In my recent post I referred to an old view that John the Baptist may possibly in some way have originated from the Babylonian water god, Ea. Another scholar who also saw a link with this god was Robert Eisler, but he took the contrary view: that a historical John the Baptist was in some way eventually identified with Ea. He suggests the possibility in his 1920 book, Orpheus — The Fisher: Comparative Studies in Orphic and Early Christian Cult Symbolism. Eisler’s views have always been controversial and I find many of them imaginative discussion-starters rather than convincing conclusions. So it is in that context that I share here what he says about the possibility of John the Baptist’s link with the pagan god.
Eisler is dogmatic in his insistence that John the Baptist was a historical person and flatly denounces the contrary claim by two early Christ Myth proponents, Dupuis and Drews:
It is more than a century since Charles Francois Dupuis, the famous Parisian lawyer and professor of rhetoric , first declared that John the Baptist was a purely mythical personage and his name the equivalent of that of the Babylonian fish-clad divinity Iannes or Oannes. Quite recently the same theory has been repeated in Prof. Arthur Drews’ much-discussed book on the so-called ‘Christ-myth,’ . . . .
If then I venture to support that part of Dupuis’ assertion which refers to a possible connection between the two names — as I have already done before Drews took up the question — I feel confident that no reader of the preceding chapters will think that I am thereby encouraging this renewed attempt to deny the historicity of a Pre-Christian teacher, whose peculiar activity is attested beyond any reasonable doubt by the authority of Josephus. (p. 151)
To that final sentence Eisler attaches an even more strident, even intellectual-bullying, footnote:
To suspect the authenticity of this passage is absolutely nonsensical.
So don’t be mistaken. Eisler will not allow anyone to suspect that what he has to say about the links between John the Baptist and the Babylonian god means he is going soft on the historicity of the baptizer.
But, here is the but.
On the other hand, I am fairly convinced that the rapid propagation of John’s ideas, and especially the spreading of his fame into the low-lands of South Babylonia, has indeed a good deal to do with the striking resemblance of his traditional name to that of the primeval Babylonian fish- and fisher-god, the teacher and lord of all wisdom.
Readers will remember that the Mandaeans (= Gnostics) or Subbas (=Baptists), who still exist in the marshes round Bussorah, have preserved such rich traditions about ‘Jahja Johanna’ that Ignatius à Jesu, the first Christian missionary who worked among them, believed he had rediscovered in them the last remains of the ‘Disciples of John’ who are repeatedly mentioned in the Gospels. (p. 152)
Of course the Mandeans have not fared so well since their liberation in 2003 and the marshes of southern Iraq are probably no longer the home of the world’s major concentration of their total numbers.
It’s an interesting thought. A Jewish baptizer named John attracting a larger than usual following in a region where his name and rite somehow reminded the inhabitants of their water or fish god. One might even think the thought a bit strange.
I was curious to know what we know about this god and here is what I found. I would welcome any more thorough information. This is from FRAGMENTS OF CHALDÆAN HISTORY, BEROSSUS: FROM ALEXANDER POLYHISTOR (from Ancient Fragments edited by I.P. Cory, 1832)
At Babylon there was (in these times) a great resort of people of various nations, who inhabited Chaldæa, and lived in a lawless manner like the beasts of the field. In the first year there appeared, from that part of the Erythræan sea which borders upon Babylonia, an animal destitute of reason, by name Oannes, whose whole body (according to the account of Apollodorus) was that of a fish; that under the fish’s head he had another head, with feet also below, similar to those of a man, subjoined to the fish’s tail. His voice too, and language, was articulate and human; and a representation of him is preserved even to this day.
This Being was accustomed to pass the day among men; but took no food at that season; and he gave them an insight into letters and sciences, and arts of every kind. He taught them to construct cities, to found temples, to compile laws, and explained to them the principles of geometrical knowledge. He made them distinguish the seeds of the earth, and shewed them how to collect the fruits; in short, he instructed them in every thing which could tend to soften manners and humanize their lives. From that time, nothing material has been added by way of improvement to his instructions. And when the sun had set, this Being Oannes, retired again into the sea, and passed the night in the deep; for he was amphibious. After this there appeared other animals like Oannes, of which Berossus proposes to give an account when he comes to the history of the kings. Moreover Oannes wrote concerning the generation of mankind; and of their civil polity; and the following is the purport of what he said: . . . .
One could tease out slivers of detail here and try to relate them to our Synoptic Baptist. I think there are too many unknowns to say anything secure, though I think Rene Salm has delved into more sources in more depth does have a little more to offer.
But one thought does cross my mind and that is the special attention we find in the Gospel of Luke to the unusual bestowal of the name of John on this Christ herald. Luke 1:57-66 pushes to the foreground the fact that there is something quite strange, something unnatural within the context of normative Jewish practices, about the herald of Jesus being named John (Greek Ioannes). Is the story intended to rebut some other, less welcome view of the origin of this person’s name?
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider donating to Vridar. Thanks!
There are many other people in both the LXX and Josephus who are named John (i.e. Ιωαννης) besides John the Baptist. Probably the most famous being John Hyrcanus. It could be that the original translators of the LXX attempted to convert the original Hebrew name (Yochanan) to something that closely resembled a name that already had currency in their surrounding pagan environment. Much like the phonetic similarities between Jesus (Ιησουν; dative) and Jason (Ιασων).
That’s true. But Luke indicates that one born of Zechariah and presumably without any other John closely related was least likely to be named John.
“But one thought does cross my mind and that is the special attention we find in the Gospel of Luke to the unusual bestowal of the name of John on this Christ herald. Luke 1:57-66 pushes to the foreground the fact that there is something quite strange, something unnatural within the context of normative Jewish practices, about the herald of Jesus being named John (Greek Ioannes). Is the story intended to rebut some other, less welcome view of the origin of this person’s name?”
I commented this yesterday, then found your blog.
http://morechrist.blogspot.com/2011/12/johns-birth.html
http://morechrist.blogspot.com/2011/12/when-mary-became-jesuss-mother.html
http://morechrist.blogspot.com/2011/12/zechariahs-prophecy.html
“His name is John”. Why?
http://www.biblegateway.com/pa
This seems like a significant part of the story. I can find no commentary discussing the fact.
http://www.blueletterbible.org
The footnote to Zechariah 4.7 of my septuagint refers to John 1.16.
http://www.blueletterbible.org
John 1:15-16New American Standard Bible (NASB)
15 John *testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me [a]has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” 16 For of His fullness [b]we have all received, and [c]grace upon grace. “
Your last three URLs were truncated.
1. http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%201.13,60&version=NASB
2. http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?t=KJV&x=0&y=0&b=Zec&c=4&v=7#conc/7
3. http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?t=KJV&x=47&y=11&b=Jhn&c=1&v=1#conc/16
Gospel, December 31, was John 1. I have connected verse 16 to Zechariah 4.7.
Googled “john 1.16 and zechariah 4.7 connection?” to find your page.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/123124.cfm
Sept. footnote for Zech 4.7 is John 1.16. Zech. 3.9 “Branch” refers to Luke 1.78–Has Hanukkah theme. Zechariah, John’s father’s prophecy possibly on Eighth Day of Hanukkah.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Zechariah%203.8-9%2C%20Luke%201%3A78-79&version=NIV
“His name is John.” Zechariah 4.7 (“Grace” is Hebrew root of John’s name. Also, related etymologically to Hanukkah ) and John 1.16 Blue Letter Bible.
The Eve of Hanukkah, Kislev 24, in the year that Zechariah was prophesying was the end of the 70 year Exile–Kislev 24/December 11/520 BCE. See p. 140/152 book/free pdf Haggai 2.10-19. See p 156/168 book/free pdf for “dedication” of Nehemiah 12 rebuild date. https://biblechronologybooks.com/pdf/History-Harmony-The-Exile-and-Return.pdf
Eileen Guilding in her book The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship suggests there was potential solstice holiday before “Hanukkah” but there was possible squeamishness about idolatry of sun worship. Hanukkah not mentioned Leviticus 23, but see Leviticus 24–mounting lamps. Parallel in Numbers. Numbers 8 nutshell. https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2181/jewish/Behaalotecha-in-a-Nutshell.htm
The haftarah has the same Zechariah passage as for the Sabbath of Hanukkah. Yesterday was Octave of Christmas/New Year’s Day and Hanukkah Eighth Day began at sunset.
There is a suggestion that Numbers 8 passage was originally carried out at the same time as the passage is read in a triennial cycle beginning in Nisan. Start of Second Month of Second Year.
In triennial cycle for Gospel of John beginning in Nisan, chapter 10 is read around Hanukkah.
Eighth Day of Hanukkah today. Eugene Faulstich has John possibly circumcised on Eighth Day of Hanukkah. Zechariah went off duty late March. Elisabeth pregnant in Nisan, Hebrew 1st month. Mary pregnant in 6th month/Elul of Hebrew Calendar and 6th month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy, Luke 1/26.
https://books.google.com/books?id=mWnYvI5RdLMC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=caiaphas+tomb+faulstich&source=bl&ots=O1-5L0CVyX&sig=ACfU3U0Q6k17UIdZBOreUqEOsHRYSEHxqQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9xbq_scvtAhUKZc0KHbHWApoQ6AEwC3oECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=caiaphas%20tomb%20faulstich&f=false Pages 112/113.
Today is Tebet 2. Tebet 10/590 BCE was start of 70 Year Exile–Ezekiel 24.1-2.
There are 69 solar years and 12 lunar months between the Ezekiel and Haggai dates for start and end of Exile.
Gmirkin figured out that Berossus’ Babyloniaca was the source of the Pentateuch. The fact that the authors of the Pentateuch so heavily used the Babyloniaca just shows how much they liked it. The gospels were written about 350-400 years later. It’s an extremely safe assumption that Berossus’ Babyloniaca was still extremely well known at the time that the gospels were written.
Josephus mentions how wonderfully the Babyloniaca aligns with Jewish history. Josephs listed his ancestors in his autobiography, and Josephus’s great great grandfather would have been a contemporary of people who knew the author of Genesis. Humans suck at keeping secrets and I’m sure it was extremely well known among well educated Jews of the first century BCE that Berossus’ Babyloniaca was a source for their holy book, and it was surely also still known during the time that the New Testament was being written.
John the Baptist should most definitely be thought of as Oannes the Baptist.
The author of Genesis invented the ethnic term Hebrew. Hebrew means water crosser. It was a clever way to create the new Pentateuchal scripture without super explicitly tying it to an established ethnonym, then people who liked he story could start to identify with his new term.
So Hebrews, are water crossers, the sons of Euphrates crosser Abraham and the descendants of the Reed Sea crossers and the Jordan river crossers. Thus, they must be baptized in water.
If you read the gospels in light of Berossus it becomes blindingly obvious that the gospel authors read Berossus. Especially Mark and Matthew read Berossus. Luke and John read it too, but they weren’t as good at creating Babyloniaca-inspired stories as Mark and Matthew were.
But on the topic of the gospel of John. Why did the gospel of John get named John? Well, quite simply, one good explanation might be that the gospel of John is a reference to Oannes. That is, it is the Gospel of Oannes. John’s gospel opens with a scene that is probably extremely reminiscent of Oannes at the beginning of the Babyloniaca coming to the ancient wild peoples of Babylon to tell them the story of Marduk in Enuma Elish. The imagery at the opening of John seems like it could very plausibly be describing Marduk.
John the Baptist is the Oannes-Qingu of the gospels. Jesus is the anti-Marduk of Mark but John turns him into the real Marduk.
I have no argument with John being related in some way to Oannes and I think Joseph Campbell summed up the conclusion best (link posted in a previous comment) — which, I believe, is justified on the basis of considering all of the points you set out. Why and what was the impetus for this John introduction? It was not there in what I suspect was the earliest gospel. It was an anti-Marcionite addition to the canonical gospels aimed at setting Jesus in a fulfilment-of-the-law (as opposed to an antithesis-of-the-law) context.
What purpose would introducing the name of “John” serve in that context — especially if it were Mesopotamian? Is it not just as likely that the motif of water crossing was taken from any of the Jewish water-crossing biblical myths than from a Mesopotamian text? What would be the purpose of introducing a Mesop scene supposedly bypassing the biblical motifs? (You argue for means and opportunity but fall short on motive, I think.)
The name John already appears in the first gospel, Marcion’s. And there it is introduced as the name of a baptizer but without any link to Jesus. In that context, I suppose one might suspect Marcion was having a little joke about Judaism, relegating it to a kind of pagan myth?
I’m not sure that I agree with you that Marcion’s gospel was the first gospel, but regardless of whether you think Marcion’s gospel was first or go with the traditional consensus view that some version of the modern canonical gospel of Mark was first, the bottom line is that John the Baptist was in it.
I actually think that I can provide definitive proof that Mark’s gospel was first and not Marcion’s gospel. I assume that when you say Marcion’s gospel, you mean something akin to a shorter version of canonical Luke that predated canonical Luke and had a more Marcionite-friendly theology. This argument for Markan priority is complicated enough to require a non-trivial formal write up on its own, but basically I’m pretty sure that I can demonstrate compellingly through a combination of chiastic structural analysis along with a systematic explanation of the symbolism in Mark that Mark contains the clearly original versions of all the major Jesus stories that are shared with the synoptics and John. Explaining the symbolism requires explaining how the authors of the Pentateuch (and other books of the Old Testament that Mark referenced, likely written by the same authors as the authors of the Pentateuch) transformed the material in the Babyloniaca to create their stories.
I’ve made some major break throughs understanding how material in the Babyloniaca was used to create a large number of famous stories in the OT. The author of Mark (and Matthew) was clearly clued in to the symbolism and motifs. Presumably the author of Mark had access to now lost commentaries discussing how the Babyloniaca was transformed to generate the stories in the Pentateuch, or alternatively commentaries comparing and contrasting them, or alternatively this stuff was just common knowledge in discussions among intellectual priestly circles. But even if I’m wrong about the existence of such a commentary, for the author of Mark with a copy of the Babyloniaca in front of him, the way the source stories were transformed would have been massively more obvious than to us looking at extremely short fragments summarizing only a subset of the material that the epitomator thought was worth commenting on 2,300 years later.
Once you recognize that all (or a very large chunk) of the stories and sayings in Mark appear in an obviously Babyloniaca-inspired context in Mark’s gospel and that the later gospels like Luke cut the stories out of the original Babyloniaca context, it becomes crystal clear that Mark is original. It also seriously casts major doubt on Jesus’ historicity. It also makes it super crystal clear that John is dependent on Mark and the other synoptics, though no one reasonable would doubt that anyway. I’m also somewhat shocked to have come to the realization that some of the famous sayings of Jesus can be found in Babylonian wisdom literature that predates Jesus by a thousand years. Where did that come from? 😛
I agree with you that it sounds highly plausible that the introduction to the gospel of John could have been written with an intention of being deliberately anti-Marcionite.
Regarding motive – why the author of the original gospel would have introduced John the Baptist (without the more complex intro in the gospel of John), the answer is that the early Christians were imitating what their predecessors did. They knew that their treasured scriptures from the Pentateuch were written using the Babyloniaca as a source, and they were imitating what the authors of the Pentateuch and the major OT literature did. Nearly every author of nearly every book of the Bible read Berossus’ Babyloniaca. If Gmirkin weren’t dead, he would be well on his way to publishing Berossus and Paul, Berossus and Mark, Berossus and Revelations, etc.
John the Baptist was not introduced as a Marcionite jab at Jews. He was introduced to clue the initiated reader in to the Babyloniaca context, and obviously John the Baptist is also a clear Elijah figure at the surface. So even for the common people who would not have been as clued into Mark’s symbolism as the intellectual elites, John serves as a very helpful allusion that John and Jesus are prophets in the tradition of Elijah and Elisha.
Your concern that the authors of the gospels could have gotten their ideas regarding water motifs from Jewish literature instead of Mesopotamian literature is 100% legitimate, but there are many parallels between the Babyloniaca and Mark’s gospel that clearly indicate that he didn’t just have the OT in mind. He had the Babyloniaca in mind. He also was selecting stories from the OT based on their relationship to the Babyloniaca. Mark’s gospel is like a beautiful show case of allusions to famous Babyloniaca inspired stories of the OT.
I know all of that sounds highly pretentious and speculative and is obviously unpublished, but this is my analysis, and I hope to formally publish it some day. Writing a formal academic paper for everything would be a lot of work, but maybe doing a less rigorous write up on my own blog or some public blog / form similar to Vridar would be a good way to go if I get lazy. I would prefer to publish at least the most important of this stuff in the proper academic channels.
So anyway, I assert that the term Hebrew was invented by the author of Genesis (who I believe was the primary author of the Pentateuch). I agree with you that Jews would have come up with the idea of Baptism based on their own water stories: the watery chaos of the 7 Days of Creation, Noah’s Flood, Abram crossing the Euphrates, crossing the Reed Sea, Joshua crossing the Jordan, etc. But, the original idea to make up the term Hebrew as a name for their ethnic group was the product of the creative genius of the author of Genesis who was working from the Babyloniaca. I doubt they called their language Hebrew or referred to themselves as “the river crossing people” or “people from beyond the river” before the Pentateuch was written, and I also doubt there is any archeological evidence or extra-Biblical sources to indicate the word Hebrew in use before the Pentateuch.
The benefit to the Genesis author of inventing a new term for the ethnic group of people who follow his Holy Book is inclusivity. If he had picked an existing ethnic term that referred individually to some specific subset of Canaanite-speakers, it would have ben problematic. He’s writing for a mixed population in Alexandria and also Judea and Samaria. He can’t call them Jews because he wants to include Samaritans and Alexandrians. And obviously he can’t call them Smaritans or Alexandrians for the same reason. There are probably other ethnic groups that spoke Canaanite dialects, so a generic “Canaanite” or language centric term would have been bad, especially given that his primary local audience was Greek speaking Canaanite speakers in Alexandria who were rapidly forgetting Canaanite and becoming Greek native speakers.