How can we know if John the Baptist in the gospels was a real historical figure? (This is not the same question as: How can we know if there was a real John the Baptist in history — as indicated by record in the writings of Josephus and the memories of the Mandaeans?)
The question came to mind when I read the article that Tim Widowfield introduced in the previous post:
- Joynes, Christine E. 2005. “The Returned Elijah? John the Baptist’s Angelic Identity in the Gospel of Mark.” Scottish Journal of Theology 58 (4): 455–67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003693060500150X
Joynes considers the way John the Baptist is portrayed through Elijah associations in the Gospel of Mark — his hairy clothing and leather belt, his time in the wilderness, his calling people back to God — and how at least one scholar has interpreted this as an indicator of a fictional scenario:
Goulder’s conclusion that the presence of typology indicates lack of historicity is not entirely convincing, since other criteria are required to determine issues of historicity . . .
[I]t is equally possible that John the Baptist really did dress in this way because of his ‘Elijah consciousness’ and that this fact was accurately reported by Mark. This illustrates that the presence of typology is not an adequate basis for determining historicity. Typology is possible within a fictional composition, but its presence does not constitute a fictional composition. (pp. 458, 460)
I believe there is a missing detail in Joynes’ argument. True, it is “possible” that John the Baptist really did consciously dress up like Elijah. But is it “equally possible” in this context?
The evidence we have before us clearly leads us to understand that the author had the Old Testament Elijah in mind as he drew his picture of John the Baptist. As Goulder indicates, the multiplicity and the distinctiveness or specificity of the parallels along with an evident motive for creating John the Baptist as an Elijah figure, lead the reader to suspect that the account is a literary invention, not genuine history.
That is one side of the ledger.
On the other, we have no details in the Gospel of Mark that take the reader’s vision away from the Elijah typology. Mark’s Baptist functions solely in the way the Old Testament leads us to expect: he arrives on the scene to call people to repentance before the advent of the divine presence, he is the victim of a spiteful royal woman who bends her husband to her will, and so on. There is no other career history for John the Baptist. He is entirely a foil to point to the divine supremacy and presence of Jesus. He has no role independent of Elijah.
So I don’t think we can say that it is “equally possible” that the Gospel of Mark’s John was a historical figure pretending to be Elijah — if we rely entirely on the evidence, which is nothing other than the portrayal of John the Baptist as the expected Elijah. The Gospel offers no evidence that John was anything but a typological figure.
Elsewhere, Michael Goulder does present an account that is a mix of typology and distinct historical actions.
The first book of the Maccabees is . . . both an account of historical events and also a book of theological tendency. Its description of the Maccabean rebellion is . . . designed to bolster the claim of the Hasmoneans to be the legitimate priest-kings of Israel. . . . [I]ts typologies are few and incontrovertible . . . (Goulder, pp 10f)
Goulder claims that 1 Maccabees is similar to the Gospels in that it is a mix of fiction and history. I consider that assertion questionable. 1 Maccabees is certainly a mix of fiction and history. It describes many acts of its leading characters that do not fit any particular outline of an Old Testament narrative. Its history is punctuated by episodes that unmistakably are “types” or clear reruns of Old Testament events. One example Goulder uses:
. . . a Jew came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice on the altar in Modein, according to the king’s command. When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal, and his heart was stirred. He gave vent to righteous anger; he ran and slaughtered him on the altar. At the same time he killed the king’s officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the altar. Thus he burned with zeal for the law, just as Phinehas did against Zimri son of Salu. (1 Maccabees 2:23-26)
which (as we are explicitly prompted) reminds us of . . .
Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, he went after the Israelite man into the tent and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the Israelites. Nevertheless those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf . . . (Numbers 25:6-11)
But read the remainder of 1 Maccabees 2 and you will find a quite different account, a narrative that evidently has sources other than the Bible itself. (Goulder is not making this particular point; he goes no farther than addressing typologies.)
That there are details that obviously derive from some other source, a source other than the Old Testament writings, leads us to consider the possibility that these details are based on historical memory of some kind.
Similarly with Josephus’s account of “false prophets”. Several of these figures remind us of biblical persons and events, such as the person who expected the walls of Jerusalem to collapse or the one who imagined the Jordan to open up. Here we have typology based on Joshua. Does this mean these persons are also non-historical? No, because when we think for a moment about the reason they appear in Josephus’s narrative, we immediately understand that the place they have in the larger narrative tells us that the author saw them as frauds, that they were part of a larger problem of public confusion and ignorance. They can be removed from the narrative and the author’s larger theme and point would not be the least affected.
That hardly means we have to believe they definitely were historical persons doing just what Josephus wrote of them. How did Josephus come to know of these people? What were his sources? But, given what we can see where his accounts can be tested independently, it is reasonable to assume that Josephus has an at least partially reliable source.
That is not the case with John the Baptist per the Gospel of Mark (or Matthew). Their source is entirely literary fiction and the narrative function of John is entirely part and parcel of the same older literary sources of the historical and prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible. We have nothing to justify a belief that those evangelists were writing anything other than a theological-literary fiction.
Goulder comes somewhat alongside this particular argument for assessing fiction over “historical fact” when he writes,
We may posit first that St Luke had some motive and source for everything he wrote, either a typological source and a symbolic motive, or a source in tradition and a motive of writing straight history, or both coinciding. Where, therefore, we find passages with no apparent root in symbolism, or with unimportant traces of types, we shall be justified in assuming that St Luke was setting down a factual story from his own experience or from the tradition of other Christians known to him, and with no other intention than to let posterity know what happened. This will be our first criterion: where there are no types, Acts is intended to be factual. . . .
It is when we find the typologies strewn more thickly that we run into difficulties. We can never be certain that type and fact did not coincide for any particular incident or detail. (p. 181)
True, we may rarely be certain. But if we opt to abide by the basic principle of Occam’s razor, we rely on fewer unsupportable assumptions if we stick with what the evidence at hand tells us. (Nor would we be soundly advised to follow Goulder’s either-or logic above.) Where the evidence informs us that the author has reworked a distant literary source, then we are justified in accepting that what we are reading is none other than a reworked distant literary source. We may, as we did when we were children, wish a tale about magic or fanciful characters were true, but as we got older we had to accept that we must be guided by the evidence alone.
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Nice to hear your ruminations again!
Regarding your earlier comment about John the Baptist and his role being possibly anti-Marcion.
Is there anything in Tertullian’s rants that might support this?
Also, do we know of any early Christian-like sects that may have elevated John the Baptist more? ie the Nasoreans?
Tertullian argues that John the Baptist was “of the creator” and stood in an anti-Marcionite role — given the context of his 11th chapter in the fourth book of Against Marcion.
Marcion’s gospel is understood to have included John the Baptist, but as a foil representing the Law and Prophets in opposition to Jesus’ mission, or at least marking the end of the old religion with Jesus bringing in the new. Marcion did not begin with a baptism of Jesus scene.
As for the Nasoreans/Mandaeans — the last time I looked into their history I came to the conclusion that their myths of origins cannot be traced back to “biblical times” — they arose considerably later, iirc.
Just checked it out – certainly Tertullian argues exactly as you say, but he seems rather vague on what Marcion’s depiction of John is. I guess we re-construct on the assumption that Tertullian is arguing against something, but he could be arguing against a straw-man also!
Thanks
“equallt possible” is weaker than “possible”, it means that it is so uncertain that you feel the need to support a weak argument. Like 101% certain is weaker than 100%.
I never thought it through like that. Thanks!
There may have been an attempt to identify John as fitting the Elijah type. Or he may actually have fit the Elijh type. How would we decide? Or why should we even care? It is not really a historical issue. It is theological.
The portrait of John in the Gospel of John does not make the connection with the Elijah type and is independent of the synoptic portraits. Josephus’ comments affirm the reality of John. Those two are sufficient to regard John as historical. His mission as the forerunner of the Messiah is what is at question in the synoptics. That is sufficiently affirmed by Jesus in Matt. 17:10-12. So, whether the Gospel writers are creating John as an Elijah type or if he looked and acted like an Elijah type historically – whatever that may mean – in retrospect it is almost a moot issue. It seems like straining at gnats.
What the point of the post demonstrates for me is that the Gospel of Mark’s John the Baptist is yet one more datum in support of the thesis that the orthodox Christian narrative originated as a “historical fiction” pieced together from OT passages — and this “historical fiction” came to be embraced as “historical truth”. Another point it demonstrates for me is that the orthodox teachings found a need to create a myth that preserved the importance of the Old Testament as part of their foundations.
All of that to me is a historical hypothesis worth investigating.
As for the question of the historicity of John himself, you overlooked my first paragraph.
As for not having any way of deciding if John really did consciously dress as Elijah, etc — again, please read the body of the post. If you disagree with the argument made about how we can reasonably know such a thing, then do address the argument that is made about how we can reasonably know such a thing.
Here’s another set of observations that may help us distinguish “fact from fiction”. The context is different, but perhaps the principles apply to our case here, The quote is from Nina Livesey (2026, 66f) and Livesey is citing Rosenmeyer:
I suggest when we compare all three points against the John the Baptist of Mark’s Gospel with the John the Baptist of Josephus, and again the John the Baptist across all four gospels, along with the timely note that JtB is the divine fulfilment of an “ancient” prophecy, then we have further markers of fiction in the gospel presentation.
The fact that Josephus says nothing about John styling himself as Elijah and moreover does not describe him as presenting any apocalyptic or Messianic message at all tells me that Mark was making that stuff up. On the contrary, Josephus says he was preaching nothing but that remission of sins could be had for repentance. Josephus has no problem with stating the Messianic pretensions for several others, including at least two who attempted to reiterate miracles of Joshua. He didn’t like false Messiahs but he has nothing bad to say about John. He says Antipas killed him merely because he was popular, not because of anything he was teaching. I don’t know where Mark is supposed to have gotten all this unique information that Josephus didn’t know about, especially when Mark shows abject ignorance of anything about 1st century Palestine and seems to have relied on Josephus (at least on BJ, possibly Life as well) as his only source.
It is beyond fallacious for Goulder to say that anything which is not typological of Hebrew scripture must therefore be historical. What? Is Goulder aware of the many typological allusions in Luke-Acts to HELLENISTIC literature? The purpose of Acts is to fabricate an imaginary accord between Paul and the Jerusalem church that probably never actually existed. It’s a mid to late 2nd century harmonizing church fiction which appears to be responding to Marcionism as well as attempting to establish a connection between the Roman church and the original Jerusalem movement and pretend that the Jerusalem Apostles accepted Paul’s revelation about the law (by creating fictional visions for Peter and James) which are absent from Paul’s own letters.
The fact that he calls the author “St. Luke” is in itself self-discrediting as far as I’m concerned. This is someone who naively clings to tradition and ignores evidence to the contrary.