ph2ter

Those who were baptized by John anticipate Christians. Every Christian participate in that act through Jesus Christ.
Paul says in Romans 6:3: "Don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?"
Like Jesus Christ, the Christians also in like manner become dead to sin when baptized.

Iskander

Thank you

Was John the Baptist the first Christian and did he baptised Jews into the Christian faith?

Did the Baptist convert Jesus?

Doug Shaver

So said the winners who wrote all the history books.

aa5874

Your statement is bizarre. Jesus did NOT start any new religion under the name of Christ and Specifically told his disciple to tell NO Man he was Jesus the Christ.

In fact, in gMatthew and gMark Jesus claimed that he did NOT want the Jews to be SAVED.

MCalavera

I'm pretty sure Marcion wrote something.

ph2ter

The gospel of Mark was designed to set up the basics of Christian doctrine. With the help of the story that unfolds in it, the author reveals the nature of Christian faith. So every event described in the Gospel has symbolic meaning. Literal meaning is irrelevant.
Of course, John the Baptist did not convert Jesus. The meaning of baptism is to get rid of sin. Jesus (Barabbas according to my theory in this thread) took the sins of the people and when he was baptized by John they disappeared.

stephan huller

ph2ter

If we are talking Marcion, there is no such thing as 'John the Baptist.' Tertullian makes that clear. The Jews and Samaritans never heard of John the Baptist either. In short, there is no baptism of Jesus by John.

MCalavera

Josephus.

stephan huller

Another asshole the Jews never heard of. I don't know why it is that so many around here waste time debating the existence of Jesus. Josephus is an open and shut - WTF?

Josephus is the one figure who almost gives mm's fourth century conspiracy a break. Of course we can trace the development of Josephus back to the second century - all evidence points to the material being developed on the seventy seventh anniversary of the end of the Jewish War - perhaps with access to some original Aramaic hypomnema of the lost Jewish author. The author was likely Christian and probably Polycarp but these matters are all speculative.

The bottom line is that Clement identifies Josephus as having written a chronology down to the second century. I take this to be one and the same as the Hegesippus (= Josephus) who is known to Celsus, Irenaeus, Eusebius, Epiphanius and more. I think Josephus's original work was overtly Christian and then modified in the fourth century to make it appear to reflect more reasonably the views of a Jew in the first century.

Again there may have been an original work written by a first century Josephus and this text may have been known to Origen (the Latin version of the Commentary on Matthew) although for all practical purposes it is impossible to distinguish this reference from Justus's lost Chronology. One may even begin to suspect that our present editions of Jewish War may have been developed from Justus's lost Chronology. It's so hard to tell.

Nevertheless the bottom line is that neither Marcion nor the Jews ever heard of John the Baptist - a man who supposedly baptized 'all of Judea.' No one other than Christians ever heard of Josephus. And if this thread begins with a reference to Marcion - as this one does - the point has to be made that Jesus was never baptized by John and Tertullian only says that 'John' appears only much later. There is no proof that this reference was even to 'John the Baptist.' Like many such 'John' references it may have only applied to the disciple of the same name.

von Harnack says the same thing about the baptism pericope being missing from the Marcionite gospel. Its absence is plainly referenced in Tertullian Against Marcion Book Four. I went to school at York University with Steve Mason so I know all the arguments for Josephus as an accurate historical source. I used to debate with Mason about this to no end. I doubt you will come up with anything new.

ph2ter

O.K. But the baptism of the beloved disciple maybe was later replaced with John the Baptist baptism.