maddog

So baptism was not sui generis with Christians, but inherited from "messianism"? What was baptism under messianism like? What was it for?

#2271

aa5874

But, there is no historical source of antiquity that show baptism was practised by messianic characters. It would appear, based on Josephus, that it was John the Baptist who was the ONLY person who carried out and offered such a ritual to JEWS at that time.

It must be noted that "the ritual of baptism by JEWS" is NOT found in the OT or Hebrew Scripture, it can ONLY be found in NT Canon.

And outside of the NT Canon, the "ritual of baptism practised by John the Baptist" can ONLY be found in one Jewish writing, that of Josephus.

It can be deduced that the Jesus story writers very likely depended upon Antiquities of the Jews 18 by Josephus since he may have been the ONLY source in the 1st century that wrote the ritual of baptism practised by John the Baptist.

And all the Gospel writers mentioned John the Baptist, another indication that they may be after the writings of Josephus.

bacht

There is the idea that JtB was an ex-Essene/Qumranite. Maybe the Jordan setting is a garbled recollection of these earlier ascetics who rejected temple worship. Their writings were definitely messianic, and there were residents there up to the end of the first revolt.

aa5874

But, there is no indication from historical sources of antiquity that Essenes practised the ritual of baptism or that John the Baptist rejected Temple worship.

And it would appear that Jews were essentially of messianic or christian beliefs regardless of sect.

ApostateAbe

It seems to me more likely than not that baptism originated in some obscure Jewish sect, which later spread to other Jewish sects and cults, as seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the religion of John the Baptist. Since the concepts of "clean" and "unclean" are central to Jewish law and Jewish religion, it makes sense that there would be a ritual symbolizing a single act of cleansing, to initiate membership into a "clean" religious order. It would have been appealing to the Jews.

bacht

True. I just threw it out there because of the tenuous connections involving asceticism and ritual bathing. After 70 there may have been confused memories of Qumran. The settlement we've seen excavated seems to have been ignored by contemporaries, unless the Essene identification is justified.

For example, if John was a refugee from the destroyed Qumran community, maybe he did do something at the Jordan after the ruin of the temple. The Jordan/Joshua connection is interesting.

aa5874

But, there is no mention of anyone baptising people in the DSS so far.

Having a bath is not a baptism.

In the autobiography of Josephus the "Life of Flavius Josephus" he also claim to have taken BATHS in cold water but did not call them baptisms when he followed Banus.

"Life of Flavius Josephus" 2 See http://wesley.nnu.edu/biblical_studi...s/autobiog.htm

Only John the Baptist is credited with the practise of baptism in the writings of Josephus.

spin

First, we know that a baptist sect was not just a part of christianity. Acts 18 talks of Apollos who only knew the baptism of John but spoke the truth about the messiah, so the christians told him about Jesus. The sect of the Mandaeans were (are?) non-christian baptists who survived at least into the 20th c. in Iraq.

What we learn of John in the gospels is that he preached the coming end and the necessity of being prepared for what was to come. That in John's eyes required baptism, a symbolic act of purity before the end. He was a messianic leader who unlike others didn't claim to be messianic himself. Christianity has accommodated baptism and therefore presented John as a frontman for Jesus, so you wonder why there were non-Jesus baptists floating around.

Early christianity may not have any historical basis, but it did seem to accept John (just as Josephus did). In fact, it seems to have taken on baptism even though it's reputed founder didn't practise it. Isn't that odd?


spin

John Kesler

John 3:22 actually states that Jesus baptized, and the New American Bible's editors were honest enough to admit that John 4:2's disclaimer creates a contradiction. The emphasis is mine:

I went into further detail in January 2007 in this post.

spin

I think the story is told in the fact that the three synoptics show no interest in Jesus baptizing. With no qualms the writers of Matthew and Luke freely change Mark, but neither of them change it to support the notion of Jesus baptizing. John 3:22's tradition doesn't seem to have been around for the synoptics. (Of course, it could have been deprecated by the time the synoptics were written and gJn missed out on the fact needing to be at least partially corrected later in 4:2.)

However, the more important issue is that baptism is an additive to christianity. It's not part of the salvation story. It doesn't deal with any central christian tenets. It's now a ritual initiation that points away from the coming apocalypse, delivered in Matthew only after Jesus's death in the second last verse of the gospel along with a nice trinitarian statement.


spin