Chris Weimer

Is anyone aware of any verses that mention John the Baptist in Paul's letters? Thank you.

rostau

According to A Christian Thinktank:

"The earliest of Christian writings, the letters of Paul, make no mention of John the Baptist."

Toto

The exact URL for this quote is here. It is part of a response to a 1993 essay by Jim Lippard on the Infidels site The Fabulous Prophecies Of The Messiah. (There is an updated version of this essay here

What conclusions do you draw from the lack of mention of John the Baptist in Paul's letters?

rlogan

hi toto - thanks for that Lippard link. Nice.


Obviously the JBapt part of the Gospel story is quote mined from the HB in post- 90 CE.

It isn't in Josephus. It isn't in paul's letters. But it goes along with all of the other dumpster-diving, AKA prophcy slutting, of the 2nd century gospel constructs. And Acts.

We get isaiah 40:3 and Malachi 3:1 mentioning a figure that will herald something. So JBapt is slapped on to the jesus swamp-buggy. A lift kit.

Since John is not speaking to a flesh and blood Christ, there is no need to fabricate the JBapt connection in his letters. Doherty Thesis support.

Chris Weimer

I was reading on Barbara Thiering, and it got into my head that Belial could be the Paul's version of JtB, like Belial could be Jesus. I know BT's work isn't correct, but I was seeing plausibility in that.

Gotta write a paper defending BT...

Oh, and where do you think he came from? Mark doesn't really mention him, Luke and Matthew do, do you think that Matt and Luke drew upon an early gospel account or from another gospel account + Mark?

rostau

Personally, it makes no difference to me. I do not believe in the existence of a historical Jesus, and consider the bulk of New Testament writings to be made up guff.

However, I have always thought it was pretty categorically established that JtB existed. I don't know why I thought that. I haven't actually researched the issue. I would therefore conclude that the absence of JtB from Paul, while Paul is full of the non-historical Jesus, is just more evidence that Paul (or writings attributed to someone now called Paul) is bogus crud.

Chris Weimer

It's not the fact they JtB did or didn't exist, it's the fact that the Paul's Christianity lacks something that later canonical Christianity adopted, i.e. JtB.

gregor

In Price's "The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man" he discusses the several options with JtB. Considering that at the time of Josephus there was a strong group of non-Xian Baptists, the gospel stories of JtB deferring to and annointing Jesus are almost surely fabrications.

A question exists about whether the JtB stories are first version myths or even later interpolations.

While I haven't read BT, I would suspect that Price cites some current scholarship that might support BT's theories.

Vorkosigan

Well, there's quite a bit of JBap in Mark, not merely the beginning, but also Mark 6, and "who do you say I am?" and of course, was John's baptism from God?

Vorkosigan

Chris Weimer

Nah, 6 merely mentions his beheading, and no, it was not from God, unless of course the Holy Spirit is either 1: God or 2: from God.