Gospel rhetoric and the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus

End Times and Exaltation

The fourth gospel begins with a prologue that exalts the transcendent nature of Jesus the Christ who was present with Gd in creation as the Word and now dwells on earth. New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman describes this as a “mystical reflection” (Ehrman 2004). In their Jewish Annotated New Testament (JANT to us readers), editors AJ Levine and Marc Brettler describe the prologue as introducing Jesus, “in cosmological terms” that “[echo] the opening of Genesis” (Levine & Brettler 2011). In short, the Johannine gospel begins on its own terms, distinct from the Synoptics (Mark, Matthew, Luke).

And yet, Ehrman holds that this gospel, “clearly belongs in the same Greco-Roman genre…perceived by an ancient reader as a biography of a religious leader” (op. cit.) We’ll see also that the author of the fourth gospel may be repurposing the Markan gospel, shaping the Markan content to satisfy the Johannine community’s theological purposes. In the end, I’ll present evidence to suggest that John’s (the baptist) historical message was influenced by direct engagement with the Essenes/Qumran community, and John saw himself as the eschatological herald; in effect, a Jewish, end times preacher.1 This is the historical John (the baptist) who we encounter in the gospel accounts. It was early Christians (early, in the tradition of Christianity; later than John the Baptist’s life, chronologically) who systematically subjugated John to Jesus, diminishing the ways that John saw his own role, and in its stead, lifted up Jesus over and above John. The exalted Jesus of the fourth gospel provides a clear analysis of this rhetorical move. Along the way, we will engage lightly with the Johannine community and wonder whether their reported synagogue expulsion has any historical basis.

Analysis without Apologetics

I frequently caution against historicizing sacred literature, and I will bear that caveat in mind here. And yet, the author of the fourth gospel presents at least some historical veracity in their presentation of Judean law, custom, and geographical topography, with an admixture of fact and symbolism. For these reasons, and others, New Testament scholar Paula Fredriksen considers the fourth gospel to offer a more historically compelling account of the events and itinerary of Jesus’ life and ministry than do the Synoptics (Fredriksen 2018).

I do not suggest that we take John’s gospel as historical. I don’t even think the author of the fourth gospel intended for his readers/hearers to do that! But I do think the historical details we can piece together from what we know about the first and second centuries CE in Roman occupied Judea can inform our understanding of the rhetorical aims of Jewish sectarian groups following the Temple’s destruction, including the Johannine community and their opposition to other Judean religious authorities–the target of Johns author’s: “The Jews” and also Pharisees.

Today’s post describes how early Christian communities, particularly the Johannine community, portrayed Jesus, with respect to a well-known end times preacher: John the Baptist. We find ourselves once again at the intersection of Jewish apocalyptic traditions and an emerging Christianity. My invitation is for Jewish people to see their traditions (again) repurposed by the gospels, for Christians to take a closer look at the development of their traditions, and for those outside of either tradition to have a view into how religious rhetoric develops.

A Note on the “Antisemitism” in the Fourth Gospel

I’ve elsewhere sloganized my project as “Christian texts; Jewish context.” However we put things, a core conviction that I hold is that theology ought always develop downstream from a fair treatment of the text. To take later theological development and impose that “backwards” onto the text does a disservice to the literature itself. The authors of the scriptures undeniably saw themselves as arguing for cultic and theological positions, but analyzing the positions for which they argued must make use of the raw materials that were available to those authors in those historical settings, and not to conclude that the authors availed themselves of modern theological or cultural concepts.

It simply is the case that the author of John’s gospel characterized an exalted Jesus of high christology that shared in some union with the Holy One that the Jesus of John’s narrative wishes for his followers to join in union with him. We are welcome to discuss these concepts, without then accepting them as binding on ourselves.

Further, despite the perceived rhetorical antisemitc rhetoric of John’s gospel that has tragically fueled material Christian antisemtism over generations, it should never go unsaid that ethnically, or ethno-religiously, John’s author’s rhetoric is not a racialized antisemtism but is a technical term employed by the author to distinguish their community from “The Jews,” certain religious leaders, ostensibly from Judea, that disagreed with core commitments of the Johannine community.

As the introduction to the Gospel According to John appearing in the JANT makes clear, the Johannine community saw themselves as separate from a broadly accepted Judaism in at least some salient ways. This community of both Jewish people and non-Jews sought to create their own identity, and the antisemitic rhetoric is couched in differences over belief (not race/ethnicity). When we read reference to “The Jews” in John’s gospel, we should always hold in mind a restricted reference to Judean authorities. The Greek itself, Ioudaios, loses its nuance when English translations simply gloss this term as “The Jews.” To read modern antisemitism into the ancient context will muddy the waters. No one in the first century is confused about Jesus’ identity as a Torah observant, first century Jewish man.

The Text: John 1.6-8; 19-28

Following the prologue, today’s assigned gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary (John 1:6-8; John 1:19-28) begins:

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light (John 1:6-8; my emphasis added).

And soon thereafter:

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”

These are the core passages that we’ll treat in this post.

John the Baptist: Witness or Forerunner?

To understand John’s (the baptist) role with respect to Jesus, we begin by understanding John’s ministry, namely, his background in the Qumran community and the competition between his followers and followers of Jesus, both during John’s and Jesus’s lifetimes and after their deaths (Marcus 2021).

John was operating in the same general geographical area as the Qumranians, and he shared many characteristics with them, not least of which is a water purity ritual, with heavy eschatological overtones (ibid). It seems both for John and the Qumran community, the application of Isaiah 40.3, either directing or explaining John’s presence and those of the Qumran community to call home the Judean Desert (Marcus 2021):

Isaiah. 40.3:

A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord;

    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Marcus (ibid.) concludes that “John likely began his career at Qumran, but he eventually broke away, having something to do with his desire to spread his message more broadly in Israel and a changed view of the role of Gentiles at the eschaton. Most important, however, was his growing sense of his own central eschatological role.”

Whether formally affiliated with the Qumran community or not–I’m personally persuaded that John was within the Qumran tradition–the prophetic characterization of John the Baptist is not restricted to Isaiah. Marcus finds it to be possible that “John saw Jesus as the Elisha to his Elijah. On these grounds, we may find John emulating the Elijah of the prophetic tradition, as described in 2 Kings 1.8:

They answered him, “A hairy man with a leather belt around his waist.” He said, “It is Elijah the Tishbite.”

And now consider John’s description in Mark 1.6:

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

Marcus (ibid.) suggests the Markan description preserves a historical memory: “John was not hirsute [hairy], but he conformed himself as much as possible to the Elijah image he was cultivating by donning a hairy garment.”

The prophetic tradition also undergirds the water ritual itself, prized by the Qumranians and John the Baptist: 

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

What is of special note about this passage from Ezekiel is the connection of ritual purity and a receiving of spirit. The account of John the Baptist, if connected with the Ezekiel tradition, which is present in the Qumran community, serves as precursor to later Christian development, for example, Acts 1.5:

for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

We already see the rhetorical move in process. Jesus baptizes with spirit? By the import of Ezekiel to Qumran and John, by extension, John did take himself to be baptizing in water and spirit. Why would Acts portray things differently? This turns in large part on the function of John the Baptist–a forerunner to the messiah? Or as the older who began a movement that Jesus joined, only to see the later gospel writers downplay John to exalt Jesus?

John Subjugated to Jesus

This donning of the hairy garment in the context of a duo John and Jesus, and Elijah and Elisha, reminds me so much of another duo: The Jacob and Esau story. Esau was apparently a hairy guy!

The first [child] came out [via birth] red, all his body like a hairy mantle, so they named him Esau” (Genesis 25.25).

Two chapters later, when Jacob conspires with Rebekah to rob Esau of his birthright from Isaac (the younger taking from the older, hmm!), the following transpires:

But Jacob said to his mother Rebekah, “Look, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a man of smooth skin. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse on myself and not a blessing.” His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my word, and go, get them for me.” So he went and got them and brought them to his mother, and his mother prepared savory food, such as his father loved. Then Rebekah took the best garments of her elder son Esau, which were with her in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob, and she put the skins of the kids on his hands and on the smooth part of his neck. Then she handed the savory food and the bread that she had prepared to her son Jacob (Genesis 27.11-17).

There is Elijah and Elisha, and there is Esau and Jacob–hairy men (yes, it’s in my blood, my dear wife!), and we see how these tropes of emulating another may be a common practice in the Biblical literature—familiar to the gospel authors. Whether John the Baptist indeed donned such a hairy garment or not, there is strong biblical precedent for this being familiar to gospel readers/hearers. Would these connections signal to readers that the older John the Baptist would come to serve or exalt the younger Jesus? And if so, is this what John the Baptist had in mind? Again, Marcus op. cit.):

I argue, however, that this probably represents a revision of John’s actual view. If John’s predecessors (Ezekiel and the Qumranians) linked eschatological water imagery and rites with forgiveness and the Spirit, and if his successors (the early Christians) did so too, then the linkage point between them, John himself, probably did so as well.

In short, John the Baptist may have viewed his own role more predominantly in Gd’s salvific program than the gospel writers credit him with. In the words of Otto Böcher, already in 1970 (quoted in Marcus), the Baptist “saw himself as a Heilsmittler, a channel of salvation; he did foresee a successor, but this successor’s role would be predominantly the secondary one of judgment.

The claim here is that John, historically, did not see his role as the forerunner to the messiah, but rather as an eschatological functionary himself, in the tradition of Ezekiel. This would require that we question the gospel rhetoric that clearly enunciates John as Jesus’ forerunner. Do we have any chinks in the armor of gospel rhetoric to advance this case? Consider these passages from the Synoptics:

Matthew 11:2-6

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” (my emphasis)

Luke 7:18-23

The disciples of John reported all these things to him. So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?” When the men had come to him, they said, ‘John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?’” Jesus had just then cured many people of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits and had given sight to many who were blind. And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight; the lame walk; those with a skin disease are cleansed; the deaf hear; the dead are raised; the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” (my emphasis)

These verses could be read to understand that John was not so convinced that Jesus was the messiah, despite the earlier gospel rhetoric, because here is John, near the end of his life, still wondering whether Jesus is the “one who has come” or should we “wait for another?”

The Fourth Gospel and Mark

Better characterizing John the Baptist’s historical role ought ot inform our understanding of the Jesus movement. John the Baptist and his interactions with Jesus are clearly instrumental to the early Christian communities:

The cultural memory of the early Christians is surprisingly convergent at this point: Q, the synoptics, and the Fourth Gospel place the Baptist at the narrative pole position; Acts raises John’s baptism to the state of an official starting point of the apostolic era (1:22, cf. 10:37), and in Christian self-understanding John becomes a principal character on all the stages between birth (Luke 1; Prot. Jas. 22–24) and death (Mark 6:17–29), pre-existence (Pistis Sophia 1:7) and descent (Gos. Nic. 18:2) of Christ (Backhaus 2011).

Several papers report evidence that John’s gospel author in fact drew from Mark’s gospel, “The author of the fourth gospel seems to be dependent on the material in Mark’s gospel, but thoroughly recasts in line with his authorial aims” (Merwe 1999). He continues, “Thus, the evangelist emphasises [sic] John’s role as a witness to Jesus, and downplays his role as a preparatory figure as he has previously downplayed John’s preparatory salvific role (ibid).

Merwe’s conclusion is buttressed by another account, from Corsar (2019), “Both Mark and John depict John [the Baptist’s] inferior status as compared to Jesus’ superior status (Corsar 2019).

On the interaction with Mark, Corsar (ibid.) explains:

The author of the fourth gospel seems to change the Markan material, as instead of presenting individuals coming to John the Baptist on the basis of their understanding of his role (Mark 1:5), the fourth evangelist portrays the Jewish authorities (Pharisees) seeking John on the basis that they do not understand his role (John 1:19-22).

Conclusion: A Witness for a Distinct Community

Our appraisal is consistent with the overarching rhetoric in the fourth gospel that “The Jews” do not understand who Jesus is. The argument we’ve analyzed here suggests that John the Baptist does not herald the coming messiah like the Synoptics do; rather, John witnesses so that others may come to believe. The fourth gospel characterizes a transcendent and exalted Christ that participates in a high christology. The beliefs of this community led at some point to expulsion from the synagogues, which would be symbolic of a sort of excommunication from Judaism; though, these are loaded terms that risk anachronism. In the end, the Johannine community employs its rhetoric toward distinguishing their beliefs from the common practices of Judean religious leaders, and in so doing, they both birth a new Christian movement and they perpetuate later antisemtism. From our perspective today, we suppose that this first and second century community had some idea that they were advancing the former and likely no idea that they’d contribute to the latter.

For us some two thousand years later, maybe we recover some of John the Baptist’s Jewish apocalyptic leadership, informed by the prophets and his engagement in Qumran. His inferiority to Jesus is likely a function of the gospel accounts. However we consider this material in light of personal beliefs, what John and Jesus share is their execution by Rome for daring to invoke a Holy resolution to the evils of militarized occupation. Religious or not; Christian or not; Jewish or not, may we find shared ground in a common call for peace and an end to occupation—whenever, wherever, whomever is suffering.

References

Backhaus, K. (2011). “Echoes from the Wilderness: The Historical John the Baptist”. In Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004210219_058.

Corsar, E. J. B. (2019). John’s use of Mark: a study in light of ancient compositional practices.

Ehrman, B. D. (2004). The New Testament: A historical introduction to the early Christian writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fredriksen, P. (2018). When Christians were Jews: the first generation. Yale University Press.

Levine, A. J., & Brettler, M. Z. (Eds.). (2011). The Jewish Annotated New Testament. OUP USA.

Marcus, J. (2021). “John the Baptist in History and Theology: A Summary.” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 19(1), 3-7. https://doi.org/10.1163/17455197-19010006.

Merwe, D. G. (1999). The historical and theological significance of John the Baptist as he is portrayed in John 1. Neotestamentica, 33(2), 267-292.