Newton's Cat

Thanks for the info. You've cleared up something I've been puzzling about for a long time (and shown me that Greek "ain't so easy to get the hang of"). I was going by the fact that this phrase was marked as applying to:

'The accusative (or other case) and infinitive. Here what is in English the subject of the verb (the doer of the action) is put in the accusative (or other) case and the verb itself in the infinitive'.

I see that from now on I need to "consult the scholars" before I develop complex theories based on my limited understanding of Greek.

Vorkosigan

Quit reading it as history, and start reading it as fiction. Then you'll see that John functions as the character in the Greek drama whose job is to announce the action and introduce the characters, and is then hurried offstage.

Perhaps the versification is wrong. What if it reads:

1: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God as it is written in Isaiah the prophet

2 "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way;

Then you have the reference to evangelion in Is 40:9, and then the Malachi/Exodus quote. Works fine that way.

No. So ask yourself, what are the possible functions of Mark's narrative. Since baptism was an early Christian activity, and Christians were text-oriented, it follows that they probably created a text as a baptismal/recruiting document.

Another thing you might want to thin about: Jesus is the adopted son of God in Mark, just as Paul's baptism made believers the sons of God (Rom 8). So John is probably a historical character whose salient feature, baptism, made him perfect for borrowing and insertion into the narrative to perform this function.

The juxtaposition of wilderness and water and baptism...After initiate is baptized in water, he is taken out the world into the Wilderness. See Leach's excellent discussion of how all this works in his article in The Literary Guide to the Bible (Kermode and Alter).

Bingo. So obviously John has another function. In Greek novels it was common to use historical characters and build the story around real events, just as modern historical novels do today.

Vorkosigan

neilgodfrey

You're right. It is fiction. The author is setting up a scene much like a perfect Adam and Eve in paradise, or the Israelites at Mt Sinai all promising to do anything God tells them to do, or the idyllic beginnings of the Kingdom of Solomon where every person sat under his vine and fig tree .... all followed by stories that proceeded to tear apart such appearances and hit readers with the need for being "true people of God".

As for John's role, I wonder if the author was influenced by the Greek legend of the hitherto greatest of all seers, Calchis. It was foretold that he would die when he eventually met an even greater seer to come after him -- Mopsus, son of the deity Apollo. If so, he ensured John outdid Calchis since Calchis died in self-pity while John in heroic martyrdom.

TedM

John likely WAS announcing the coming kingdom of God, and that kingdom included Messiac expectations in people's minds, so that is probable history.
John WAS arrested as Herod says, so what you say is a case of being 'hurried off stage" has a historical basis. With a very popular John suddenly gone from the scene (a martyr no less), is it quite plausible that one of his followers would have attempted to carry on his mission, and people would have noticed. The Nazarene connection to the early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem and the early Christian practice of baptism both provide some basis for the idea that Jesus arose out of a sect similar to JTB's. According to GJohn Jesus' disciples baptised for a while just like Johns, and were compared to them!


Exactly. This expectation existed, so if someone came along who appeared to fulfill it, it is no wonder that Mark would have mentioned it.

You may also want to ask yourself why Christians also had a baptism practice in the first place--likely before Paul and before GMark. The fact that John's name highlights his ministry of baptism suggests that baptism perhaps was not so common among the Jewish sects over the centuries. Given JTB's popularity, it is reasonable that the early Christian sect (called Nazerenes in Acts) was influenced--maybe even strongly by John the Baptist's message.


Failure to mention historical events that readers would have been aware of already (in fact the author sees no need to explain 'after John was arrested/delivered') is not an indication of fiction. Sure, Mark starts of with John to introduce Jesus as the expected Messiah, but that works fine as a historical event even if some details are mythologized since it is likely that both the message of JTB regarding a coming kingdom and the early Christianity--JTB connection existed and would therefore have been well known. Mark's later references to Jesus as being suspected of being 'the One' and JTB being 'Elijah' could just as well have been historical as fiction given what we know about the times.

ted

neilgodfrey

But doesn't the only extra-biblical evidence for the existence, arrest and popularity of John the Baptist (there is no extra-biblical evidence that he was a messianic or kingdom of God preacher) place him somewhere around 36 c.e.? http://homepages.which.net/~radical..../josephus2.htm

Does not this suggest that JTB was "hurried on stage" so fast he slipped back a few years, so that we are left with the full appropriateness of the non-historical "hurried off stage" turn of phrase?

Arguments that Josephus was confused about his dates and that attempt to establish the historical value of the gospels by finding ways to reconcile them with presumed confusions in Josephus are faith-based circularities. If Josephus really was confused about his dates and order of events then we are left without any basis for independently confirming the historicity of the gospel narrative on this point.

TedM

It would if 36c.e. is correct, but that seems questionable to me, and not only because Josephus can't always be trusted with his dates. Please correct me if I am wrong here: The reason 36c.e. is usually considered the most reasonable interpretation is that Josephus appears to place the war with Aretas right after the return of his daughter (Herod's wife), and that war took place in 36c.e.

In Antiquities 18.5 Josephus writes of Aretas' learning about Herod's plans to divorce Aretas' daughter:

The 'this the first occasion' is the discovery of divorce plans by Aretas. The other quarrel was after this "first occasion", and was over land boundaries. Josephus then describes the war. If the sequence is as described, the war may have not been as immediate as is often thought. It isn't reasonable to assume that the war began only because of Areta's daughter, since Josephus mentions the quarrel about Gamalitis, and it isn't reasonable to assume that this quarrel immediately followed the situation with his daughter. It is reasonable to conclude that some time elapsed before the war actually took place in 36c.e. That time could well have been a number of years. This could therefore place John's criticism AND death at a date well before 36c.e.

Would the Jews still blame the loss in the war on Herod's treatment of John some 7-8 years after John was dead? It would if John criticized Herod's personal life (which Josephus definitely implies) since Josephus makes clear that Herod's marriage situation the first occasion of enmity that led Aretas to declare war on Herod. The link in the minds of the Jews would likely have been loud and clear.


Bernard Muller points out at http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/appa.html that Mark 6 may further suggest an earlier date:This would place Salome's dance before 33-34c.e. since she hadn't yet even married a man who died in 33-34c.e.

ted

Amaleq13

They appear to me to be simultaneous given the "also" but I'm not sure what "made this the first occasion of his enmity" is supposed to mean. Does it mean "made this his primary complaint though he also had a border dispute with Herod"? I certainly don't see any basis for you to place this quarrel over boundaries "after" the divorce issue. It reads to me as a reference to another motivation, quite possibly of longer standing, to pick a fight with Herod. In fact, I have to wonder if it wasn't the real reason and the divorce issue was just used as an excuse.

Could you be more specific in explaining why this isn't reasonable because it doesn't seem unreasonable to me at all.

The passage about the Baptist is quite explicit about the reason Herod had him executed and it implies nothing about any criticism John offered against his personal life. It says he perceived the Baptist as too popular and, as a result, a potential inspiration for rebellion. Herod found it prudent to get rid of him before that could occur.

neilgodfrey

Josephus says that Herod's fear of John was nothing more than the usual royal fear of a common rabble rouser having control over a mob. I see no implication in Josephus at all that he contains some allusion to John's criticism as per the gospels. The only way to see that would be to bring to Josephus an assumption of gospel historicity. I think it stretches plausibility to suggest such a king would be seriously worried or care one bit or even find out if some commoner said his marriage was contra divine law, but someone with sway over a mob, now that was different.

But the gospel story, which makes no mention of "Salome" by the way, is a classic piece of hellenistic romance. The passage about John in Josephus, on the other hand, does give a plausible historical motive for John's arrest and execution. If there were other reasons for reading the gospel story as history in the same sense that Josephus is read as history then perhaps reconciling or judging between them 'as history' would be an issue. But just as no one would see any point in attempting to harmonize Pseudo-Callisthenes' Alexander Romance with Arrian's and Curtius's histories of Alexander I personally see no reason to attempt anything similar between the gospels and Josephus. Story tellers and ancient theologians and philosopher myth-makers all regularly used historical names and real places to add touches of plausibility and realism. But any genuine historicity contained within can only be established if independently confirmed, -- especially when much else 'within' is preoccupied with the supernatural and beings and actions that can never be tested by normal historical rules.

I'm quite happy to accept the historicity of the gospel account about John's death if I could find historical evidence for anything more than the names and barest narrative backdrop employed in the gospel story. And we haven't begun here to address Zindler's not insubtantial case that even the John passage in Josephus was itself an early interpolation by someone from a John the Baptist cult.

TedM

The question is what did John do that upset Herod? Did he aspire to political power but not criticize Herod? Did Herod just think he did? It's possible, but it seems more likely that John was critical of Herod for something. Josphus writes:

This comes right after the paragraph which describes Herod's decision to divorce his wife and marry his brother's wife--something the pious would have seen as very unvirtuous. It is quite reasonable that this is one of the things John criticized Herod for. One doesn't need the gospels to deduce this as perhaps likely.


"Someone with sway over a mob"--that's what John was! That's why it isn't a stretch to see this as a likelihood.


I agree. I was responding primarily to your claim that Josephus' account provides evidence that Jesus' couldn't have had a ministry when Mark says he did--right after John. Here's what you wrote:


My response last night was to provide an explanation from Josephus' own account for why 36c.e is questionable date for JTB death even if we can date the war to 36c.e despite Josephus' habit of mixing up dates prior to his own life. You certainly can reject the gospel account with regard to the reason John was killed, and you can accept the idea that the John-Jesus link is entirely fictional, but one of the reasons you've given--the date of JTB's death--may not be as strong as you seem to think. That is the main point I addressed in my last post. My 'clue' from Mark could just be the product of a clever "Mark" or later interpolator that figured out from Josephus that Salome would have been unmarried around 28AD, so it isn't any kind of proof, but what is your response to my analysis of Josephus himself?

How about the argument I made against the date you gave?

I haven't seen that but the insertion seems not out of place to me: Josephus indicates reasons for a war. He then links John to the perceived reason for the loss of the war. His description of John is consistent with the reason to introduce John at the point in which he is introduced. Unless there is a good reason to reject the passage then any explanation for why it might make sense that it was an interpolation is not any better than using computers to find codes in the bible, as far as I'm concerned. Does he provide a good reason to reject the passage?

ted

Amaleq13

"Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him." (18.5.2, Whiston translation)

Why wouldn't Josephus have mentioned it? You seem to me to be reading a great deal into the passage.

It is a reasonable possibility but there is nothing in Josephus to establish it as "likely".

What argument? You made assertions but offered no substantiation for them. You asserted that the border dispute took place after the divorce issue and that some time elapsed between the divorce issue and the war. Josephus' "also" suggests the disputes were co-existing at the same time and there does not appear to be any reason to assume a delay in starting the war.

Zindler gives four reasons to doubt the passage:

1) Josephus clearly considered Macherus to be under the control of Aretas but the JBap passage has Herod sending JBap to Macherus to be executed while Herod was fighting with Aretas.

2) Herod's "bad end" is attributed to his killing of the Baptist while, elsewhere, Josephus attibutes it to "listening to a woman's frivolous chatter".

3) The JBap passage is not repeated during any of the Herod commentary in War of the Jews

4) JBap is not listed in an ancient Greek table of contents for Josehus but is listed in a later Latin version.