before in detail that I am aware of.
Ok – thanks
Prof McGrath
1. In his book about John the Baptist Joel Marcus speculates about a possible relationship between John and the Essenes. My impression is this was an old idea that had somewhat fallen out of favor. What is you opinion?
2. I appreciate your work on the Mandaeans. Thanks for the PDF of the Book of John! At the risk of seeming ungrateful I guess I was also expecting notes and a bibliography. Does such material exist? In the hardcopy perhaps?
Thanks!
Starting with the second point, yes, the print edition has the critical apparatus on the Mandaic text and a commentary, probably all the things you are interested in. Hopefully given the price there is a library that you have access to that you can ask to acquire it? If not, please do let me know.
As for the Essenes and John the more thought I’ve given to this and the more I have looked at each the less persuaded I have become that there is a deep connection between the two. There may be enough there that we would want to post a general awareness of the Essenes on John’s part, but nothing suggests to me that he needs to have been part of that movement at any point, whether at Qumran or elsewhere. What’s your impression?
Yes thanks I live in Washington DC so I should be able to acquire a copy. I’ve been very fortunate. Right before the pandemic hit I was able to purchase a copy of the Ginza Rabba in Amsterdam, published in English in Germany, authorized by the Mandaean leadership.
Over the course of the last year I’ve been reading the Merkabah/Hekhalot material and here we have yet another Jewish apocalyptic sect with it’s origins somewhere in Second Temple Judaism coming into its own after the First Revolt. I think there was just something in the water to it bluntly. All these groups were pulling from a shared well of ideas and it doesn’t seem necessary to connect all the dots.
Thanks for your participation in this forum. I look forward to reading your book.
Dear Prof McGrath,
Thanks for the really interesting guest post. I think you may be onto something with your suggestions on the birth narratives and I’m looking forward to seeing what you uncover in your research.
I find that John the Baptist (herein:JBap) is a fascinating figure who has seized my imagination and interest for decades. Have you read Joel Marcus’ book on JBap? I mention it here because of his carefully argued proposal that JBap was a one-time member of the Essenes who broke away to start his solo ministry. I found his arguments to be persuasive, especially the parallels identified in both language (snake’ litter) and theology (eschatologically themed immersion in water that led to the forgiveness of sins). I wonder if you have any thoughts on Marcus’ proposals?
I look forward to reading your work on JBap when it’s completed, and I’m somewhat envious that you are able to devote a year to this fascinating historical character who played such an important part in world history.
I greatly appreciate Joel Marcus’ work and we have spent quite a bit of time talking about the topic. I’m not as persuaded as Marcus that John had a direct connection with the Essenes. That said, Essenes were found in the wider society and not only at Qumran and so it would be surprising if John had no chance to encounter them and their views. My point is that I don’t think, at this point, anything in John’s emphases requires John to have actually been an Essene at some point.
This is a very intriguing post. It appears that the proto-Christians felt the need to deal with John’s followers, so Acts 19:2-7 provides a tidy summation of converting them to “the Way.”
To me Acts 18:18-28 is the far more telling John raising issue.
“Oh, Acts writer you say that Apollos was teaching about Jesus accurately but he only knew the baptism of John? Well then, OF COURSE Priscilla and Aquila need to pull him aside to teach him more accurately. Say no more Acts writer” …
If only he had explained this and what it meant. How can you teach Jesus accurately, but only know the Baptism of John…
It certainly could be a hostile swipe at proto-Mandaeans and their ‘inaccurate’ view of Jesus, but it certainly implies there are followers of John bumping into the Pauline audiences in the 50s and 60s.
Which, all due respect Dr. McGrath, kind of presupposes an early pre-existing Jesus worshipping movement yes? Not an offshoot of John worship, but some kind of proselytizing guys with “Team Jesus” Tee shirts, hats and stories right from jump street .. no?
I am not sure what you are suggesting nor why. The details of what you wrote are so ridiculously unlike anything imaginable in the first century that that may be distracting me from some actual serious point behind them. Care to explain your thinking in a more historically appropriate and serious manner?
Your ideas are fascinating. They make sense from the perspective that we know Jesus was originally a follower of John and the gospel writers’ attempts to downplay this fact. You also get the sense that there is a lot more to their relationship and about the stories told about them than we will probably ever know. After John’s death, Jesus seems to see it as his task to take up his mantle, if not his exact mission.
Yes, I think that puts it just right – Jesus initially saw himself as taking up John’s mantle rather than being in some sense independent or distinct.
I have a strange history with these ideas that probably has no bearing on history. I was a follower of Rev. Moon for a decade. Among their beliefs not commonly published is that history is a struggle between brothers playing out the roles of Cain and Abel because God wants to reverse the crime of Cain’s murder. The prime example is that they believe Zechariah engaged in a ritual sexual relation with Mary and that John the Baptist and Jesus were brothers. The belief is that John was supposed to submit to Jesus at the baptism and “reverse the roles” of Cain (John) and Abel (Jesus) by becoming Jesus’s follower. Had that happened, Jews would have come to Jesus and he would have set up the earthly kingdom. But John kept going his own way and Jesus had to start from scratch to gather disciples. John met a terrible end because of his failure to submit and ultimately so did Jesus. Moonies believe the resurrection was a spiritual event that had nothing to do with Jesus’s body. They saw him in spirit and others who believe are lifted up a notch in the spirit world.
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing this!
James Tabor at UNC-Charolotte thinks Jesus and John were related (as Luke suggests) and thought of themselves as the fulfillment of the king-priest messiah. What’s your opinion on that?
That seems quite possible. I hope to have a much stronger opinion about it by this time next year, so for now I’ll just say that it seems to fit the evidence and might even help us make sense of some of the things our sources say.
I’m getting the impression that at the very least the source material for the proto-gospel should predate the canonical gospels, and even Paul. Is it possible or necessary to establish that? Any historical references that point to some date or the possibility of that time order? Since early traditions about John the Baptist had to be modified to shift emphasis to Jesus, then, surely the traditions and stories about John the Baptist had to be earlier…?
That is a logical deduction, but alas we don’t have sources from this time from John’s group that have been preserved independently. Have you seen the Mandaean Book of John’s infancy story?
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/facsch_papers/1065/
Its similarity to and at the same time difference from early Christian infancy materials suggests as well an ancient Baptist nativity that we may be able to triangulate on.
I’ve thought for a long time that early followers of Jesus experienced some competition with the followers of John the Baptist for adherents. But John the Baptist was too well respected among likely adherents for the early Christians to denounce him. So they incorporated John the Baptist as presaging the coming of Jesus. That way they could use the stories about John for their evangelizing purposes. As far as I can tell, what you wrote above accords (or can accord) with that theory. But I realize that you may not agree with my take on it. Your article was well written and interesting. Thank you for sharing it.
This is a little off topic, but the death of Zechariah mentioned in this article is a strange, but interesting story. Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:51 mention Zechariah was killed between the temple and the alter, but the two Gospels do not give a reason for his murder. The Proto-Gospel of James indicates he was murdered in the forecourt of the Lord’s temple by servants of Herod the Great for not revealing where his infant son was. Epiphanius of Salamis in his work “Panarion” gives another reason for Zechariah’s murder. Epiphanius quotes excerpts from “The Genealogy of Mary” which states Zechariah was killed when he proclaimed he saw a man with the face of an ass in the temple sanctuary and came out proclaiming, “Woe unto you! Whom do ye worship?” Luke 1:22 refers to a different version of Zechariah’s “vision” in the temple sanctuary and how he was temporarily struck dumb when he exited. Flavius Josephus notes a remarkably similar story in “Against Apion”, referring to King Antiochus Epiphanes entering the temple finding an ass’s head made of gold, which is why Apion asserted the Jews worshipped the animal, deeming it worthy of the deepest reverence.
The original reference was almost certainly to the Zechariah whose murder is recounted in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22.
If you have access to JSTOR this article may be of interest: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44090937
The history of the elaboration of the story is fascinating. There are stories in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam that clearly derive from this source. In Judaism it is Zechariah the priest or Zechariah the prophet (see b. Sanh. 96b and Gittin 57b). In Christianity it is Zechariah the father of John the Baptist. In one Muslim version it is John the Baptist himself! That version is recorded in al Tabari’s History, vol.4. Al-Tabari also mentions John being of Davidic descent, which might intersect with things in the Protoevangelium. The intersections are so intriguing but still frustratingly puzzling.
Very interesting article. And if its OK in this post, can we inquire about Dr.Ehrman’s view of the relationship between Jesus and John ? Clearly they had some sort of connection ,plus as you point out John seems to be quite important and well-known, even to the Romans.
Why would Jesus wander out to get baptised by him ? Why did the gospel authors go to such lengths to establish Jesus superiority over John ?
I’m not aware of a post where Bart specifically states his theory about that relationship.
Great questions. I agree with the widespread view on them. Jesus agreed with John’s apocalyptic message and joined his movement because he wanted to align with it. He later split off and went on his own itinerant preaching ministry. There is some pretty good evidence to suggest that John’s followrs thought *he*, not Jesus was the messiah and that the two groups were in competition. If Jesus was just his disciple, doesn’t that make John greater? The Gospel writers are going out of their way to defend against that view. See also Acts 19.
Thanks Bart. Makes sense. It’s really interesting when you look at the gospels and ask ‘WHY’ did they include this or that. We usually just read at face value ( as if there is no context).
But the concept that there was some degree of competition between the John and Jesus camps just fits so well with the way the gospel authors describe Jesus baptism. They had a point to prove. Just as they did in the rest of the gospels.
When you say “pretty good evidence to suggest that John’s followers thought *he*, not Jesus was the messiah” – can you recommend any articles/books ?
I can’t remember for certain, but I imagine Joel Marcus deals with the issue in his book on John the Baptist, which is the best thing out there.
Do you think that Jesus went back to Nazareth after being baptized or do you think he stayed with John and his group until John’s imprisonment?
Mark 1:14 (Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God)
says Jesus came t Galilee after John was arrested.
I actually answer this elsewhere in the comments on this post!
Thank you for your response and answer. For this question, I was hoping for a response from Bart though.
Jesus of Nazareth and John the Baptist are both so similar!
Prof. McGrath,
I do think that Dr. Bob Price deserves credit on identifying John the Baptist as a Vahu Mana(or Good Mind) prototype in Zoroastrianism. The Baptism of Zoroaster(by Vohu Mana) is all over the story. “Camel Hair” and belt is a give away as is the name Nazareth which contains “Zara”.(ushtra is camel) There is no mention of Elijah having been a Baptist but he TOO wore hair and had a belt. The Herod stories involve John’s killing, but even Josephus mentions John. Baptism is an Eastern Aryan tradition — we see Achilles is Baptized, Zoroaster, and Indian traditions involve bathing in the Ganges. The Magi, is another Zoroastrian link. One conjecture is that protracted Parthian influence including from Mithradates who ruled the area, implied that John was an adaptation of Judeo-Parthian influence into Christianity. In Bahaai also we have Babism. The stories around John are tricky. Was John real? (although Josephus mentions it). We see baptism in Qumraan, but does this fully verify a John the Baptist as a famous Elijah level well known figure.
Thanks
Hi All, Prof. McGrath,
As important a point in the “Birth Story of John” is that it is DEEP TYPOLOGY from the birth story of Isaac and is largely drawn from Genesis. John being the archetypal Isaac is born of the Virgin Elizabeth only after the visitation by the Angel Gabriel. As it is not in Mark, nor in Matthew, it is obvious that this is a Lukian interpolation using an Old Testament Typescript. Now as Jesus Himself is drawn from the earlier typescript, we face a more difficult issue.
If Luke drew John like Isaac and then made Jesus also the Lamb of God only to be sacrificed and then raised from the Dead, we see Luke’s Typology as drawn entirely from the Old Testament as aimed at convincing non-believing Jews notably in Tarsus, Ephesus and Alexandria about the Divinity. Its clear that Mark was not enough. So Luke drew from this now familiar story, repeated also as the birth of Samuel. It is important to note that Isaac is the forefather and forerunner of Israel(Jacob), just as Samuel is the anointer of David and John is the baptizer of Jesus.
Thanks
Srinivas(Author – The Legend of Shara)
Dr Ehrman,
Do you agree with McGrath’s thesis?
Thank you,
Michele
It will help other blog members if you will explain which thesis you mean (since they won’t be reading the post), and then my response will make better sense as well.
Dr Ehrman,
Do you agree with McGrath that the followers of Jesus took accounts originally told of John the Baptist and edited them so that they now refer to Jesus?
Thank you,
Michele
I think it’s certainly possible, but I’d also say it’s mighty difficult to prove.
Dr Ehrman,
speaking of Jesus you underline how the apocalyptic Jews did not expect the Messiah to be executed, he should have been a triumphant. John the Baptist was also an apocalyptic and was executed (as also pointed out by Josephus) yet even his followers continued to consider him the Messiah. How come?
Thank you,
Michele
They too were apocalyptic Jews. Not all apocalyptic Jews thought alike, of course.
Even today some Jews think that a recently died person is the messiah: look up Menachem Mendel Schneerson; I believe some followers of David Koresh still think he is / was the messiah.
Hi Dr Ehrman,
I was wondering if there any particular book ( of yours or another notable scholar) you might recommend that explores the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist. I find it extremely intriguing not only that John is referenced throughout the Gospels, but also that Jesus starts his ministry by heading out to the Jordan to see John.
I’d suggest you check out Joel Marcus’s book on John the Baptist.
Dr Ehrman,
this should confirm that Jesus’ followers began to believe that he was the Messiah because he himself proclaimed to be the Messiah during his lifetime. And that most likely Jesus stopped being a disciple of John the Baptist because at a certain point he stopped believing that John was the Messiah, in reality he was the Messiah himself, and this created a certain rivalry even among their followers. It’s correct?
Thank you
Michele
I think Jesus did tell his disciples that he would be the king of the cominging kingdom (i.e., the messiah). But I don’t think that necessarily explains why he split from John. There are lots of possible reasons for that. Most often it’s thought that he simply decided to spread the message further himself along with John.
Dr Ehrman,
Is it in any case correct to think that there was rivalry between Jesus and John the Baptist if they both considered themselves the messiah?
Thank you,
Michele