Chili

Sounds about right.

spin

It might be appropriate, but this is only conjecture. There are such special births in the Hebrew bible, but none of those children are called John -- Y[HW]XNN.

She could have called the child Nathaniel, Jonathan, Hananiah, Hananeel, Elhanan, or Judah or any number of other names for their meanings. We know why Zacharias calls the child John, but we need to go beyond conjecture for Elisabeth if we can.


spin

Loomis

Nick,

I think you're probably right. Luke 1-2 barrows from the story of Hannah and Samuel in 1 Samuel. Compare 1 Samuel 2:26 with Luke 2:52:


See? :bulb:

The author of Luke obviously had “favor” on his mind when he barrowed 1 Samuel 2:26. The concept of "favor" is common to both stories - as are miraculous births.

Congratulations. Your contribution to this thread is valuable and your idea is more than conjecture. It explains why John was named John. :notworthy:

You can find an excellent post by Leolaia on this subject on another forum.

As a matter of fact if you actually want to learn something you will probably have better luck over there.

Petergdi

The Gospel of the Ebionites (from Epiphanius) also has John the son of Elizabeth and Zacharias.

Peter.

Loomis

As is mentioned in this link, Elizabeth, John, and Zachariah also show up in the Infancy Gospel of James.

spin

It would appear that this infancy gospel is dependent on both Matt and Luke, so I don't think it can help in understanding why Elisabeth named her son John, how the narrative works because of that, why John gets so much coverage in the gospel of Jesus and why the Jesus birth narrative is relatively a copycat of John's.

My understanding is that the JtB birth narrative is further evidence for the existence of a separate JtB tradition (along with the rest of the baptism material, the Apollos story in Acts, John's death in Josephus and the survival of the Mandaean baptist sect), that the narrative did originally have an angelic enunciation for Elisabeth and that the Lucan writer used some a pre-existent John document to flesh out his Jesus story.


spin

Ben C Smith

That is a good question. And this is not the only apparent anomaly from the Lucan infancy narrative.

Some time ago I posted a question (which received no replies) about why people are motioning to Zechariah in Luke 1.62 when in Luke 1.20 he is said only to be mute (not deaf). I still have no good answer to this question.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Surprisingly (shockingly, almost scandalously), I think that is a very good idea, spin. It would help explain why Luke has certain elements found in Matthew (the virgin birth, for example, and the phrase will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus in Matthew 1.21; Luke 1.31) but does not follow the rest of the Matthean version; he preferred to make Jesus parallel John more closely.

Ben.

the_cave

I'm certain this comes from a separate Johannine tradition, but that's an interesting claim about an angelic annunciation for Elisabeth. I'll have to think that over.

As for the business about the name, does "Ioannes" actually appear in the Septuagint? I can find "Ionathan" and "Ioanan", but not "Ioannes". However this is not from a comprehensive search.

Ben C Smith

Only in 1 and 2 Maccabees (numerous instances) and in 1 Esdras 9.29 (this is 3 Esdras in the Vulgate), as far as I can tell. For example, Mattathias was the son of John, and he named one of his sons John, too.

Ben.