Steven Carr

'Here are some facts in the Gospels that embarrassed the early church: Jesus was baptized by John (a great theological problem)'

If this had been embarrassing to the author of Mark, it would have been dropped before Jesus was cold in the grave.

The fact that it appears 30 years after the alleged event is proof that there had not been 30 years of spin doctoring any alleged baptism.

It could not have happened,or else by the criterion of embarrassment, it would never have appeared in a Gospel written 30 years after Christians realised they had better keep quiet about it.

Steven Carr

But John's Gospel does omit it, so the claim that it was too well known to be omitted is contradicted by the facts.

The Gospels also claim there was a world-wide darkness that lasted 3 hours.

This would have been embarrassing as opponents would have pointed out that every single person in the world knew that no such darkness had ever happened.

So it must be true, as telling such obvious lies would have led to embarrassment when Christians were called on them.

Steven Carr

So it wasn't embarrassing was it?

It was Mark's way of God announcing to the world that Jesus was his son.

'The first Superman character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster was not a hero, but rather a villain.'

How embarrassing! Superman must have existed, or else why would they have had to change his character?

ApostateAbe

The point is to find the best explanations for the apparently embarrassing elements. From my reading, the embarrassment seems evident in each of the four gospels, and you can easily imagine yourself in the time, observing members of the JtB cult saying to the Christians, "Who is the greater man? The baptizer or the baptizee?" And Christians respond, "John the Baptist was the humblest servant of Jesus, and John believed that he himself should have been baptized by Jesus. But, God arranged that baptism to declare Jesus to be the chosen Son." I think it is worth it to open up the beginnings of each the gospels to see how such a perspective makes elegant sense--the quotes of humility of JtB, the extreme deference to Jesus, and the miracle at the baptism. A rival explanation should explain those details, or else there is a stark gap in the advantage.
I think the point that the gospel of John omits the baptism is essential. Here is that passage from John:

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ Then they said to him, ‘Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said,
‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,
“Make straight the way of the Lord” ’,
as the prophet Isaiah said.

Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, ‘Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?’ John answered them, ‘I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.’ This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The gospel of John finds a way to omit the baptism while at the same time retaining the myth of the miracle story that is tightly associated with it. "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him." I think that is rhetorically impressive. The author apparently would not deny that the baptism by John took place--or else what was that business with the Spirit like a dove?--but he doesn't actually make it explicit. I think you were correct in the argument that the baptism was not essential to the figure of Jesus, but it was more like an awkward fact that Jesus strongly supported, Christians knew it, and the followers of JtB always reminded them of it. The synoptic gospels deal with it by forcing JtB into a submissive status to Jesus, and the gospel of John keeps those claims with a pseudo-omission of the baptism.
The point is to make the best sense of the apparent embarrassment. If we can make better sense of it in the same way as making sense of Superman, then that is wonderful. In order for any rival explanation to gain an advantage, then it needs to explain the details with greater explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, consistency and least ad hoc. It is easy to criticize, but the criticisms and the perceived faults will not bring down the best explanation when it towers over all of the rivals. You ever play Mario Kart? You gain the greatest advantage by protecting yourself and enhancing the speed of your own vehicle, not by shooting turtle shells at your rivals.

Steven Carr

I don't understand your argument at all.

The embarrassment started when 'Mark' wrote his story, and the others then had to change it.

Either there had been 30 years of spinning before Mark wrote or there had not.

If there had been 30 years of spinning away the baptism, then how can it be claimed that the story was still embarrassing to Mark when he wrote? After 30 years,surely even the most dense Christian could have found a way to eliminate all embarrassment, yet scholars claim to be able to still detect it in Mark.

And if there had not been 30 years of spin before Mark wrote, then clearly it did not happen.

Mark's baptism scene is his way of getting God to announce that Jesus was his son.

Who else was he going to get to baptise Jesus other than the most famous baptiser? Was he going to have Jesus baptised by a nobody?

'Mark' knew he had to have an Elijah-figure before the Messiah could come? Who else was he going to hit upon to play the Elijah to Jesus's Messiah?

There is no more embarrassment in Mark having John preach that Jesus was to come than there is in Shakespeare having the witches prophesy that Macbeth was to be Thane of Cawdor.

Of course, as soon as 'Mark' wrote, the other Gospellers had to change the story as it was embarrassing to them.

ApostateAbe

"If there had been 30 years of spinning away the baptism, then how can it be claimed that the story was still embarrassing to Mark when he wrote? After 30 years,surely even the most dense Christian could have found a way to eliminate all embarrassment, yet scholars claim to be able to still detect it in Mark."

The argument is that Mark could not possibly have eliminated all embarrassment because it was an indisputable fact well known among Christians. If you think you could have found a better way to deal with the embarrassment of John baptizing Jesus, then I think you should put it on the table, and we can see how plausible that would be for Mark.

ApostateAbe

For clarity, here is the baptism story in the gospel of Mark. I will highlight the verses that react to the perceived embarrassment at the fact of John baptizing Jesus.

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

The only words coming out of JtB's mouth are words of extreme deference. Again, the duty of anyone who claims that Jesus could have been only myth should be to explain these verses with better explanatory power and so on. Why couldn't have God chosen another method of proclaiming Jesus to be his son? For example, wouldn't the Transfiguration event be sufficient for such a purpose, where there is no hint of a concession with the members of the John the Baptist cult who are breathing down their necks? Whatever the problems with calling this event embarrassing, it seems to be the best explanation until a better explanation is available.

ApostateAbe

Never mind what I said about the duty of people who believe Jesus could have been only myth. Maybe they could have an explanation for the seeming embarrassment of JtB baptizing Jesus that gets only part of the way there, but they could use entirely different evidence to put themselves in the lead. A half-arsed explanation in this case is certainly better than nothing.

aa5874

But, the baptism of Jesus by John in gMark and the Synoptics were NEVER discarded and were USED by CHRISTIAN cults. Up to today, the Synoptics are still in the Canon.

In the Earliest known Codices, the Synoptics were STILL being used as SCRIPTURE so it was NOT even embarrassing up to the 4th century for Jesus to have been baptized by John.

And these are the words of the alleged Voice of God from the cloud.


It is CLEAR that there were CHRISTIAN cults that were NOT at all embarrassed by the alleged baptism of Jesus by John since the the baptism scene was NEVER discarded in the Synoptics.

Embarrassingly, the Criterion of Embarrassment is a most ridiculous criterion since it cannot even explain why the Synoptics baptism scene was found in the earliest Canon and still used for hundreds of years after gJohn was supposedly written.

How much longer are you going to continue to peddle the nonsense called the criterion of embarrassment?

It is a complete waste of time.

The baptism and crucifixion of Jesus as found in the Synoptics were NOT embarrassing to Christian cults of antiquity as is EVIDENT from the EARLIEST known Codices from the 4th century.

Dirac_Delta

Come on, why assume the story is embarassing? Maybe they believed Jesus HAD to be baptized by John, for example. This is why the argument is circular. We need to accept first that the event happened AND that the early christians felt embarassed by it. If we assume that then yes, we recover the historical "fact" we assumed in the first place.