ApostateAbe

The embarrassment is a strong inference from the baptism accounts, and it is a plausible likelihood from the two cults existing in the same time, place and target audience (poor rural Jews). Here is the baptism account from the gospel of Matthew, where the embarrassment is especially illustrated.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ‘Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’

The bolded part illustrates the implicit embarrassment that someone whom Christians believed to be lesser should baptize someone who is greater.

You said, "Maybe they believed Jesus had to be baptized." Also included in this passage is the explicit explanation given by Matthew, which I put in red, that Jesus had to be baptized "to fulfil all righteousness." The problem is that there is no easy connection between dunking Jesus under water and the end result "to fulfil all righteousness." Jesus was transfigured for the same reason. He died on the cross for the same reason. So why baptism? If you say that there was some reason that we simply do not know, then that explanation has the disadvantage of being ad hoc, and it is implausible given Jesus' silence on it when an explanation is demanded, though it is certainly possible.

The doctrine of John the Baptist, as told via Josephus, makes far more theological sense for why people should be baptized. Here is that passage from Antiquities:

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.

JtB's baptism was essentially like a bath, which is important for a Jewish society where cleanliness is exalted and an "unclean" person can be ostracized. Christians extended this baptism ritual into a purification of the soul (Mark 1:8), which explains why Josephus describes what JtB's baptism is not. Either way, that would be a source of further awkwardness for the baptism story of Jesus. According to all accounts, baptism was for the cleansing of either the body or soul. If Jesus was clean and sinless, then why would he need to be baptized? The gospel of Matthew as I mentioned gives an explanation that seems to be ambiguous at best and half-arsed at worst. The other gospels are somewhat silent of an explanation. It is unlikely that baptism by JtB is something that Jesus really needed to do in order to benefit Christian doctrines, but it happened anyway, and Christians had to somehow deal with it.

aa5874

But, all the Synoptics contain the baptism of Jesus even up to today and Christians of Antiquity were NOT embarrassed at any time.

The criterion of Embarrassment is a "STRAWMAN criterion".

Not a single Church writer of Antiquity claimed it was embarrassing that Jesus was baptized by John.

In the Synoptics, the HEAVENS opened up and the SPIRIT of God, like a DOVE, ENTERED Jesus at BAPTISM.

There is ZERO embarrassing about the Baptism of Jesus in the Synoptics. Christians Cults were USING the Synoptics with the Baptism scene long AFTER gJohn was supposedly written.

Matthew 3.17 The Baptism of Jesus was ABSOLUTELY PLEASING to Christian cults of Antiquity.

Vorkosigan

Excellent point.

Mark is obviously not embarrassed; he reveres JtB. The use of this criterion is embarrassing...

Another issue: embarrassing stories are often made up to cover even more embarrassing circumstances -- like the embarrassing tale that the usurper is the King's bastard son when in fact he is not related to the king at all.

mountainman

See also “Bayes’ Theorem for Beginners: Formal Logic and Its Relevance to Historical Method — Adjunct Materials and Tutorial” (2008) by Richard Carrier, and especially ....

2. Example List of Popular Historicity Criteria.

Dissimilarity - dissimilar to independent Jewish or Christian precedent
Embarrassment - if it was embarrassing, it must be true <<<===============
Coherence - coheres with other confirmed data
Multiple Attestation - attested in more than one independent source
Contextual Plausibility - plausible in a Jewish or Greco-Roman cultural context
Historical Plausibility - coheres with a plausible historical reconstruction
Natural Probability - coheres with natural science (etc.)
Explanatory Credibility - historicity better explains later traditions
Oral Preservability - capable of surviving oral transmission
Fabricatory Trend - isn’t part of known trends in fabrication or embellishment
Least Distinctiveness - the simpler version is the more historical
Vividness of Narration - the more vivid, the more historical
Crucifixion - explains why Jesus was crucified
etc
etc
etc
etc

Certain criteria and hypotheses surrounding the HJ are "bloated with the will to believe".
Carrier appears to have collected them in a concise list.
They are categorized as "Popular Historicity Criteria"
and objectively subjected to Bayesian logic analysis tests.
the results of which suggest ... the converse.


It's strawmen all the way down.

ApostateAbe

In my opinion, it is a little odd to deny evidence of any sort of embarrassment in the Christian gospels unless it is plainly written. We most certainly do not expect that any Christian would plainly admit that anything about Jesus is embarrassing. But, we know (or should know) about the embarrassment because of the unexpected and out-of-place event of the baptism and the spin they put on it in their accounts. If Christians were rivals with the cult of JtB and Jesus was baptized by JtB (both very plausible suppositions), then we read just what we expect in the gospels--extreme humility of JtB and God establishing the hierarchy at the event of the baptism. Nobody who reads the gospels will have any doubt about who is greater than who, despite who baptizes who. That is what is called explanatory power. Try to explain such evidence in any other way.

aa5874

Again, the Baptism of Jesus was NOT embarrassing to the authors of NT or the Jesus cult since it has been included in the EARLIEST EXTANT CODICES.

In the story, Everything went WELL. God was PLEASED with HIS Son's baptism by John in the NT.

Mark 1.
And further, using your bogus criterion of EMBARRASSMENT it can be argued then that Jesus was REALLY the OFFSPRING of the Holy Ghost since the author of gMark, gJohn and the Pauline writers, in the EARLIEST extant Codices, may have been embarrassed that Jesus was claimed to be the child of a Ghost of God.

And using your hopelessly flawed criterion of EMBARRASSMENT it can be argued that Jesus ACTUALLY ASCENDED through the clouds since, in the EARLIEST EXTANT Codices, the authors of gMark, gMatthew and gJohn may have been embarrassed about the Ascension of Jesus and did not mention it.

The criterion of EMBARRASSMENT is so absurd that it gives credence to the FALSE notion that a text of antiquity of unknown credibility is likely to be historical once it contains embarrassing details.

Whoever introduced the criterion of EMBARRASSMENT perhaps were UNAWARE of the embarrassing details in Greek/Roman mythology.

spamandham

...not exactly. There is no reason to presume that the gospel of Mark that we have is the original story. Mark seems to be something in between. But what we do see, is that the story changes from closer to Greek tragedy in Mark, to biography by the time of Matthew/Luke, to theology in John (the order could be reversed and still make sense historically).

This is to be expected from a hack job edited over the course of 100 years or more. The epistles are equally disjoint at times, due to the handiwork of multiple authors.

Suppose this is true and it ends abruptly and unharmoniously in the earliest version (which is what all the evidence shows us). Is that really any different than the rest of Mark that jumps around in a discontinuous way? The author sucked. So what?

spamandham

That is the argument, but it's a stupid argument. Mark has Jesus baptized by John, because this is how authority is established in Jewish scripture - it is passed on from one authority to the next. Jesus *couldn't* just arrive on the scene under his own authority. Someone of authority had to establish it.

What this tells us, is that at the time of the writing of Mark, JtB was considered a spiritual authority to the author and his audience.

ApostateAbe

So what? It means that your hypothesis does not have explanatory power. Insensible beginnings, discontinuous jumps, and abrupt endings that leave many loose ends are all things that we would expect of a story written for entertainment. Most relevantly, they are not the sort of stories that can be spread from person to person for the purpose of entertainment, and the reason for that is they are not as entertaining as the many rival stories that succeed in entertaining. On the other hand, such characteristics are something that we may accept of a narrative intended to be a biographical sketch of a religious leader. Your goal should be to find and accept the explanation that best fits, that requires the least number of new suppositions and stretches in plausibility. There are plenty of Christians who would say, "The gospels were written by God as absolute truth, except for all of the passages that got screwed up by people." Don't be like those people. Why not just believe that all of the gospels are religious mythical biographical narratives of Jesus and have always been that way?

aa5874

Why ASSUME the story is history? ApostateAbe MUST first ASSUME what he has to prove.

The Baptism of Jesus as described in the Synoptics is most likely FICTION but ApostateAbe will claim it was embarrassing, which NO christian or church writer ever claimed at any time in antiquity, in order to INVENT his own history.

There was NO theological or historical benefit for the Jesus cult if Jesus was known to be a mere man.

There was NO theological or historical benefit for the Jesus cult if it was KNOWN that Jesus was just a SINNER and needed baptism like any other mere man.

In the NT, the Baptism of Jesus was UNIQUE, the HOLY GHOST entered Jesus like a DOVE unlike the baptism of ordinary men.

Jesus essentially proved in the NT that he was NOT just a mere man when he was BAPTIZED and the VOICE from heaven, unlike the baptism of mere men, DECLARED that Jesus was INDEED the SON of GOD.

How could a story where Jesus is IDENTIFIED as the Son of God be embarrassing to the Jesus cult?

ApostateAbe does not know what he is talking about.

Mark 1 It is CLEAR that in the NT that Jesus was BELIEVED to be the Son of a God and not a mere man.