Okay, lots of people still not getting the point here... so one at a time:

Everything we know about what John believed comes from the Gospel. Why do you trust them as a source Toto?

Secondly, do you know if the Qurman community expected the Messiah to be baptized or not?

Third, John was almost certainly not an Essene (nor was Jesus for that matter), but that is yet another discussion. If you want to go through it start a thread please. Right now we are talking about the historical Jesus, not John the Baptist's theology.

Right now we are talking about the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, and I would prefer that we stay focused on that point on this thread.

Thank you

Nomad

Jubal is next:

I have deliberately confined my discussion to the natualistic reasons to believe that there was an historical Jesus. On this basis I have no interest, on this thread, in discussing the Jesus of faith, since that has no bearing on whether or not Jesus Himself actually ever lived here on earth as a human being.

As such, I have offered the best reasons put forward by sceptics and atheists who have been trained in the sciences of studying history, and given their reasons to accept that Jesus lived.

The irony of this thread, of course, is that it has been the sceptics of this board that have bought into the apologetic stories of the Gospels on the need for the baptism of Jesus. The fact that they simply cannot understand how 1st Century Jews thought on this issue is interesting, but what I have found most useful in this discussion is the argument put forward that the evangelists would never put anything embarrassing in their Gospels. This has, of course, blown a big old hole in many of their other arguments against Christianity and the Bible, but I have never seen such obvious contradictions within the sceptical camp ever stop them before.

As I told Michael, as an apologist, I am learning a great deal from you folks. Thank you.

Nomad

I've already pointed out that the baptism of Jesus is an ordination rite, as typified in the OT Law: remarkably, Luke points out that Jesus was 30 at the time of his baptism by John - see Luke 3:23 with the mandatory jewish geneology....cross reference Numbers 4:23. Keep in mind that the OT Law is a mere shadow of the reality in Christ - the Father approves of the baptism, and publicly announces this is my son... Jesus appeals to that as a sign of his own authority (mark 11 - the double witness of John and the Father/perhaps triple if you count Mark) -

I've already mentioned a few other things:
1. John the B was the last OT prophet: how appropriate for the Messiah to be announced to the world by "One whose message is Prepare Ye the Way"... the offical announcement came at the rite of ordination/by water - the Father approved.
2. The priestly office has a deep motivation - which yet has to be thought out in this discussion - the identification, as a mediator, between the God and His worshippers. One motivation to be baptized is to identify with hisn people (Jesus would indeed take on God's wrath for them and be baptized in blood no less -see Mark 10:38). That Jesus would so identify with the people he was to die for is not only not embarrassing, but quite appropriate (and moving I think) for a priest. Mark certainly thought so. The water baptism was a sign of his upcoming blood baptism, in which he'd represent his people. And such is our High Priest.
3. As for necessity: Name one priest of God of any order (Levite, Melchizedek, etc..)who wasn't ordained/anointed in some rite.

Most embarrassing to Jesus if He was not so ordained.

mark was certainly not embarrassed, and no theologian I've read ever admits to embarrassment on this point. (Hodge, Calvin, Adams, Clark, reformed tradition....)
If my "tradition" bothers you, then be advised that you guys aren't the only ones on the block.....not all 'theologians' agree with you.....

The "embarassment" springs from an "error" on your part: thinking the John's baptism of Christ was for his sins. Nada. Drop that one - it's wrong.
As to the idea that Christ was baptized by an inferior - NADA again - the messiah was announced offically/publicly by the only human qualified: the last OT prophet JtB/Elijah.

Don't you guys read Malachi 4:5 - Elijah?
BTW - Elijah anointed Elisha - who actually was superior to Elijah (Elisha had a double measure of Elijah's power granted him upon his ordination....)

Nuff said...

No embarrassment. get a new tune...

Philip is last, and yes, I do find the irony rich here. After all, who would have thought that he would be the one defending the integrity of Mark, and arguing truth from the Gospels.

I am one very happy apologist.

You did not answer my question. Please try again, if you can. Stick with what were the known expectations amongst any group of Jews for the Messiah c. 100BC-100AD. Then tell us how the baptism fits within those expectations. Then connect it to the Christians of the time.

Finally, explain how Mark could have dreamed the whole thing up in his head and made it believable to anyone at the time.

P.S. Don't argue from silence please.

LOL! Tell me why you think he mentions it please, especially since you think he is making it up.

Translation: No, Nomad, I do not have any such sources because we both know that they do not exist.

Thank you Philip. And you are right, I did know this already.

Josephus thought lots of people were good guys Philip, yet he never thought that they were prophets. I asked you for a source that said the Jews thought of John as a prophet, since the only ones we have are in the Gospels, well… is that your supporting evidence?

Thanks for clearing that up, but I do not see how you thought that “idolatry”
and “dying God-man” would be considered synonymous by the readers here.

As I said before, just give me a single example of any Jew of any kind that thought the Messiah would be baptized. I know that there are none, but since we are talking about Jewish expectations for their own Messiah, it is relevant to try and figure out what they were looking for so that they would know him when he showed up.

Can you show where any Jews that were not Christians thought that John’s baptism came from God?

I am very surprised at how you have suddenly seen the light Philip, and realized that Mark did not make up stories like this to lend credibility to his claims about Jesus. That said, I am still pretty happy about it. Now, if only you could talk to the sceptical scholars that disagree with you on this issue. Perhaps you could help then see the truth as well.

Into the context of does the OT tell us that we need to be baptized? Does it tell us that we are born sinful? Would Mark have any reason to address this issue at all? And if not, why did he bring it up?

I do not deal with such pathetic arguments from silence. You said that it was obvious that Mark thought Jesus was not born sinless. You have zero evidence for your belief. Mark never said that Jesus was a Jew either. Was he?

You must not have been reading Paul Philip. He wrote to the same Christians as did Mark, and he clearly was telling them that Jesus was born sinless, and that He was God. Please try to stay focused and remember that Mark did not fall out of the sky. He was writing to an established community with a set of beliefs that existed before he put quill to papyrus.

This was only a part of my argument Philip, and ties back to Paul’s teachings about Jesus. Now, if you want to argue that the Christians didn’t know about Paul before Mark that is one thing (and I would love to see you make that case), but to argue that the baptism somehow could be made to fit with the Messianic expectations of 1st Century Jews is quite another. I would welcome your efforts to do either.

By this do you mean that Mark is reliable, but Paul is not? I do wish you could decide what evidence was allowed in this discussion Philip. Then I would know what I am allowed to say and what I am not allowed to say. In the meantime, you think silence is a great evidentiary tool in your arsenal. How interesting.

You mean you forgot my question already? I asked you where Mark said that Jesus was not God.

BTW, did Paul mention the virgin birth? Yet he did believe that Jesus was God, right?

See how easy you make this for me Philip.

Yes, I must admit that since I cannot find a single Jewish source (outside of the Gospels) that says that John was a prophet, and every source that I do have says that he was not a prophet, that I lack sufficient evidence to convince you Philip.

On the other hand, I wish you would at least try and support your claims. Finish the following sentence please:

The Jewish source that tells us that John the Baptist really was a prophet is…

So why are you arguing that Mark obviously didn’t see Jesus as sinless from birth?

See how hard it is to keep up with your dizzying lines of reasoning?

Not a quibble Philip. If John was not seen as a prophet or a priest, then he was a nobody to the Jews, and certainly could not authoritatively proclaim the arrival of the Messiah.

That last bit said, could I get you to write to Grant, Akenson, Lane Fox, Crossan, Borg, and a host of other sceptical scholars and tell them the error of their ways? Thank you.

Who knows? Why should we believe Josephus here? Maybe he just hated Antipas’ guts and made this up to make him look bad. Do you know Josephus’ motivations to say this? I must admit, arguing like a sceptic can be an interesting change of pace. I can see its appeal.

Alright, but Josephus no where calls John a prophet, while Mark does do this. Josephus’ account of John hardly looks much different than his depiction of James the Just in Antiquities 20.200-1. So was James a prophet too?

Thank you for your posts Philip. I hope the sceptics are learning from it. Finally finding out how the Gospels were not embarrassing must be a great benefit to them. On the other hand, I am surprised that none of them have questioned you on this fact.

Peace,

Nomad

Actually Toto, this doesn't help you at all. An Essene baptism, as I understand it, would have been more appropriate for Jesus because it was not a baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

But the gospels go out of their way, in some tension with Josephus, to state that the baptism that John administered was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins. If it was, as Josephus said, an outward reflection of inwardly obtained righteousness, then it would probably have been less embarrassing (although the dispute with John the B.'s disciples over who was superior still remains an issue).

Hi jm

I asked you about Numbers 8. Please stick with one subject at a time.

Secondly, what is your evidence that John the Baptist was a Levite? Remember, the Gospels are not permitted to serve as evidence on their own. We are talking to sceptics on these boards after all.

Nomad

Toto

Josephus mentions John and his beliefs. If John the Baptist were only in the Gospels, he could be mythical.

The Qumram community appears to have used baptism as a standard rite, so the Messiah would also be baptized.

You are making the assumption that the point of the Gospels was to prove to "the Jews" that Jesus was the Messiah. Do you have any proof of this? It appears more that the Gospels were recording the beliefs of a new religion, in which Jesus was a savior for all mankind who grew out of the Jewish Messiah. After all, the Jewish Messiah was supposed to be a military leader, and that route had failed.

Hello! The embarrassment you're arguing is theological not naturalistic. Since you presumably believe the baptism doesn't deny Jesus' divinity, why should we infer that it was or should have been an issue for Mark? Especially when the fact that he uses it so prominently in the story suggests he did not.

Recall, as you articulared so well in fG's original thread on this topic, that Mark had motives for associating Jesus with John the Baptist.

All things considered, I think I have more respect for authority than you do. But like you I don't consider myself bound by it, especially in a soft subject like history. Embarrassment, multiple attestation and other such criteria are weak indicators at best. They are only used because they're the best tools available. That doesn't make the conclusions true. Usually, at best, merely plausible.

Frankly, I don't understand why you have so much trouble with this one. Since embarrassment is determined with respect to the author, it is of course valid for a skeptic to use apologetics in the analysis. Perhaps your sense of irony keeps you from seeing this perfectly obvious point.

Wish I could say the same, but I've seen your ilk many times. Nothing new here.

[This message has been edited by JubalH (edited June 01, 2001).]

Nomad Watch: Post #90 Summary: Through skillful misrepresentation, Nomad has diverted the thread for another 5 posts without actually saying anything meaningful about Mark's or the various Christian takes on Jesus' baptism.

but what I have found most useful in this discussion is the argument put forward that the evangelists would never put anything embarrassing in their Gospels.

Nomad, you are the most skilled misrepresenter I have ever known. Nobody argued this; rather we argued that the existence of the story in the text was prima facie evidence that Mark did not find it embarrassing. All you have to do is find evidence that he did. The onus on you, big guy, is to find any evidence that MARK found the story embarrassing theologically. Since you haven't yet.....

This has, of course, blown a big old hole in many of their other arguments against Christianity and the Bible, but I have never seen such obvious contradictions within the sceptical camp ever stop them before.

ROTFLMAO! Nomad, you kill me. So far, 90 posts, no evidence for your position. Now you have resorted to attacking skeptics en masse, rather than their positions, in a desperate attempt to avoid facing the obvious fact that you have no argument.

What now? An attempt to provoke something insulting so you can leave the thread in a huff, rather than having to admit that you can't prove that the Baptism story is embarrassing for Mark?

Slouching toward post #190.

Michael



[This message has been edited by turtonm (edited June 01, 2001).]

Nomad,

Your last post isn't worth responding to point by point. You dodge all sorts of questions just by repeating yourself over and over again.

For example, you keep repeating that the Jews wouldn't have expected the Messiah to be baptized, so therefore Mark, a CHRISTIAN rather than a Jew, would have been embarrassed to include such a story in his narrative. But as has been pointed out numerous times now, the OT doesn't (1) contain a moment by moment expected history of the Messiah, (2) preclude baptism for the Messiah, and (3) assume the Messiah would be sinless, and therefore couldn't use a baptism or two. Mark was not writing simply for Jews. Rather he was writing for people perhaps with a Jewish background but who were members of a brand new growing spiritual movement, or cult, called Christianity. Mark could very easily have said to himself "So those Jews don't like baptism, eh? Well, I think John was an important teacher, and I like the idea that Jesus was baptized by John, so I'm including the story anyway." Mark owed nothing to non-Christians. Christianity at first pushed the boundaries of Judaism, and anyway Judaism wasn't a monolithic religion in the first century CE as we all know now given the new information on the Essenes.

So why would Mark have liked the baptism story? For one thing, he might have wanted to connect John with Jesus, to give a nod to John but to downplay him at the same time. Why didn't Jesus give John the baptism then? Because everyone knew that John was the one who baptized people. In fact, John introduced the notion of baptism to Judaism. As the article on John in the Oxford Companion to the Bible says, "It was John, not Jesus, who opened a way to God for those who before had felt themselves excluded. And by his dress and diet, even by the metaphors he chose (a tree cutter, a thresher), John identified himself, and the one whom he awaited, with the lowly.

"Judaism had never encountered anything quite like this, yet virtually everything recorded of John had parallels in Isaiah…Despite such parallels, John burst on the scene as a virtual mutant, for his rite of baptism, though outwardly similar to Temple lustrations, was wholly without precedent in its meaning. Nowhere in any Jewish source is rebirth made a metaphor for redemption….John's rite was so unique that he was named by it ("the Baptizer")…(372)."

Given this, if Mark was going to include John the Baptist in his narrative, he would had to have John baptize Jesus, assuming that such an event wouldn't blatantly have contradicted any of Mark's fundamental doctrines on Jesus, such as that Jesus was already sinless and John's baptisms by themselves were meant to work against sin. There would be no point at all in including John in a narrative about Jesus without having John do his thing and baptize everyone in sight. Since Mark wanted to address and subtly downplay John's popularity, and to have Jesus meet John and make some pleasant remarks about him, Mark had to say Jesus was baptized by the Baptizer. Since Mark wasn't writing for Jews, and since Judaism in any case wasn't monolithic and didn't proscribe baptism, there was nothing stopping Mark from including this story.

You also repeated the claim that there are no Jewish sources that state John was a prophet. Specifically you said "Josephus thought lots of people were good guys Philip, yet he never thought that they were prophets. I asked you for a source that said the Jews thought of John as a prophet, since the only ones we have are in the Gospels, well… is that your supporting evidence?" You ignored my point that John said specifically that the Jews were so offended by John's murder that they believed GOD sought retribution and vanquished Herod's army. Regardless of whether this story is true, the point is that Josephus, a Jew, implied that John was regarded by Jews as a prophet, a person very highly favoured by God. God would not destroy an army for just a "good guy."

But once again, this point is irrelevant since Mark wasn't writing for Jews. Even if there weren't any Jews who regarded John as a prophet--as a matter of fact, even if the Jews regarded John as an evil, demon-possessed man--Mark had no obligation to honour that Jewish belief in his Christian narrative. No one knows who exactly Mark's readers were, but we do know they were members of a relatively new Christian community and not simply "Jews." The question is whether Mark and his Christian readers would have been embarrassed by Jesus' baptism by John, not whether the Jews would have been embarrassed by it.

There are of course scholars who think precisely this, such as Crossan. Crossan and the Jesus Seminar believe that the early Christians wouldn't have made up this story because it made Jesus look inferior and subservient. These scholars evidently forget that Mark is the most theologically awkward and undeveloped of the gospels (for this reason I find Mark the most charming gospel). Matthew and Luke repeatedly edit Mark line by line for just this reason, as they do with the baptism story. Unlike John Mark wasn't concerned about claiming that Jesus was in perfect control of events every step of the way or was sinless from the beginning.

Nomad also says that Mark's readers would have been familiar with Paul's teachings, and that Paul taught that Jesus was born sinless. Actually, I don't recall reading where Paul says specifically that Jesus was BORN sinless. In any case, Nomad has resorted to pure speculation here, since we don't know exactly who Mark's readers were or whether they would have agreed with everything Paul said. Just from reading Paul we know that not all his churches were perfectly obedient.



[This message has been edited by Earl (edited June 01, 2001).]