Continuing and concluding…..
Peter Kirby cites an argument for interpolation not from a source agreeing with the argument but rather from a source disposing of it. He quotes Robert Webb:
A second argument is that the nouns used for ‘baptism’ in this text (βαπτισμός and βάπτισις, Ant. 18.117) are not found elsewhere in the Josephan corpus, which may suggest that this vocabulary is foreign to Josephus and is evidence of interpolation. However, we may object that using a word only once does not mean it is foreign to an author. Josephus uses many words only once . . . .
(Webb, p. 39)
I try to make a habit of always checking footnotes and other citations to try to get my own perspective on the sources a book is referencing. If one turns to a scholar who is agreeing with the argument that Webb is addressing, one sees that Webb has presented the argument in a somewhat eviscerated form. Here is how it is presented by a scholar who is trying to persuade readers to accept it as distinct from Webb’s format that is aiming to persuade you to disagree with it.
Against this, it seems that scholars try to blur the fact that this brief passage also contains unique words unparalleled in any of Josephus’s writings, notably words that, as I shall attempt to prove, are semantically and conceptually suspect of a Christian hand — βαπτιστής, βαπτισμός, βάπτισιν, έπασκουσιν, αποδεκτός.
(Nir, p. 36)
I covered the bapt- words in the previous post so this time I look at the other two, έπασκουσιν (as in “lead righteous lives”) and αποδεκτός (as in “if the baptism was to be acceptable“) along with some others. Keep in mind that what follows is sourced from Rivka Nir’s more detailed discussion in her book The First Christian Believer, and all the additional authors I quote I do so because Nir has cited at least some part of them. (To place Rivka Nir in context see my previous post.)
έπασκουσιν (ep-askousin = labour/toil at, cultivate/practise): άρετήν ἐπασκουσιν = lead/practise righteousness/virtue
The word appears in this section of the John the Baptist passage:
For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews who lead [επασκουσιν] righteous lives and practise
justice towards their fellows and piety toward God to join in baptism . . .
There are two possible interpretations here. Should we translate the passage to indicate
- John was exhorting Jews to practice, labour at, lead virtuous and righteous lives and so undergo baptism?
Or
- should the scene be translated to indicate that John is commanding those Jews who were known for their righteousness and special virtue to be baptized (for the consecration of their bodies, since they had already become righteous through their living prior to baptism)?
Scholarly opinions are divided. Rivka Nir takes the side of those who interpret it in the latter manner: John is addressing a sectarian group who “practise” a righteous way of living and telling them to be baptized. What is in Nir’s mind, of course, is that the author of this passage was from such a sectarian community.
That we are dealing with an elect group is equally evident in how the passage depicts John’s addressees, whom the author designates as ‘Jews who lead righteous lives and practice justice towards their fellows and piety towards God’. This description lends itself to two readings. Most read the two participles forms έπασκουσιν [lead, practise, labour at] and χρωμένοις as circumstantial attributives modifying the exhortation itself.
Nir, p. 49
It can be interpreted to mean EITHER that John is exhorting Jews to lead righteous lives OR that John is exhorting Jews who lead righteous lives to undergo baptism. In this case the Jews spoken of are initiated into a community…. (See below for the grammatical details of these two possible interpretations.)
A cult defined by righteousness
If we follow the second reading, that the passage is depicting a call for a sectarian group that is identified as “labouring at, practising” righteousness to undergo and “join in” baptism. But if that is the case, what is so distinctive about “righteousness” in this context? Here again scholarly analysis has opened up insights the lay readers like me might easily miss. Righteousness in this context is not a common morality or keeping the rules of the Pharisees or Temple authorities. It is even used in the New Testament to distinguish between the Christian “righteous” sect and the “superficially/hypocritically righteous” Pharisees, scribes and Sadducees. The same is found in the Qumran scrolls. “Righteousness” can denote a sectarian identity. Nir, pp. 50f:
John Kampen examined the term ‘righteousness’ in the Qumran scrolls. He reached the conclusion that unlike its usage in tannaitic sources to denote charity and mercy, at Qumran it denoted sectarian identity and belonging to an elect group having exclusive claim to a righteous way of life. Matthew applies this term in the same sense, in connection to John’s baptism (3.15; 21.32). as well as in the Sermon on the Mount (5.10-11), where the author urges a sectarian way of life distinguished by righteousness. In other words, righteousness marked the sectarian identity of the group and served to preserve its boundaries.56 In this passage, as with Matthew and the Qumranites, ‘righteousness’ defines the lifestyle of this elect sectarian group as well as the boundaries separating it from society at large.
56. J. Kampen. “‘Righteousness’ in Matthew and the Legal Texts from Qumran’, in Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies. Cambridge 1995. Published in Honour of Joseph Μ. Baumgarten (ed. Μ. Bernstein, F. Garcia Martinez and J. Kampen; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997). pp. 461-87 (479, 481, 484, 486); Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition, p. 36: ‘The word δικαιοσύνη does not spill out by accident; it is Matthew’s peculiar way of designating the faith and life of Christians and of Christianity in general (cf. Mt. 5.6. 10; 6.1-4). Meier (A Marginal Jew, II. p. 61) points out the resemblance between John’s description in Josephus and in Lk. 3.10-14. which portrays him as exhorting to acts of social justice. This may be accountable to two Greek-Roman writers, Josephus and Luke, who independently of each other sought to describe an odd Jewish prophet according to the cultural models known in the Greek-Roman world. Similarly, Ernst, Johannes der Täufer, p. 257.
Those footnoted references are not the easiest for lay readers to locate but I have copied extracts from a couple of them. See below for the full passages being cited in footnote 56.
The passage does not simply say that John’s followers were obeying the Jewish traditions, but that they were “practising” a righteousness that set them apart from others and that qualified them to enter the cultic community through baptism, a baptism that would, because they were practicing this righteousness, also ritually sanctify their bodies.
A further pointer to the passage being written from the perspective of a distinctive cult practice, a cult that Nir finds signs of in Qumran, the Fourth Sibylline Oracle and various (anti-Pauline) Jewish-Christian sects, is the language used to express the disciples “coming together”, “joining” in baptism.
βαπτισμω συνιεναι : join in baptism
For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews who lead [επασκουσιν] righteous lives and practice [χρωμένοις] justice towards their fellows and piety toward God to join in baptism [βαπτισμω συνιεναι]. . . . When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused [ήρθησαν] to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed.
What commentators have discerned here is that the “joining” in baptism means entering into membership of a sectarian group, indicated by the inference that the call is for all of those who practise righteousness to gather together in a (collective) baptism. See details below.
Others, too, joined : Who were the others?
According to Meier in A Marginal Jew, II, pp. 58f
At first glance, the previous concentration of the passage on “the Jews” as the audience of John’s preaching might conjure up the idea that the unspecified “others” are Gentiles. There is no support for such an idea in the Four Gospels, but such a double audience would parallel what Josephus (quite mistakenly) says about Jesus’ audience in Ant. 18.3.3 §63 (kai pollous men Ioudaious, pollous de kai tou Hellenikou epegageto). However, if we are correct that epaskousin [ἐπασκουσιν] and chromenois [χρωμένοις] in §117 express conditions qualifying tois Ioudaiois, there is no need to go outside the immediate context to understand who “the others” at the beginning of §118 are.
So Meier concludes that the “others” were from the general Jewish population coming to see the righteous community respond to John’s call for baptism, but there is also a possibility that “others” might also refer to Gentiles, as in the Testimonium Flavianum (Ant. 18.63): ‘He [sc. Jesus] won over many Jews and many Greeks’, as well as Christians: Mt. 27.42: Lk. 7.19: Jn 4.37: 10.16: 1 Cor. 3.10: 9.27.
For O. Cullmann (‘The Significance of the Qumran Texts for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity‘. JBL 74 (1955). pp. 213-26 (220-21), such Hellenistic Christians formed the earliest nucleus of Christian missionaries who carried the gospel to Samaria and other non-Jewish areas in the Land of Israel.
Nir, p. 50
For baptism to be αποδεκτός (acceptable) . . .
In this passage, John says that ‘if baptism was to be acceptable [αποδεκτήν αύτώ]’ to God.60 ‘they must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body’.
What kind of baptism might ‘be acceptable’ to God?
In biblical usage, this expression relates to the sacrificial system at the temple to designate an offering accepted by God.61 In the New Testament, the compound adjective αποδεκτός, meaning ‘acceptable’, occurs in connection with sacrifices only in 1 Peter: ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God’ (2.3-5). . . .
The author of this passage speaks of John’s baptism in terms paralleling the atonement sacrifices in the temple, by means of which individuals ask God’s acceptance of their offering that their sins may be forgiven. Joseph Thomas64 focused on one of the features of Baptist sects (Ebionites, Nazarenes, Elcasaites) that withdrew from the traditional temple and sacrificial worship and conceived of baptism as a substitute for sacrifices. To his mind, cessation of sacrifices and the baptismal rite are interrelated: instead of sacrifices in atonement for sins, it is holy baptism that atones for sins.65 The notion of baptism as replacement for the Jewish sacrificial system is distinctly Christian: Jesus is the expiatory sacrifice in place of the temple sacrifices and his death atones for all the sins of the world.66 By baptism, the baptized identify with Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, becoming a sacrifice themselves, and their sins are forgiven, as expounded in Rom. 6.2-6.
61. Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet, pp. 166, 203.
64. Thomas. Le mouvement Baptiste, pp. 280-81: J.A.T. Robinson, ‘The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community’, HTR 50 (1957). pp. 175-91 (180).
65. Thomas. Le mouvement Baptiste, pp. 55-56: Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet, p. 120. On baptism in place of sacrificing al Qumran, see subsequently.
66. Eph. 5.2: Rom. 12.1.
Nir, pp. 51f
In the account in Josephus we read that for John’s baptism to be “acceptable” (αποδεκτος) it must not be used to grant forgiveness of sins but for the consecration or sanctification of the body, a function of erstwhile temple sacrifices.
Baptism, a central rite
John’s baptism was being preached and proclaimed, a point in common between Josephus and the Gospels. The Gospel of Matthew underscores the central importance of baptism when he has Jesus command his disciples to go into the world and baptize new disciples.
Moreover, other scholars have wondered why Josephus did not explain the term “baptism” here.
What would Greek and Roman readers unfamiliar with Christian sources understand by this term? They were familiar with the verb βάπτω, which means ‘to dip/be dipped’ or ‘to immerse/be submerged’, and with the verb βαπτίζω, which in classical sources denotes ‘to immerse/be submerged under water’.49 How would they understand a designation referring to someone who immerses others with this particular immersion? How could Josephus use this designation without defining it?50
Moreover, this passage uses two terms for John’s immersion: βαππσμός and βάπτισις. which Christian tradition applied as distinctive of Christian baptism. And it is only here that they occur in Josephus, diverging markedly from the terminology he applies to the Jewish ritual immersion for purification from external physical defilement.51
49. Metaphorically: soaked in wine. See Oepke. ‘βάπτω’, TDNT, I. p. 535.
50. This bewilderment was already raised by Graelz (Geschichte der Juden. III. p. 276 n. 3): and Abrahams (Studies in Pharisaism, p. 33) noted that this designation might be an interpolation. Mason (Josephus and the New Testament, p. 228) attempts to distinguish between ‘Christ’ and ‘called the Christ’, as in the latter case Josephus would not need to explain the title, and this applies to John, ‘called the Baptist’. Some argue (e.g. Webb, John the Baptizer and Prophet, pp. 34, 168) that John’s being called by this name in the Gospels and in Josephus proves it became distinctive of John and the permanent Greek designation, hence its usage by the evangelists as well as Josephus. Indeed, John is called ‘the Baptist’ in the Synoptics, but this epithet is not attached to his name in Acts and in the Fourth Gospel.
51 To describe Jewish immersions, Josephus usually uses the verb λούεσθαι or άπολούεσθαι, as he does for the Essenes and Bannus; see K.H. Rengstorf, A Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus (Leiden: EJ. Brill. 2002). I. p. 290. But βάπτισις is a term Christian sources apply to the baptism of Christ or Christian baptism; see Athanasius Alexandrinus, Quaestiones in scripturas 41 (M.28.725A); LPGL, p. 284. Origen uses βαπτισμός for John’s baptism, but in many sources this term applies to Christian baptism in general: see Heb 6.2: βαπτισμών διδαχής; Col 2.12: ‘you were buried with him in baptism (έν τω βαπτισμώ), you were also raised with him’; Chrysostom, Hom. in Heb. 9.2 ( 12.95B). This term also applies to the repeated baptismal rites of heretical sects, e.g., Ebionites, Marcionites, etc. See LPGL, p. 288. On the possibility that John’s baptism in Josephus was also a repeated ritual, see subsequently.
Nir, p. 48
It is through discussions of such technical points that Nir argues for a Jewish-Christian provenance of the John the Baptist passage in Antiquities of the Jews. When criticisms against the interpolation view point to comparisons with specific New Testament terminology they are missing a key facet of the argument: the interpolation is said to be consistent with certain Jewish Christian practices and thus contrary to the Christian ideas represented by the New Testament.
I still have some questions about Rivka Nir’s presentation but I have tried to set it out in these posts as fully (yet succinctly) as I reasonably can. The less background knowledge we have the easier it is to be persuaded by new readings. The more we learn about the Jewish and Christian worlds in their first and second century contexts the more aware we become of just how little we really know and how vast are the gaps in our knowledge. There is little room for dogmatism, for certainty, for “belief”, in a field of inquiry where even the sources themselves are not always what they seem. That’s true of much ancient history and it is especially true of the history of Christian origins.
So where does John the Baptist fit in history?
Our most abundant historical sources are Christian. In the canonical gospels John the Baptist is the prophetic voice announcing the advent of Jesus. He is depicted variously as a second Elijah, an Isaianic voice in the wilderness, and as the son of a temple priest. Always he represents the Jewish Scriptures prophesying their fulfilment in Jesus Christ. As such, he functions as a theological personification.
If John’s literary function is to personify a theological message we might think that he could still be more than a literary figure. Could he not also have had a historical reality? Yes, of course he could. But a general rule of thumb is to opt for the simplest explanation. If we have a literary explanation for the presence of John the Baptist that explains all that we read about him in the gospels, then there is no need to seek additional explanations. If there is independent evidence for John in history then we are in quite different territory.
The earliest non-Christian source we have is found in Antiquities 18.116/18.5.2 (by Josephus). If this passage was indeed penned by Josephus or one of his scribal assistants then it would be strong evidence — strong because it is independent of the gospels and in a work of “generally reliable” historical narration — that there was a John the Baptist figure in history, however that figure might be interpreted.
The passage would not confirm the gospels’ theological role of John. After all, in Josephus the JtB passage is set some years after the time of Jesus and Jesus is never mentioned in relation to John.
In the eyes of some scholars, those stark differences from the gospels stamp the passage with authenticity. This would mean that Christian authors took John from history and reset him in time to make him a precursor of Jesus. If this is how John entered the gospels then the common notion among scholars of Christian origins and the historical Jesus have no grounds on which to reconstruct a historical scenario in which Jesus joined the Baptist sect only to break away from it. John would then remain as nothing more than a theological personification of the OT pointing to fulfilment in Christ.
But if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the passage in Josephus is from a Jewish-Christian hand, then we are left without any secure foundation for any place of such a figure in history. Another proposal is that the passage is genuinely Josephan but removed from its original context where it spoke of another “John” from the one we associate with Christian tradition. What is certain is that the passage raises questions. It is susceptible to debate. It can never be a bed-rock datum that establishes with certainty any semblance of a John the Baptist figure comparable to the one we read about in the gospels.
.
Detailed explanations of linked points above……
Joining in baptism // gather together by baptism
Notice also that John is telling the (righteous) Jews to “join in baptism”. The Greek term indicates being baptized into an elect group. “Joining in” (συνειμι) is accomplished by the act of baptism. This is also the conclusion of Robert Webb (referenced above). Webb explains (pp 200f of John the Baptizer and Prophet)
John was calling for his audience to ‘gather together’ into some form of group and that baptism is the means whereby the group was gathered, or from the individual’s point of view, baptism was the means whereby a person entered this ‘gathered’ group. Therefore, both semantically and syntactically, this clause is best understood to signify that John commanded the Jews ‘to gather together by means of baptism’.
Confirmation of this significance may be found in Josephus’ use elsewhere of this same verb, σύνειμι, to refer to joining a group or party, or to the meeting together by such a group. For example, War 4.132 portrays the rivalry dominating certain Judean cities because their inhabitants joined (συνιων) different parties in order to oppose one another. . . . .
This evidence only provides indirect support for interpreting John’s repentance-baptism to function as an initiatory rite; the direct evidence is found in Josephus’ account. This NT evidence confirms that John’s ministry was forming a group. Since baptismally-expressed repentance was required by John, the rite of baptism may be considered to initiate a person into the true, remnant Israel.
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Two interpretations
Nir, (pp. 49f of The First Christian Believer)
This description lends itself to two readings. Most read the two participles forms έπασκουσιν and χρωμένοις as circumstantial attributives modifying the exhortation itself.53 It follows that John exhorts the Jews to live virtuously, to practice righteousness toward their fellowmen and to act in a God-fearing way. If, however, the participles are taken as attributives defining τοις Ίουδαίοις, they refer to Jews already leading righteous lives and practicing justice and piety toward God.54 Reference, then, is to an elect group subscribing to ‘righteousness’, ‘justice’ and ‘piety’, whom John exhorts to undergo baptism as a sign or unifying mark of group membership. This reading explains the distinction between the two publics at which the passage addresses John’s baptism: those already living virtuously, practicing justice toward their fellows and piety toward God, and ‘others’ who, aroused by John’s sermons, join the crowds gathered around him. Implied are Jews and Gentiles who were not practitioners of this way of life, and by joining the crowds evoke the apprehension of Herod Antipas. 55
53. For this reading, see Mason, Josephus and the New Testament, p. 214; Feldman, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, IX, ad. loc.; A. Schalit, Flavii Josephi, Antiquitates Judaicae, 11-20 (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1973), p. 292.
54. For this reading, see J.P. Meier. ‘John the Baptist in Josephus: Philology and Exegesis’. JBL 111 (1992). pp. 229-33: Meier, A Marginal Jew, II, p. 58; Lupieri, ‘John the Baptist in New Testament Traditions and History’, ANRW. Principat 26.1 p. 451.
55. Meier, A Marginal Jew. II. p. 59. ‘Others’ might also refer to Gentiles, as in the Testimonium Flavianum (Ant. 18.63): ‘He won over many Jews and many Greeks’, as well as Christians: Mt. 27.42: Lk. 7.19: Jn 4.37: 10.16: 1 Cor. 3.10: 9.27. For O. Cullmann (‘The Significance of the Qumran Texts for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity’. JBL 74 (1955), pp. 213-26 (220-21), such Hellenistic Christians formed the earliest nucleus of Christian missionaries who carried the gospel to Samaria and other non-Jewish areas in the Land of Israel.
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“Righteousness” as a cult term
Kampen, p. 479f
The research in this paper demonstrates that the [term for righteousness in the Qumran literature] may not be simply a matter of a “stricter standard,” but rather the significance of belonging to a particular “chosen” group, which has exclusive claim to the “way of righteousness.” . . . .
Δικαιοσυνη in the Gospel of Matthew
A number of studies have noted the significance of the word δικαιοσυνη in the Gospel of Matthew. Ziesler describes it as “a characteristically Matthean term.”72 Alan Segal also describes the term as distinctively Matthean.73 Graham Stanton includes it in his list of distinctively Matthean words and phrases.74 For J. Andrew Overman the word “serves a distinguishing function for the Matthean community.”75 It is “a key term for designating the proper behavior and disposition of the members of the community, in contrast to those with whom the community contends.”
. . . In previous publications I have suggested that there is a connection between the use of δικαιοσυνη in Matthew and – צדק צדקה in some of the compositions found at Qumran.78 . . . .
73 A. F. Segal, “Matthew’s Jewish Voice,” Social History of the Matthean Community: Cross-disciplinary Approaches (ed. D. L. Balch; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 3-37, see p. 21.
74 Graham N. Stanton, “The Origin and Purpose of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount,” Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament: Essays in Honor of E. Earle Ellis for his 60th Birthday (eds. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Otto Betz; Grand Rapids; William B. Eerdmans/Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1987), 181-192, see p. 185.
75 Overman, Matthew’s Gospel, 93.
78 J. Kαmpen, “Reexamination of the Relationship,” 34-59; id., “Sectarian Form of the Antitheses,” 338-63
Kampen, p. 481
The distribution of this term within the Gospel occasions immediate interest. In his redactional study of the Sermon on the Mount, Syreeni points out that John the Baptist is the subject of discussion in the first and last references to the term within the Gospel.82 In fact these are the only two occurrences outside of the Sermon on the Mount. In Matt 3:15 Jesus responds to John’s reluctance to be baptized by him with the following statement: “For thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.”83 Jesus, the authoritative interpreter in this composition, attests to the credibility of John in Matt 21:32, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness.” In both cases the use of the term is in direct quotes attributed to Jesus, thereby indicating their centrality.84 At the same time we have also already indicated that the term is used in a redactional manner which attests to its significance for the author. For the author of the Gospel of Matthew, John the Baptist is linked with the term whose significance is developed in the Sermon on the Mount.
82 K. Syreeni, The Making of the Sennon on the Mount: A Procedural Analysis of Matthew’s Redactional Activity (Part I: Methodology & Compositional Analysis; Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae Dissertationes Humanarum Litterarum 44; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1987) 208.
83 Note the discussion of the passages on John the Baptist by D. Hagner, “Righteousness in Matthew’s Theology,” Worship, Theology and Ministry in the Early Church (eds. M. J. Wilkins and T. Paige; JSNTSup 87; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992) 101-20; esp. 115-18. He mistakenly attempts to place Matthew’s use of “righteousness” on a law-grace spectrum, using Matt 3:15 as an example of the latter.
84 The distinctive use of traditions about John the Baptist and his unique role in the Gospel of Matthew are demonstrated by P. W. Hollenbach, “John the Baptist,” ABD 3.887-99, esp. 888-89.
Kampen, p. 484
It is apparent that the author of this Gospel understood “righteousness” differently from the Pharisees. Thus when we read, “unless your righteousness exceed…,” we are to understand that the author is speaking from a qualitatively different vantage point. The righteousness of the followers of Jesus cannot exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees unless they understand it in the particular manner developed by the author of this Gospel and attributed to Jesus, the founder of the movement. Just as the authors of some of the Qumran documents employed the term צדק to designate a sectarian way of life developed for the adherents of that group, so the Gospel writer used δικαιοσυνη to denote the particular understanding of the Jewish way of life advocated for the followers of Jesus. For this writer “your righteousness” could only exceed “that of the scribes and Pharisees” if you followed this particular interpretation of how to live the Jewish life.
Kampen, p. 486
These citations suggest not only that righteousness was a word which defined the way of life for the Matthean community, but that the author of this Gospel viewed the adherents of the Jesus way of life within that Jewish community as “the righteous.” In other words, the term was an indicator of the group’s sectarian identity and served a role in connection with issues of boundary maintenance.
Wink, p. 36f
Jesus is superior to John, yet Matthew does not thereby obliterate John: ‘It is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness’ (3:15). John’s modesty is overruled; it is well that he is modest, but it is also well that he baptize the Messiah, for in so doing he fulfils the will of God (‘righteousness’—3:15; 21:32). The word δικαιοσυνη does not spill out by accident; it is Matthew’s peculiar way of designating the faith and life of Christians and of Christianity in general (cf. 5:6, 10; 6:1 ff.).3 In undergoing John’s baptism, Jesus declares baptism obligatory for believers and gives at the same time a more elevated meaning to John’s rite; baptism is in fact the constitutive element of Christian righteousness (28:19)!4 The sense of πληρωσαι may also be involved here: in the baptism of Jesus John’s baptism is fulfilled, i.e. Christianized, and becomes by this act the rite of the church. No comparison between inferior Baptist baptism and superior Christian baptism is intended,1 for John’s rite is stamped with the authority of God and already is marked out as the way of ‘righteousness’ (21:32). The meaning of πληρωσαι is made clear by 5:17; Jesus comes not to destroy but to fulfil John’s rite in such a way that its consummation is at the same time its transformation.2 Thus Matthew also changes the voice at baptism from private to public address in order to make it the divine authorization of the Christian baptismal rite established by the Messiah.3
3 A. Fridrichsen, ‘”Accomplir toute justice,” Congrès d’histoire du Christianisme: Jubilé Alfred Loisy, ed. P.-L. Couchoud (1928), 1, 167-77. Cf. also Georg Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit. Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus (1962).
4 Fridrichsen, art. cit. p. 176.
1 Matthew does not anticipate a Pentecost; John’s prophecy of a Spirit baptism is apparently fulfilled when Jesus is baptized. Thus 3:11 relates to 3:16 as prophecy to fulfillment. (Cf. G. Bornkamm, ‘End-Expectation and Church in Matthew,’ in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, tr. by P. Scott, 1903, p. 36)
2 Fridrichsen, Congrès d’histoire du Christianisme, pp. 175 f. Cf. also Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, p. 252: ‘in the early Church the story of Jesus’ Baptism was soon conceived of in this sense as a cult legend. Jesus was the first who received the Baptism of water and the Spirit, and by that inaugurated it as an efficacious rite for believers.’
Compare the way the god Dionysus likewise underwent a baptism to set an example for his followers.
Return ⇑
Kampen, John. “‘Righteousness’ in Matthew and the Legal Texts from Qumran.” In Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies, Cambridge, 1995 : Published in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten / Edited by Moshe Bernstein, Florentino García Martínez, John Kampen., edited by Moshe Bernstein, Florentino García Martínez, and John Kampen, 461–87. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah ; v. 23. Leiden ; New York: Brill, 1997.
Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume 2. Mentor, Message, and Miracles. New York: Doubleday, 1994.
Nir, Rivka. The First Christian Believer: In Search of John the Baptist. Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2019.
Webb, Robert L. John the Baptizer and Prophet: A Sociohistorical Study. Sheffield Academic Press, 1991.
Wink, Walter. John The Baptist in the Gospel Tradition. Society for New Testament Monograph Series 7. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2000.
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“After all, in Josephus the JtB passage is set some years after the time of Jesus and Jesus is never mentioned in relation to John.
In the eyes of some scholars, those stark differences from the gospels stamp the passage with authenticity. This would mean that Christian authors took John from history and reset him in time to make him a precursor of Jesus. ”
So, if I’m understanding it correctly, the argument for the authenticity of the passage in Josephus is, at least to some extent, an argument AGAINST the historical authenticity of the gospels. This could be examined also by looking at certain other passages, e.g., the Lukan story of Jesus & John being cousins, etc.
Yes, that would seem to be so. Sometimes one looks at what is going on with the biblical studies scholarship and it looks like a circus of entertaining theories all out of sync with one another. The only way to cut through that is to try to re-examine the data through the fundamental principles of historical inquiry as generally practised in other fields.
Whereas John the Baptist is featured in the Synoptic Gospels, the “Christian interpolations” (if there was any) had to occur in the first half of the 2nd Century BEFORE the Gospels were written (which I believe was shortly after the Bar Kockba Revolt).
But, related to this question, I note that NONE of the Epistles (which were written before the Gospels) even mention John the Baptist.
Just my non-scholarly 2 cents.
Since it appears Origen may not have known of the passage in Josephus there is a case to be made for an interpolation being added later than the early second century. If the purpose of the passage was to authenticate the reality of John the Baptist, pershaps even to remove him from association with Jesus, then presumably it would have been added to counter the widely accepted gospel teachings.
As NONE of the Epistle writers mention JTB, I wonder how he became so “important” to the Gospel writers.
Would an interpolation about John the Baptist designed to remove him from association with Jesus not have been written by a Non-Christian, though? Or would the Christian have been cunning enough to avoide linking John and Jesus in the interpolation?
From my perspective, the failure by the passage to link John to Jesus, even peripherally – anlong the lines of mentioning that he had disciples who continued his message after his death, one named Jesus – is the best argument that the passage, although perhaps an interpolation, was not made by a Christian. I have been sympathetic, though, to the idea that it was interpolated by a Non-Christian follower of this Non-Christian Johannine sect – although whether such a movement existed and what form it took seems to be a great question in Christian origins – because it portrays John sympathetically (contra Josephus’s usual portrayal of popular religious leaders whom Jewish and Roman governments opposed) and discusses baptism’s significance in a way which a follower would care about.
I had some vague notion of the Mandaeans in mind when I wrote that as a possibility. Mandaean records are late but do point to a John the Baptist sect that viewed the Jesus cult as an enemy. My comment was based on a vague notion of a possibility, sorry.
I have been following up the Mandaeans and have already decided to backtrack on what I wrote. There is a good case to be made that the Mandaeans originally had a positive relationship with Christianity and did not view John’s baptism of Jesus in any negative manner. The hostility appears to have come about in Byzantine times.
Pedersen, V. Schou. “Bidrag til en Analyse af de manda︠e︡iske Skrifter, med Henblik paa Bestemmelsen af manda︠e︡ernes Forhold til Jødedom og Kristendom.” Universitetsforlaget, 1940. https://archive.org/details/MN41563ucmf_1
But the non-hostility towards Jesus does not automatically rule out a Mandaean interpolation – because the passage attributed to Josephus says nothing about Jesus, either positive or negative.
Correct. All options are open. I just wanted to toss in my slightly more informed reminders about the Mandaeans here — I may post something about aspects of them, soon.
Even if I ultimately don’t share the view, I think that you defended Rivka Nir’s thesis very well and discussed interesting arguments in detail.
My attempts at defence of Rivka Nir’s arguments do have some gaps but I hope they were sufficient to persuade that the authenticity of the passage in Antiquities should not be taken for granted.
Nothing should ever be taken for granted. Isn’t that the definition of ASSUMPTION?
For me, following Earl Doherty, any discussion re: Jesus is not in any way related to history. Paul has a lot to say about baptism and how it is symbolic of Christ’s death and resurrection which, however, did not happen “in history” or “on earth”. For paul, Christ’s crucifiction and resurrection happened in “the lower heavens” [a Platonic idea], not on earth so there was no need to mention JTB as he was irrelevant. Perhaps that’s why NONE of the Epistle writers ever even mention JTB.
Where I diverge from Rivka Nir is when she writes (I go to memory) that John the Baptist is made (only) prima facie not-Christian in the Fourth Gospel (and in the other gospels) in order to pose as an independent judge who “confirms” the messianic status of Jesus. Hence the presumed impartiality is only a mere expedient invented by the Evangelist(s): the reality is that John the Baptist was a Christian figure. Until here the view of Rivka Nir.
My reasons to disagree are (1) in part the same reasons for which in Mark there are survived traces of a rivalry between Jesus and John that dates back probably to Mark’s disturbing source: *Ev.
In addition, (2) in proto-John, John the Baptist continues to be described negatively just as he was in *Ev: the marcionite author of proto-John knows something in more now about the enemy John the Baptist. He knows that John the Baptist poses in Mark and Matthew as precursor of Jesus, differently than in *Ev. Hence he accepted this new role for John the Baptist, only it was a new role for an old enemy: John the Baptist poses in proto-John as a false precursor. His evil intent is that Jesus was misinterpreted as the Lamb of God (YHWH). Hence he is a worthy precursor of what the Judaizing disciples will do: selling fraudolently Jesus as the davidic messiah of YHWH. John the Baptist does (before Jesus) the contrary of what the Paraclite (i.e. Marcion) will do (after Jesus).
Where I agree now with Nir:
The interpolation of the Baptist Passwge in Josephus is designed to make John the Baptist enough “independent” from Jesus but also enough a positive figure to confute the negative view of John the Baptist in both *Ev and proto-John.
This is a common trope in the literature but does it not derive from the assumption that the source of the author was an oral tradition stemming from a historical rivalry between the followers of Jesus and John? It is entirely hypothetical. Is not the simplest explanation that the author has created an ideological kind of rivalry between the two merely as a personification of the difference between the old covenant of the law and the new one of grace?
It’s been a while since I’ve studied Marcionism and GJohn in the depth you have. You will have to remind me what you mean, exactly and in some detail re sources, by “proto-John”, sorry.
The trace of rivalry is found only in Mark 2:18:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. They came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
We know that any question by Pharisees is tendentious, which has to be true for the same question by the John’s disciples. Obviously, if John was a completely innocent and positive figure in Mark, then how can we explain the rivalry between the John’s disciples and Jesus himself? Hence I call it a trace of a rivalry survived in Mark from a previous source. Since there is a source where John the Baptist is an enemy of Jesus without compromise (it is *Ev), then I can count this as evidence supporting the *Ev priority over Mark. The case would have been different if we had knowledge only of the canonical Gospels (where John the Baptist is always a friend of Jesus).
As to proto-John, I appeal to Joseph Turmel’s case for proto-John being a Marcionite gospel (with Marcion alluded as the coming Paraclite). In addition, I appeal to Robert Stahl’s reference (“Les Mandéens et les Origines Chrétiennes”, Paris, 1930) to a gospel used among the Cathars, where John the Baptist is charged by the creator god to hail Jesus as the ‘Lamb of god’ so that he can be identified and killed by the servants of the demiurge. Indeed, in John 1:26, John the Baptist doesn’t know where precisely Jesus is in the crowd: John answered them, I baptize in water, but among you there stands One whom you do not recognize and of whom you know nothing
Hence a case can be made that John the Baptist in the original Marcionite version of the Fourth Gospel is an enemy of Jesus.
To take for now your first paragraph…
Another, surely plausible, explanation lies in the very point I have advanced all along — John represents the OT and Jesus the NT (speaking loosely). The OT is fulfilled in the NT. The OT predicts the NT/Jesus. The first adherents of Christianity were in rivalry with loyalists to the OT. Is that not straightforward and without any need of speculations about sources and relationships beyond the textual evidence we have before our eyes?
Why is it more plausible that an anti-OT concept arose first with a counter pro-OT concept emerging in reaction than it is for a pro-OT concept being the first with an anti-OT idea being the reaction?
Where is the answer to my point? Are you disagreeing with the claim that if the John’s disciples join the Pharisees against Jesus in their tendentious question addressed to Jesus in Mark 2:18, then the same rivalry has to be extended on the relation between Jesus and John: if the respective disciples are enemies between them, then also the respective leaders (beyond their effective existence) have to be rival figures between them. Since the premise is true (rivalry between disciples) but the conclusion (rivalry between Jesus and John) is denied in Mark, then a gospel where premise and conclusion are both verified is surely a more consistent (i.e. more old) gospel than Mark. Does a such gospel exist? Yes, it does: it is *Ev. Therefore: *Ev precedes Mark.
That’s it. There is no talk of rivalry between groups. Talk of group rivalry comes solely from an assumption that the text is reporting an oral tradition about rival groups — i.e. circular. We cannot assume some historical event or situation that the text itself does not speak about. We can make inferences but they are no more than inferences — and inferences are fueled by our assumptions that the narrative is a historical report. (I know most NT texts and publications that discuss this type of thing speak of “rivalry” but that’s all stemming from the historicizing assumptions about the gospel.
Just read the text and only that. It is a mistake to read other situations into it. By doing so we risk missing the point of the author, of the text itself. The text speaks of two different customs. Full stop.
You asked how to explain a rivalry. What do you mean by rivalry, exactly? I don’t see “rivalry” as I understand the term in the text. Different customs do not necessitate rivalry, or some sort of competition.
My answer to your question lies in my first comment but you didn’t see it or I didn’t make it clear enough: the difference we read about is the difference between two covenants or two religious practices, the old and the new. That’s it. That’s the message from the text itself.
Mark is not so neutral about the Pharisees:
“Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”
(Mark 8:15)
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking,
(10:2)
Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.
(Mark 12:13)
It is expected that, given the the correct translation of Mark 2:18 identifies John’s disciples and Pharisees as the aggressive questioners:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. THEY came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?”
…then the John’s disciples are visibly captured in an action that is just as aggressive against Jesus as any other action by Pharisees is (meant to be) in the rest of the same gospel. This is called “rivalry”: isn’t it? Between us two, you are diverging from the classical Gospel portrait of the Pharisees here, not I.
Yes Mark is later critical of the Pharisees but never of John the Baptist. And there is nothing in this early encounter with observers of both John and the Pharisees that suggests a “rivalry”. You can’t take words from one context and apply them to a different party in another context. That’s tendentious reading. Look at the many translations — on https://biblehub.com/mark/2-18.htm and on https://www.studylight.org/interlinear-study-bible/greek/mark/2-18.html
Nor are Pharisees and the disciples of Pharisees the same group — recall that the gospels also depict Pharisees as both friendly toward Jesus and as cruel and hypocritical to their own followers.
The questioners are asking about the disciples of the two fasting groups in the third person which tells us that the questioners are not from those fasters but from observers of those two groups and of Jesus.
They don’t say, “How is it that we disciples of John fast and also those of the Pharisees….” They are bystanders asking about the different groups.
There is nothing “aggressive” in Mark 2:18. You are reading aggression into the text even though no words support that reading.
Of course all this speculation ASSUMES both Jesus and JTB are historical and the Gospels are historical. This assumption has made asses out of many. Not even Josephus’ writings can be assumed to be “historical”.
Indeed. We need to understand the reasons, the evidence, on which we treat Josephus as a historical source and not just take it for granted as such. I sometimes think at least SOME biblical scholars are not fully aware of the reasons other historians would apply to their historical sources.
I can only repeat the point I have attempted to make so many times before but as far as I am aware you have failed to address it. Your interpretation of the text is based on taking a certain theory and reading it into the texts. There is no evidence in the texts themselves for your interpretation. In other words, you are falling into the sin of “confirmation bias” — finding what you expect to find on the basis of seeing the shapes you think can fit your theory.
It is called “begging the question” or circularity — or simply a biased reading to interpret the text according to what you want them to say to fit your theory.
It is a way of reasoning that is at the heart of many fallacies.
Just to respond to this point first:
The text does not say that the disciples of John asked Jesus the question. The text says an undefined “they” asked Jesus why his disciples did not do the same things as the disciples of the Pharisees and the disciples of John. Presumably onlookers to the three groups asked Jesus the question. It is a narrative. The author is raising for readers a point about Jesus teaching something different from what JtB and Pharisees practised. There is no reference to or hint of any rivalry.
I don’t quite know if I understand why you keep suggesting that one side of the debate proposes John was “a completely innocent and positive figure”. John’s role in Mark has nothing to do with “innocence” or “guilt”, “positive” or “negative”. He is a personification of the “OT” or Jewish Prophets. His is a literary/theological function.
There is nothing in the text to hint at any “rivalry” between John’s disciples and Jesus or between the Pharisees and Jesus — it is simply a discussion of different practices and the reason for their differences. It is a theological discussion, not a historical rivarly discussion.
How do you know that the Marcionite gospel did not turn John the Baptist into “an enemy” because it wanted to recast the Jewish Prophets from being a pointer to Jesus into being in opposition to Jesus?
Fine. But does that prove that the Marcionite gospel preceded some form of the Gospel of Mark?
I see the long and tedious discussions of John in *Luke* not as signalling a rivalry between John and Jesus but as an attempt to “pick up” Baptists who are themselves trying to cope with or rationalise the failure of whatever it was they expected John to do after he has his head cut off and stuck on a spike. The newer cult is trying to reframe the old one as a precursor to glean supporters for *its* mission. People being people, this would automatically lead to some friction between die-hards on both sides.
I remain inclined at the moment to view John as the bit of grit in the middle of the raindrop around which some cult developed, increased in size and then collapsed with the execution of its founder rather than a total myth.
There’s no reason to say that Josephus believed in the existence of John or Jesus simply because he reported the existence of their cult and the claims of messiahhood (which both apparently made, according to “Luke”). It’s not too much of a stretch, to me anyway, that Josephus might have used words in association with John which he never uses again simply because he was repeating or copying some specialist reference he was using as research. Cut and paste.
A lot of this discussion/debate seems to me to be looking for complexity where there is nothing much more than a book of reports collected by a man sitting in a library somewhere. The references to John are nothing special and compared to the heavy-handed insertion about Jesus seem very bland. They gain second-hand significance only because of the Gospel stories’ interest in John. Why the gospels are also interested in him is a more interesting question than why does Josephus mention him. The simple answer to that last question seems to be that John was exactly the sort of minor messianic figure that Josephus took note of without endorsing in any way (quite the opposite, in fact).
>I see the long and tedious discussions of John in *Luke* not as signalling a rivalry between John and Jesus but as an attempt to “pick up” Baptists who are themselves trying to cope with or rationalise the failure of whatever it was they expected John to do after he has his head cut off and stuck on a spike. The newer cult is trying to reframe the old one as a precursor to glean supporters for *its* mission.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the traditions which you discuss reflect history (which Neil Godfrey may happily discuss), I raise the quibble of where you get the idea that John was expected to do anything soteriologically significant after he was killed. Certainly, the claim that Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead may indicate that John the Baptist was believed to be unkillable, but that need not be associated with the same type of necessary death/resurrection which Christianity attributed to Jesus.
As a reference to popular culture, John could have been understood as being similar to the fictional Beric Dondarion – a person whom evil could not kill without resurrecting but whose significance was the same for his followers before and after his death.
These words aside, your model seems plausible; certainly, Bahai grew out of the earlier failed Babist movement, which persists to this day. Bahai so honour the founder of Babism that they arranged his tomb and burial.
Sorry Neil, but I don’t see a valid reason for selecting the episode of Mark 2:18 as the only episode, among all these of equal tenor in Mark, where the questioners (especially when half of them are said to be Pharisees) are not tendentious and aggressive. This would be an atomistic fallacy.
Don’t you agree with me that if some translations try to eclipse the precise identity of the questioners (by translating: “some people” in the place of “they”) is why there is probably in action the not-so-implicit apologetical interest to dissociate the John’s disciples from a more direct involving in the conflictual dispute with Jesus. My point is that you have to deal with the more disturbing reading: “they” are both Pharisees and John’s disciples, not some anonymous people.
I’m not “selecting the episode” out of context. I am simply reading it according to basic Reading Comprehension 101. There is no “atomistic fallacy”. It is simple logic of the verse itself. Two groups of disciples are described and an anonymous “they” asks about those two groups in relation to Jesus. It makes no sense at all to think that the questioners belong to either John’s or the Pharisee’s disciples. I think all or most of the translations agree with that.
Your attempt to read into the mind of the author that he was apologetically trying to hide what you think should be there but simply isn’t — is another instance of reading a theory into the text instead of reading the text in its own right.
It is trying to explain why the evidence for you view is missing. That’s classic apologetics. It’s ad hoc rationalization to justify a theory in the absence of evidence and to insist that the evidence is hidden by another (apologetic) motive to hide it.
You are pushing your theory by all means to fit into the words of the text and are resorting to logical fallacies to do so. You rarely, if ever, respond to my points about the logic of your argument. I get the impression, right or wrong, that you have not thought much about the logic of argument and logical fallacies and are more interested in trying to make things fit according to a theory — with the same logical fallacies as are used to sustain conspiracy theories.
One thing Earl Doherty taught me years back was the importance of logical argument. That led me to study what I had little understood until then — it took some time, along with studying the logic of historical arguments more generally, but it was worth it, I think. (Regrettably, the process led me to see how even Earl Doherty failed in his own rules at times, so I am very aware of how easy it is to get things wrong logically. It took me a long time and much effort to recognize the circularity of much of my own thinking. I have tried to point out the circularity in yours — but it seems you cannot see it.)
It is so very hard to see it when we are convinced by our circular reasoning and confirmation bias. I know from painful experience. I was trapped in it in another area for years and have done all I can with much effort never to fall back into those same errors.
I wonder if you feel you could ever actually sum up what you believe to be my argument. I am really not sure you have grasped it — all your responses seem in some sense to be distorting what I have tried to explain.
I am quite open to the possibility of Marcion’s gospel preceding our version of Mark, but not on the grounds you have advanced.
The original Greek of Mark 2:18 is rather clear in specifying that the questioners are the same disciples of John and the Pharisees:
Καὶ ἦσαν οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάνου καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι νηστεύοντες. καὶ ἔρχονται καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ
Note that the point (.) is not enough to distinguish the two mentioned groups from different anonymous “they”. I even wonder if the punctuation is really found in the original ms: probably it was absent.
The question itself is probably tendentious, since it assumes, in the mind of the questioners, the same accusation that is made explicit in Matthew 11:19:
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
The context is identical: one is eating and has to justify why he is eating, because otherwise he is condamned as a glutton and a drunkard. Your interpretation that the question of Mark 2:18 is innocent implies that “Matthew” was guilty of making it a not-innocent question, at all ex abrupto.
Have you read the two times I have given the grammatical reasons why the questioners are not likely to be either the disciples of John or those of the Pharisees? Can you address my reasons? So often I present an argument only for you to simply bypass it and repeat your own point with another angle.
Do you know what my reason is for saying the questioners are a third party? Can you sum it up?
Do you know why I have resisted the claim that the verse speaks of a “rivalry” against Jesus? Can you repeat my argument and then rebut it rather than simply ignore it?
Do you understand “confirmation bias” and question begging? Can you demonstrate that your argument is not guilty of those fallacies? I am a little frustrated, I guess, that you keep ignoring my rebuttals and simply re-argue your case from another perspective :-/
Sure. Your entire counter-argument is based on this presumed fact:
Two groups of disciples are described and an anonymous “they” asks about those two groups in relation to Jesus.
But the verse, translated verbatim, says:
Καὶ ἦσαν οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάνου καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι νηστεύοντες. καὶ ἔρχονται καὶ λέγουσιν αὐτῷ
And were the disciples of John and the Pharisees fasting, and come and say to him
It is too much clear that the subject of ‘come and say’ are precisely them: John’s disciples and Pharisees. If you don’t agree, then ok, well, I would give up to continue the discussion on this point if even about the basilar premise we can’t find an agreement. It is one of there rare times I invoke the art of agreeing in disagreeing.
You still ignore the reason, the logic of the sentence, that I have set out repeatedly for my argument, for why it cannot be the disciples of John and disciples of Pharisees asking the question and why that passage does not point to rivalry. Unless you engage with my argument we are not having a genuine discussion.
Even if your translation is correct (though I suspect it is misleading) it still leaves my point standing that you are reading into the text a kind of rivalry that is simply not there and even out of place in that context — but you keep ignoring the rebuttals I have made repeatedly now. That’s badgering me into agreeing without discussing head on the criticism I have raised.
Unless you demonstrate that you have addressed my criticism of circularity or question begging, and my point about reading into the passage an issue that is not found in the passage itself, and the problem of trying to explain why it is not there by appeals to the mind of the author, we are not making any progress.
I see a contrast between Jesus and he two allied groups. You may say (simplifying) that the John’s disciples allegorize the OT while Jesus allegorizes the NT, but where do you place the Pharisees in this contrast (that is not still a rivalry)? It is the strange alliance between John’s disciples and Pharisees in function anti-Jesus that has to be explained. If the latter are recognized enemies of Jesus, then so also the former should be considered such, since they figure clearly here on the same page of the pharisees (anti-Jesus). At this point, probably you would answer that the Pharisees are innocent in this particular episode. It is there where I can’t follow your view. The Pharisees are always described negatively in a gospel. It is only in the Lukan scene of the boy Jesus in the temple or in the episode of Joseph bar Arimathea that they are described positively.
Please go back over my earlier responses. You are not engaging with my reasons for finding your interpretation problematic.
Instead of opining what you think I “would probably” say, why not engage with the words I have actually said 😉
The author of Matthew’s edit for this passage (Mt 9:14) makes John’s followers the questioners and eliminates the two-part structure. From this, I take that the ambiguity was apparent (and problematic) to the author of Matthew.
Of course, a somewhat unclear antecedent can be nothing more than bad style – but a slip-up can create opportunities for edits later.
Or given Matthew’s penchant for changing Mark to produce a gospel that had a different theological thrust, could it be that the distancing of the disciples of the Pharisees from those of John had more to do with Matthew’s otherwise trenchantly anti-Pharisaical view? I’m thinking of Matthew 23.
My, my, my. This discussion has devolved from dueling Gospels to dueling episodes within a single Gospel. All for what? The essential problem, as Earl Doherty has often tried to get across, is “the scholarship” which keeps trying to find “history” in essentially allegorical fictionS based on a “new interpretation” of supposed “prophecies” in the Septuagint.
Mike has written in the comment more above:
From this, I take that the ambiguity was apparent (and problematic) to the author of Matthew.
What the anti-marcionite Matthew has wisely removed is the association of Pharisees and John’s followers behind the questioners of Mark: if only the John’s disciples are the questioners, then the question is innocent: why shouldn’t it be?
The problem would arise if the question would see united and allied both Pharisees and John’s disciples: who is allied of the Pharisees in a tendentious question addressed to Jesus becomes ipso facto an enemy of Jesus. My point is that this result is not wanted by Mark: it is a trace survived against the Mark’s will from the Mark’s source, i.e. the only Gospel where John the Baptist is unambiguosly an enemy of Jesus: *Ev.
I have been reading your posts for some time, so it is about time to make a comment and show some appreciation for what you do.
Seven posts supporting a contention that an interpolation is plausible is certainly a lot of effort to get to a rather mild conclusion, so I will vote it up to being ‘more than likely’ after reading your defense of Rivka Nir!
It is a painful conclusion, as despite my mythicism sympathies, having to reject ‘certainties’ is still painful. I had assumed the Origen quote at least put the interpolation in the 2nd century, which created interesting possibilities, but now I see we don’t even have that!
So what maybe could I add to this?
The Valentinian belief system came to mind on this, and how they considered Baptism as like a very preliminary rite that led someone to being a ‘Chrestian’, but the rite of anointing being the process to becoming a ‘Christian’.
The Gospel of Philip is (according to Martijn Linssen) the only writing that contains both words Christian and Chrestian and thus differentiates the two.
If I think back to what you were reporting about ‘Righteousness’ being like a trait associated with belonging to a religious sect, it would seem that ‘Righteousness’ as an identity might translate to being a ‘Chrestian’?
Did the Catholics adopt the Valentinian understanding and decide that anointing was the new ‘righteousness’ to belong? like in Acts where Apollos needs to be upgraded to Christianity 2.0!
Thanks for commenting. Yes, as for learning to live with uncertainties, that’s what I’ve had to learn to accept the more I read and learn. Reminds me by the time I finished my post-grad education degree, I looked back and realized that after all of those years I had finally to admit that I knew less about education than what I (thought I) knew before I started. (Someone on another forum said he believed I was a contrarian simply for the love of embracing extremist or most-odd views. Far from it– I simply am learning that there is less and less we can know for certain. But I do insist on applying the methods of normative historical research into areas where bibical scholars and theologians have claimed to be their preserve.)
I have been meaning to post for some time about a classicist’s take on “Chrestian vs Christian” and your post has given me a reminder to get back to it. So many things to cover, but the more I read the more I want to write while at the same time I keep adding to the “to write about” pile on my desk.