ApostateAbe

In my previous thread about the failed prophecies of the historical Jesus, I outlined what I take to be the best argument for the actual-human Jesus (a doomsday cult leader). In this thread, I talk about the argument I take to be the second best. It is about the best explanation for the Christian myths of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus.

Keep in mind that it is about explaining the evidence (the early Christian beliefs reflected in the gospels). It is not about trusting the evidence. In this case, we can actually make the best sense of the gospels if we conclude that they contain outright lies.

A critical reader of the Christian gospels should wonder: why was Jesus baptized? Baptism, according the gospels, was for repentance and the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3), presumably rooted in the Jewish association of bodily uncleanliness with sins (see Josephus on John the Baptist). Jesus was supposedly sinless (2 Peter 2:21-22), so why would he be baptized?

The basic conclusion among critical historians has been that the synoptic gospels record that Jesus was baptized primarily because the historical Jesus really was baptized by John the Baptist (e.g. The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Historical Man (or via: amazon.co.uk), by James Breech, pp. 22-24), and the doctrine that Jesus was sinless was only a later development that didn't exactly jive with the well-known fact that Jesus was baptized.

It is not just a curious modern problem. It is a problem that very much shows up in the gospels themselves. The gospel of Matthew was written for Jewish Christians who would be best acquainted with the purpose of the ritual, and the apologetic problem would be greatest, so Matthew quotes Jesus for an explanation:

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.’ (Matthew 3:13-14)

Seems like Jesus had a flimsy explanation, right? Does Jesus really need to be baptized to "fulfil all righteousness"? Is there even a logical connection? It was a flimsy explanation, but it was the best that Matthew could do.

The gospel authors seem to be haunted by the baptism of Jesus, and the washing-of-sin problem was not even their biggest concern. There was an even bigger problem: Christianity in the first century competed strongly with the cult of John the Baptist for adherents. The cult of John the Baptist in the first century was possibly more popular than Christianity, at least among the Jews. Josephus spent twice as much ink writing about John the Baptist than he did writing about Jesus. And the gospels themselves acknowledge the popularity and doctrinal overlap with the Christian religion (Mark 8:28, Luke 9:19, Acts 18:25, Acts 19:3-4). Given that the two cults existed alongside each other and competed for the same adherents, then plausibly the followers of John the Baptist would remind Christians every day that "Jesus was baptized by John, so who is truly sinless?"

Christians, therefore, made the very best of this otherwise embarrassing reality in their own accounts. In all of the Christian gospels, in addition to the flimsy explanation of Matthew 3:14,

1. John the Baptist is consistently presented as the most reverent and humble character with respect to Jesus, showering Jesus with praise at his own expense. He is quoted as saying, for example, "I am not worthy to carry his sandals." (Matthew 3:11)
2. In the gospels of Matthew and Mark, after Jesus is baptized, the Spirit of God alights on Jesus (not John), and God himself speaks from the heavens, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased," in the presence of John the Baptist. (Matthew 3:17)
3. In the gospel of Luke, John is sent to prison, and only after that is the baptism of Jesus mentioned (the baptizer being someone anonymous).
4. In the gospel of John (the latest canonical gospel), John the Baptist has a prominent role, but the account of the baptism of Jesus is completely omitted!

Don't just take my word for it. Read the baptism/John-the-Baptist accounts yourself. Each account is at the beginning of each canonical gospel. If your experience is like my own, this explanation (spinning of an otherwise-embarrassing fact) will consistently jump out of the page.

If the actual-human Jesus really was baptized by John the Baptist, that still leaves the question: Why? Well, the most plausible explanation is that Jesus started out as a follower of John the Baptist. Jesus adopted the doctrines and practices of John the Baptist, including at least the apocalypticism, the emphasis on the poor, and the practice of baptism for the cleansing of sin. And, that is what critical scholars tend to believe.

There are, of course, many possible alternative explanations for this same evidence. For example, maybe the baptism was a story invented for the purpose of adoptionist doctrine. Or, maybe they story was invented to win converts from John the Baptist. Whatever your explanation may be, you can put it on the table, and that would be great. But, it would be even better to also explain how your explanation competes with the explanation widely accepted among critical scholars. For example, does your explanation have more explanatory power--does it very fittingly expect the evidence? Does it have more explanatory scope--does it explain very many of the details? Does it have greater plausibility? Is it less ad hoc? If not, then what advantage does your explanation have?

aa5874

You are NOT making any sense, ApostateAbe. If you cannot TRUST your sources then you can't do HISTORY.

Even the very basics elude you.

To do HISTORY you MUST have sources you can TRUST.

If one concludes or BELIEVES that the NT is a pack of LIES then it must be rejected and some other credible source used.

And further, in this very thread you TRUST the evidence in the NT WITHOUT any corroborative historical source

You TRUST the evidence in the NT. You assume Jesus was baptized and use the same assumption as PROOF.

You TRUST the evidence in the NT only when it pleases you. The same Gospels which claimed Jesus was baptised also claimed Jesus was RAISED from the dead.


Well, it can ALSO be argued that the Gospel authors seemed to be HAUNTED by the RESURRECTION of Jesus.

The resurrection in the Short-ending of gMark was EXTREMELY embarrassing to Christians. The short-ending was MODIFIED by adding more verses.

They could have left out the resurrection but they were HAUNTED by its veracity?

What nonsense, ApostateAbe.

spin

Oh, hell, we've been through this before. The gospels might lend support to the existence of JtB, given two separate traditions (gospel and Josephus) mention him. That means that John had to be reckoned with. Nothing more.

Your experiences of reading the text are just plain irrelevant to your analysis of the text. We have no interest in eisegesis. We want to know what can be brought to bear on the text from its context, other indicators from the period.

Why, you ask, if Jesus was sinless would he be baptized by JtB? Can an answer to that bring Jesus out of the text? Short answer: no.

We do know though that followers of JtB were messianists, werent they? Christian literature assume that they were. They were waiting for the coming messiah. Jesus according to the Pauline faith was the messiah who would return in a similar blaze of glory to the messiah of JtB. There was a strong overlap between the two cults, though the JtB cult was clearly around and assumed by christians, so it had priority and needed to be dealt with: the christian savior superseded JtB. We have an analysis of passing the mantle as Elijah did with Elisha.

As I said in an earlier thread:

It is JtB that is being dealt with, not so much Jesus.

hjalti

I've seen the point made by others, that Mt, Lk and Jh are merely dependent on Mk, and we don't really see any embarassment in Mk. Do you?

Juststeve

hjalti:

I can agree that Matthew and Luke are reliant to an extent upon Mark but you ought to agree that both Luke and Matthew added to and subtracted from Mark when it suited their purposes. Therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose that the baptism by John remained in Luke and Matthew because it was too well fixed in the memory of the community to be omitted.

Steve

hjalti

Sure, it's not unreasonable. But then again, as the opening post points out, Jh omits it.

But I think there are also other reasonable options.

ApostateAbe

We do see signs of embarrassment in Mark. See the first two points in my list of four.
Yes, there are other reasonable options, and the most reasonable option is what we are after. The gospel of John omits the baptism, even though the belief in the baptism was apparently common among Christians as reflected in the synoptic gospels. I think we can make the best sense of it by looking at the perspective of the author of John. The gospel of John is the latest of the canonical gospels, but it is the first to portray Jesus as exceptionally divine, as on the same level as God. This would compound the problem of the washing-of-sin purpose of a normal baptism. This was already on top of the problem of competition with the cult of John the Baptist. Therefore, the gospel of John takes the furthest step to deal with the problem and omits the baptism account altogether. We see such apologetic behavior in the gospel of John elsewhere. In John 21:20-23, the author makes a flimsy excuse for the apocalyptic prophecies apparently went past their reputed deadline--it was really all just a stupid misunderstanding on the part of the disciples of Jesus.

Toto

Your first two points:

I don't see any embarrassment here, especially from an adoptionist viewpoint.

ApostateAbe

Yes, both of those points of evidence can be explained by both models--the adoptionist model and the embarrassment model, though I think the embarrassment model has much more explanatory power. The adoptionist model makes room for, but not strongly expects, Jesus to be adopted at a mythical baptism event. The mythical Transfiguration event is more than suitable for exactly that same purpose. Same with the extreme humility of John the Baptist. The adoptionist model has room for it, but does not strongly expect it, and the embarrassment model does indeed strongly expect it, given that the two cults were probably rivals.

Toto

I don't think you are using "explanatory power" the way most people do.