avi

Top of the morning, Jay.

Umm, nope, I don't share these thoughts about John's work embracing body or soul cleansing. Here's that post, mentioned earlier. The reference to the article in the History of the Jews by Graetz and Bloch, citing Josephus' comment re: Roman Jews substituting Baptism for circumcision is found there. Perhaps you are correct, and I err in imagining that this text is genuine Josephus, uncontaminated by Christians.

The central problem, to my way of thinking, is this notion of John the Baptist, a human, possessing the capability to "purify" a deity, JC, by performing any kind of ceremony....

This makes zero sense, even to me, so, I doubt that the process would have been presented to my lumpenproletarian brothers and sisters 2000 years ago, in that fashion.

No. Instead, what strikes me as most logical, most believable, and most reasonable, is MONEY.

Wealthy folks desire not only material objects, and sensual pleasures. They also seek adventure, discovery, and scaling the highest mountain peaks. On the other hand, we have mendicants, and others with their hands and tongues hanging out, eager to relieve the wealthy of their filthy lucre.

The way I envision this tradtion's origin, is this: Location: Roma. DATE:100 CE. Problem: gain access to Jewish Religion, WITHOUT undergoing the potentially DEADLY process of adult male circumcision. Solution: substitute one sacrament for another. The second century christians, observing this successful recruitment of a few wealthy Roman citizens by the Jews, adopt the same procedure, to expand their own coffers. The hocus pocus component may have been embellished a tad over the centuries, but the original thought, in my opinion, was to gain the allegiance of those moneyed folks as quickly as possible. It is difficult to get money from a corpse, and after a few futile attempts at circumcision in adult males, the smarter priests/rabbis would have caught on to the idea of approving eligibilitly to join the ranks of the donors, by manipulating clear fluid instead of the red stuff.

avi

ApostateAbe

Philosopher Jay, I think there is no doubt that Paul really does refer to the concept of baptism in a more spiritual sense, at least most of the time. The competing theory would be:

Baptism was a ritual by John the Baptist of cleansing the body so it is no longer unclean. Christians adopted the ritual, but they expanded the purpose of baptism into cleansing of the soul from sin. Paul knew of this ritual, and he sometimes used the concept as a metaphor for dying and resurrection.

That theory does not seem to require any interpolations in the writings of Paul. At worst, it conflicts with silence of Paul about John the Baptist, which does not seem to be such a problem. What do you think the biggest problem is?

What, exactly, is your theory? How do you outline the development of the baptism doctrine?

andrewcriddle

I think you may be confusing the quotations/paraphrases from Josephus in the passage eg with the claims by Graetz and Bloch based on Josephus and other ancient sources.

Whether or not Roman proselytes to Judaism substituted immersion for circumcision, Josephus AFAIK does not explicitly mention this.

Andrew Criddle

aa5874

It was BELIEVED by Jews, based on Hebrew Scripture, that the River Jordan did provide some kind of purification of the body only.

Examine the story of the Syrian Naaman who had LEPROSY and was told by a PROPHET to wash SEVEN times in the River Jordan. Naaman was OUTRAGED but in the story the River Jordan did heal Naaman's leprosy.

2 Kings 5. So, the River Jordan was BELIEVED by Jews to have some purification for the body.

Now, it is claimed by "Paul" that he himself did baptize so it must be that "Paul" was aware of baptisms.

"Paul" was aware of baptisms in the Pauline writings.

Further, the part of the material about John the Baptist that was most likely interpolated is respect to "baptisms for the REMISSION of Sins". It would have been DEEMED blasphemous for a Jewish Man to offer Remission of Sins through baptism.

The Jewish LAWS for the Remission of Sins do NOT include Baptism and ONLY God can forgive Sin.

avi

I think you are correct, and I am wrong. Thanks for pointing out my error, Andrew. On rereading the text, it is apparent that I had confounded, precisely as you have illustrated, Josephus' text with the conclusions of the two authors, I remain mystified why anyone would imagine that baptism could wash away the "sins" of an infant. Further, I remain perplexed at the religious theory behind circumcision (I think I understand the medical arguments favoring the technique.)

avi

PhilosopherJay

Hi Stephan,

Interesting points. I think the last one is especially important.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi ApostateAbe,

Thanks for asking about my theory.

The specific hypothesis that I am putting forward is that the references in the epistles to baptism do not refer to the baptism ceremony we are familiar with the exception of 1 Corinthians 1.13-17, which I propose is a later interpolation. Rather, they tend to refer to a type of immersion or submersion in Christ or Holy Spirit.

Moreover my theory of the development of the baptism ceremony involves at least five distinct stages.

1. Alexandrian followers of Philo make references to baptism in the sense of being immersed in Holy Spirit and Christ. By Christ, they are probably referring to a crucified and resurrected Adam, probably using the term crucified metaphorically to refer to any painful death of a slave/servant.
Adam was meek in his first appearance on Earth. After death, God made him head of the angels and in his second appearance, he will come as a fierce warrior. The Alexandrians perhaps rely on a brainwashing technique called baptism (immersion) which amounts to just discussing the Holy Scriptures in terms of Adam and the Holy Spirit.

2. Other Messianic Jews determine from their reading of the text that Joshua (Jesus) Nun, not Adam, will be the coming future Christ. These are the Jews who write "Revelation."

3. To justify the baptism (immersion in spirit) idea, a tale is told of a man named John. He battles demons and Satan in the Wilderness and loses. He goes into the river Jordan, perhaps to bathe or to kill himself. God immerses him in the holy spirit and a spirit-like dove enters him. He goes back into the Wilderness and this time wins against the demons and Satan.

4. The Joshua cult grew stronger and revised the story to fit their needs. They did a reboot of the story. John is diminished to the role of announcing the arrival of the Joshua Christ. Instead of being the one immersed in the Holy Spirit, John is simply the handyman-helper. He is given the power of cleaning sins or perhaps just cleaning bodies. Jesus becomes the one adopted as a son of God and baptized or immersed in the Holy Spirit.

5. Based on the story, the nascent Jesus Christ cult starts to baptize people in water as part of an initiation ceremony that soon replaces circumcision as the main initiation ceremony for Christians as they break from Judaism and form their own new cult.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

PhilosopherJay

Hi aa5874,

Good catch about 2 Kings 5. As in the Greek King Midas story, bathing in water is known to heal illnesses. Thanks.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

jimclay75051

I find it difficult to believe that John the Baptist was anything but a loyal law obeying Jew, for the most part. Especial since he seems to have come before Jesus, assuming that Jesus actually existed.

The use of water for purification was i think common in those days by many religions and still is. Baptism in my understanding has become a symbol of being reborn in Christ, but when Jesus was baptized that could not have been the case because Jesus had not be crucified yet. I've always thought that the baptism done by John was a replacement for the sacrifices done in the Temple. Because of the control by first the Greeks and then the Romans the temple was often thought to be corrupt and not pure. So perhaps being baptized was a symbolic way of sacrificing yourself and being reborn and a way to avoid going to the temple. I'm not sure if I read this idea somewhere or made it up myself.

Of course the criticism of this theory is that there are several examples in, I think Acts, of Peter, John and Paul going to the temple.Although I don't recall them ever making a sacrifice at the temple, usually, if I remember correctly, they go and wind up pointing to problems with the temple. Jesus went to the temple but he did not make a sacrific, he turned over the tables.

maryhelena

The Josephan storyline, in Antiquities, re JtB is more in line with Slavonic Josephus than it is with the gospel story. In Slavonic Josephus, JtB is not only calling the people to the Jordan to be baptized - he is treading a fine line between being a revolutionary, a prophet and his baptizing. (and with the encounter with Philip in SJ, JtB is also an interpreter of dreams……Revolutionary, prophet, interpreter of dreams - my, but is that not a reflection of the character of Josephus himself...)

Slavonic Josephus has the revolutionary, the prophetic element, the baptizing and the dream interpretation and the Herodias story.

Antiquities has the revolutionary aspect of JtB, (albeit a revolutionary aspect without any detail) plus the baptizing.

The gospels have the baptizing; Mark and Matthew have the Herodias storyline.

Looks to me it’s the gospel storyline that has opted for a cleaned up version of the Slavonic Josephus JtB figure - the revolutionary and the prophetic element of the JtB storyline not being referenced. Antiquities giving a passing reference to JtB and a possibility of 'rebellion'.

my bolding

footnote: Amazon has no preview of the Slavonic Josephus book. However, Google Books does have preview available - albeit for a limited time period....