Chili

Not mental gymnastics but if heaven is a state of mind there better be some water to walk on that was set aside so we could walk on dry land while outside of Eden, and thus upon our return to Eden the Celestial sea must find as the knowledge gained and retained while we were abroad.

Now interesting is that the primary premiss of all our activities that entertained us while 'abroad' were originative from our very own soul that we encounter while in exploration of our own 'netherworld' (or soul or right brain), and so 'as idiot we stand convicted' who much like a puppet on a string danced to the music made below (ie, there is no randomness in life), . . . which then is what Calvary is all about once we fully understand and 'fed the multitude' ourself by way of understanding (and so set mephis free).

Let me present Aristotle here just to show how we are Determined creatures that makes liberation possible as well:

From these considerations it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of the primary premisses, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premisses-a result which also follows from the fact that demonstration cannot be the originative source of demonstration, nor, consequently, scientific knowledge of scientific knowledge.http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/posterior.2.ii.html

aa5874

Your question has been answered many times but you simply refuse to accept the answer and the evidence.

John the Baptist was mentioned in gMark simply to HISTORICISE the fictional character called Jesus.

In ALL of gMark, there is ONE single verse where John and Jesus interacted with each other and it was at the Baptism.

As soon as John Baptized Jesus in gMark 1.9, there is NO written statement in gMark where they ever met anywhere or discussed anything afterwards. Even when it is claimed that John was executed there is NOT even a written statement from Jesus in gMark about his death.

It is clear that gMark simply wanted to historicise his Jesus by claiming his Jesus was baptized by a KNOWN figure of history and who was KNOWN by many Jews based on Josephus.

"Antiquities of the Jews" 18

Duvduv

Now i wanted to know the reason why if John the Baptist was so important to be included at some point in all four gospels, if his greatness made him a unique individual, why do the writers of the epistles not even mention him once??
Why do later Christian writers not spend as much time discussing his greatness as they do other religious figures of the New Testament? Surely, he deserves extensive treatment seeing as he was ostensibly the precursor, the Elijah for Jesus and himself forgave sin through his specific manner of baptism, whatever it was.

For that matter WHAT in fact was it about immersing in the river under the direction of John the Baptist than immersing by oneself or with anyone else? Did he have some kind of powers from heaven to forgive sin as long as someone immersed in front of him?

And what was the ostensible power of the Baptist to enable at the precise moment of Jesus' immersion for a dove to come down on his head, and no time before that according to the theology of Mark even if it was originally some kind of adoption as Christ?

Duvduv

It's not that I refuse, I simply don't understand what historically made the character of John of such overwhelming importance to entitle the character to be so closely identified with Jesus to the exclusion of anyone else as you mentioned there surely were including anyone like Banus or who knows who else.
WHAT was it that the original author liked so much to integrate this particular character into the story??
And despite the fact that we never see or hear anything important again about him anywhere else thereafter, nor do we hear a word about him from Talmudic sources.

Chili

But wait a second please as only in Matthew and Mark he was claimed to have noting but wild honey and grasshopper to eat as scavenger while in Luke and John he sure knew what he was talking about since this John truly was the son of Man while Jesus was the lamb of God to be crucified, and I see no worthiness in the words that John had to offer in Matthew and Mark (and his leather belt was just to keep those hoppers in so he would not make a yellow streak across the desert to pave the way to Jesus for holy rollers to follow after him . . . (that Zamjatin called Transavenue 49 in "We" wherein the Advent period of life is missing), as singing away they go right from richess on to Calvary.

Horatio Parker

But wouldn't Eden be essentially the same *without* JtB?

sotto voce

His disciples, who spread far and wide. And the Sanhedrin, of course.

Duvduv

What disciples? And how do you know there were disciples before the gospels came out, or that there were disciples at all|??
And WHICH Sanhedrin said anything about him?

Iskander

I have for sometime found it difficult to understand this pocilga.

The OP asks a question about a character in a book called the Greek Testament and any reasonable answers will be based on the text on which this character lives.

People here post asking for explanations about the plot of a book, but when intelligent and polite answers are given the questioners go berserk shouting strange incomprehensible objections.

Toto

Reasonable people might think that this is about the plot of a book (although there are still difficulties in figuring out the logic of that plot), but a lot of qualified and credentialed academics think that this is proof that John and Jesus were historical characters.

With that background, the objections should make more sense.