Envoy or Rival? The Christian Appropriation of John the Baptist

When Catholic missionaries first encountered the Mandaeans, they immediately dubbed them ‘Christians of St John’, thus perpetuating a misappropriation of John the Baptist and his disciples that dates back to the canonical gospels.

In the middle of the 16th century, a group of Catholic missionaries encountered a gnostic sect living in the region of Basra (now in Iraq) and Susa (now in Iran) that called themselves Nazoreans or Mandaeans. They claimed to have originated in the Jordan valley and to be disciples of John the Baptist. The missionaries immediately dubbed them ‘Christians of St John’, thus perpetuating a misappropriation of John the Baptist and his disciples that dates back to the canonical gospels.

This encounter was, in effect, a rediscovery of the Mandaeans, as they had first become known to Western Christianity in about 1290 when the Italian Dominican monk, Ricoldo da Montecroce, who travelled extensively through the Middle East on the orders of Pope Nicholas IV, encountered a Mandaean community in the desert area around Baghdad. Ricoldo wrote an accurate report of the Mandaeans’ practices and beliefs, however, that chapter of his book was somehow lost and went unnoticed until 1949.

It was not until decades after their rediscovery that the Church realised that the Mandaeans were not Christians. Consequently, they attempted a mass conversion and relocation of the entire Mandaean community, an effort which utterly failed and was abandoned in the 18th century.

Western scholars began to take an interest in Mandaean history and religion in the early 20th century, mostly because they hoped it would shine a light on the early history of Christianity. However, they found unfathomable contradictions between the Mandaeans’ own version of their history and their own belief in the historicity of the canonical gospels, leading to a great deal of contention and confusion over what the ‘correct’ history must be.

The Mandaeans become known in the west outside the tight circle of religious scholars when, as a result of persecution in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and the American invasion of Iraq, many were forced to flee to the west where approximately 80% of their community of about 50,000 now lives. (For more see Meet the Mandaeans, the Disciples of John the Baptist)

John the Baptist according to Josephus

While the Mandaeans might be a small and endangered community, they do have one advantage over Christians. They have historical evidence that their prophet, John the Baptist, actually existed. Unlike Jesus and his disciples, John the Baptist gets a genuine mention by the ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, in his book, Jewish Antiquities. (See Christ Mythicism: a theology for a rational world)

Josephus recounts that Herod Antipas, the Tetrarch of Galilee, was married to Phasaelis the daughter of Aretas IV, king of the Nabataeans, but when he fell in love with Herodias, who was both his niece and his brother’s wife, she agreed to marry him on the condition that he divorce Phasaelis. Unbeknown to Herod Antipas, his wife learned of his plan and fled to Machaerus close to the border of her father’s territory and from there was conveyed to his court. This news only inflamed the bad relations that already existed between Aretas and Herod Antipas over border disputes.

In 36 CE, Aretas invaded Herod Antipas’ territory and defeated his army, so Herod Antipas appealed to the Roman Emperor Tiberius for assistance. Tiberius dispatched the governor of Syria to attack Aretas. In fact, Tiberius was so angry about this incursion into Roman territory that he:

…wrote to Vitellius to make war upon him [Aretas IV] and either to take him alive, and bring him in chains, or to kill him, and send him his head. This was the command that Tiberius gave to the governor of Syria. [Jewish Antiquities 18.5.2 115]

However, before the invasion of Nabataea could be completed, news of the emperor’s death, on 16 March 37 CE, arrived and so it was abandoned.

While Herod Antipas blamed his defeat on betrayal by troops from his brother’s territory, his people had different ideas.

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God and was a very just punishment for what he did against John called the Baptist. For Herod had him killed, although he was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God, and having done so, join together in washing. For immersion in water, it was clear to him, could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body, and only if the soul was already thoroughly purified by right actions. And when others massed about him — for they were very greatly moved by his words — Herod, who feared that such strong influence over the people might carry to a revolt — for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise — believed it much better to move now than later have it raise a rebellion and engage him in actions he would regret.

And so John, out of Herod’s suspiciousness, was sent in chains to Machaerus, the fort previously mentioned, and there put to death; but it was the opinion of the Jews that out of retribution for John God willed the destruction of the army so as to afflict Herod. [Jewish Antiquities 18.5.2 116–119]

John the Baptist is not the only religious leader Josephus wrote about, but while he characterised many would-be Messiahs as troublemakers and charlatans, he had a particularly favourable opinion of John, believing that he posed no threat to Rome and was unjustifiably targeted by Herod Antipas.

Josephus does not give a precise date for the death of John the Baptist. However, for him to associate the two events, it must have been after Herod Antipas married Herodias in 34 CE, but before his army was defeated in 36 CE. In effect, therefore, Josephus gives us a date for John’s execution somewhere between 34 and 36CE, some 4 to 6 years after the date assumed in the gospels.

We can also see that, in distinguishing John’s teachings on baptism as that it was not for the forgiveness of sins, Josephus must have been aware of religious preachers who taught that it was. These other preachers may have been Christians or had similar beliefs to theirs. However, apart from making this comparison, Josephus makes no mention of Christians, and, unlike the gospel accounts, he does not associate John with Christianity in any way.

John the Baptist and his disciples

While Josephus records no connection between John the Baptist and Christianity, John plays a major role in the canonical gospels. His very presence there demonstrates that he was still an important figure when the gospels were being written even though it was long after his death. His disciples — whom we’ll call the Baptist sect — must have still been active and proselytising within the Roman Empire at the time. While some of their doctrines may have been secret, no doubt they also had teachings that they could preach publicly to attract converts, many of which would have been stories about John’s life and works.

As we saw in Meet the Mandaeans, the Disciples of John the Baptist, while the Baptist sect may have been subsumed into the Christian Church within the Roman Empire, one branch fled the Jordan valley and settled in Mesopotamia where they thrived and survived, despite sporadic persecution and suppression, until most of them had to flee to the West following the recent upheavals in the Middle East.

While the Mandaeans are monotheists, they do not believe in the God of Abraham, but, as Gnostics, reject him and worship a merciful and transcendent God they call the Living God. Amongst their vast sacred literature is a text known as The Mandaean Book of John, which records the birth and teachings of John the Baptist. While this is the same John the Baptist we find in the canonical gospels, the Mandaean portrayal of John is very different to the Christian version. This disparity raises questions about what influence the two versions of John had on each other.

The Book of John was not written until the 5th century CE at the earliest, long after the canonical gospels were written. Nevertheless, it recorded teachings and stories that had been conveyed orally for generations. This oral tradition would have originated in the teachings of John the Baptist which were still being preached within the Roman Empire at the time the gospels were being written and were thus accessible to the evangelists. So, while the evangelists might not have had access to The Book of John, their portrayal of John the Baptist was most likely based on a shared oral tradition. Meanwhile, the authors of The Book of John would have had access to the Christian gospel, either as a text or through the preachings of Christian missionaries.

There are two points in The Book of John that intersect with the canonical gospels — the birth of John the Baptist and the Baptism of Jesus. However, the Mandaean stories differ markedly from the Christian accounts. The Mandaeans tell another version of John’s birth, and their account of Jesus’ baptism can be read as a rebuttal or parody of the gospels. The latter, no doubt, was written in response to what the Mandaeans saw as the Christians’ mistaken beliefs. In the case of the former, the gospel account is most likely based on an earlier version of the story. (See Meet the Mandaeans, the Disciples of John the Baptist)

John the Baptist in the Gospels

John the Baptist is indeed a prominent figure in the gospels, but rather than allowing that he was the leader of a distinct sect unrelated to Christianity, the evangelists cast him as a mere precursor to and devotee of Jesus Christ. As such, the gospel accounts diverge significantly not only from Josephus’ historical account — both in their characterisation of John’s teachings and his role, as well in their version of his arrest and execution — but also from the beliefs of John’s own disciples.

Such contradictions indicate that the gospel accounts need not be approached as history, but rather as religious fiction, and rather than take them at face value, we can explore how the evangelists shaped the information they got about John from Josephus and the Baptist sect into the stories they told about him and what they intended to convey through those stories.

John’s Imprisonment and Execution

The major event where the gospels intersect with Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities is their accounts of the imprisonment and execution of John the Baptist. However, the version that we find in the gospels is a dramatic elaboration on Josephus’ account.

According to the Gospel of Mark [6:14–29], followed closely by the account in Matthew [14:1–12], Herod has John arrested because he is openly critical of Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias, which he believes to be unlawful. However, while Herodias holds a grudge against John and wants him killed, Herod wants to protect him because he believes he is a holy and righteous man. However, Herodias finds the opportune moment when Herod holds a grand banquet to celebrate his birthday. Herodias’ daughter greatly pleases Herod and his guests when she dances for them, so Herod promises her anything she requests. At her mother’s instigation, she asks for the head of John the Baptist. Unable to go back on his promise in front of his guests, Herod reluctantly does as she asks. John’s head is brought to her on a platter which she gives to Herodias. Meanwhile, John’s disciples take and bury his body.

While Josephus does not mention that John openly criticised Herod Antipas’ marriage, given his ethics, it is certainly plausible that John would have done so, and it may well have been the reason why Herod Antipas feared he might lead a rebellion against him. However, in Josephus’ account, it is Tiberius who demands a head, not Salome, and that head is Aretas’, not John’s. (Salome is not named in the gospels. We only know her name as it is mentioned elsewhere by Josephus.) Nevertheless, those details may have inspired this dramatic version of the story.

The gospel story is not entirely original, as it has roots in the Hebrew Bible. It closely follows an account found in the Book of Esther [7:1–10] in which Esther, who is married to the Persian King Xerxes, takes advantage of her husband’s drunken promise during a banquet, to have a courtier who is mistreating the Jewish people executed. Strangely though, the roles are reversed in Mark, as, in Esther, we have a virtuous queen exacting justice on an evil enemy. There seems to be no clear theological reason for this reversal, so we might allow that it is purely for dramatic purposes. Perhaps, just as in the case of the Crucifixion narrative (see Passion Play: Mark’s Passion Narrative as Allegory), Mark’s version of John’s execution may well have begun as a religious drama. In fact, to this day, the story of Esther is acted out during the Jewish festival of Purim. It may well have been adapted by Christians to their own ends.

As we saw in Meet the Mandaeans, the Disciples of John the Baptist, the Mandaeans do not record that John was executed, but rather that, after he baptised the human manifestation of the Knower of Life, his soul was taken up into The World of Light while his body became one with the River Jordan. Dr James McGrath, a scholar of Mandaeism, sees this denial of John’s brutal execution as a kind of collective amnesia in response to the trauma of his death. However, as fundamentally a Biblical scholar, Dr McGrath is assuming the historicity of the gospel account. The Mandaean account makes a bit more sense if we refer to Josephus’ historical account.

According to Josephus, John was taken to Machaerus, a fort on the borders of Judea, where he was put to death. Josephus gives no further details, such as when or how it occurred. This allows for the conclusion that perhaps not only did Josephus have no information about when or how, but also about whether or not. He may just have assumed that, as John was seen no more after his arrest, he must have been executed. For his followers, therefore, all they would have known was that John had just disappeared from their midst. This gave them the space to create their own narrative around his demise, be it that he went directly to heaven or that he will return someday.

Finally, the question must be asked, why do the gospels recount this story at all? It does not seem to be intrinsic to Jesus’ story or have much to offer in terms of Christian theology. While we do get a full account in the Gospels of both Mark and Matthew, Luke only refers to John’s execution in passing [Luke 9:7– 9], while John does not refer to it at all. However, as Kenneth Humphreys observes, the disciples of John the Baptist, who preached about ‘a real dead hero and martyr’, presented a distinct challenge to the early Christians. While John is a major presence in the opening chapters of the gospels, his early death removes him from the field, allowing Jesus to come out of his shadow and begin his own ministry and for the ‘fictitious life of Jesus [to be] overlaid on the real life of John.’

The Birth of John the Baptist

Josephus says nothing about the birth of John the Baptist, but it is one of the points where the gospels intersect with The Mandaean Book of John, although the two accounts are very different. (For more see Meet the Mandaeans, the Disciples of John the Baptist )

The only gospel account of the birth of John the Baptist is in the Gospel of Luke [1:1–79] Luke recounts how the angel Gabriel visits an elderly Jewish priest called Zechariah. He and his wife Elizabeth are childless, but Gabriel tells Zechariah that, despite being barren, Elizabeth will bear him a son who will ‘make a ready people prepared for the Lord.’ However, when Zechariah expresses his doubts, the angel decrees that he will not speak until the child is born. Six months later, when Gabriel visits Mary to announce the birth of Jesus, he also tells her that her cousin Elizabeth is pregnant. Mary immediately rushes off to visit Elizabeth, singing God’s praises on seeing her. When Elizabeth is delivered of her child, despite the disapproval of their neighbours, Zechariah agrees with his wife that he must be called John and so his ‘tongue [is] loosened’ and he prophesises that his son will be a prophet of the Lord of Israel. (See also A Tale of Two Nativities — Part 1: the Birth Narratives of Matthew and Luke)

The trope of God intervening to allow a barren woman to bear a son who will go on to be an important religious leader is a common one in the Hebrew Bible. Luke’s narrative of the birth of John the Baptist recalls that of Samson. His mother, who has long been declared barren, is visited by an angel who tells her that she will bear a son who will be ‘a Nazirite, dedicated to God from the womb. He will take the lead in delivering Israel from the hands of the Philistines.’ [Judges 13:2–5] A Nazarite is ‘one who vows to grow long hair and serve God’, which can describe the man John the Baptist grows up to be.

Elizabeth’s story also evokes that of Abraham’s wife, Sarah. When she is ‘past the age of childbearing’ she and Abraham are visited by three mysterious strangers. Their leader tells them that within a year Sarah will bear a son. Despite Sarah’s doubts, a year later she gives birth to Isaac. [Genesis 18:1–15, 21:1–7] (See also A Tale of Two Nativities — Part 3: the Meaning and Origins of Luke’s Nativity)

The Book of John also records that John’s parents were called Elizabeth and Zechariah and that they were both elderly. The name Zechariah means ‘God has remembered,’ while Elizabeth means ‘God’s promise’, so together, the names of John’s parents mean ‘God has remembered His promise’ suggesting that the Baptist sect taught that John’s birth was prophesised, certainly a common belief about important religious leaders. In The Book of John, his birth is foretold in visionary dreams granted to the Temple priests.

The Book of John also describes how Elizabeth defies the expectations of her community and insists on calling her son John. However, where Luke gives us no reason why she would do so, The Book of John makes it clear that, in giving him the name John, Elizabeth is signalling that her son will not be serving the God of Abraham, but the Living God.

Nevertheless, while Luke has retained these elements, I would also suggest he has recast them to apply to the God of Abraham rather than the Living God preached by John the Baptist. Mary’s song of praise, which was most likely sung by Elizabeth in the story’s original version, also references God’s promise and his remembering, though in Luke’s version, the song ascribes these to the God of Abraham.

He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors. [Luke 1:54–55]

Zechariah’s prophecy about his son, as written by Luke, also casts John as being sent by the God of Abraham, yet there are elements of his song that reflect the Living God:

… the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death… [Luke 1: 78–79]

Furthermore, while Elizabeth in The Book of John makes it clear her son will be devoted to the Living God, in contrast, Luke shows Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to be dedicated at the Temple where two elderly devotees prophesise that he is the saviour sent by the God of Abraham.

I would suggest therefore that Luke’s primary source for the story of John’s conception and birth was the story told by the Baptist sect, but that he has rewritten it extensively to deny the Living God and to replace him with the Christian concept of God and Jesus.

One element of Luke’s narrative that we can be sure did not come from the Baptist sect is Mary’s visit to her cousin Elizabeth, which makes John Jesus’ cousin. This relationship is never referred to elsewhere in the gospels, but it may have been intended as an explanation of how John knew about Jesus and his role. It also suggests that Luke was claiming or reflecting a close association between the Baptist sect and early Christianity.

I would suggest that the main purpose of Luke’s birth narrative is to cast John as a precursor to Jesus. Gabriel says John will ‘make ready a people prepared for the Lord,’ [Luke 1:17] while Zechariah declares that John will ‘go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him.’ [Luke 1:76]

However, the narrative conveys something of a contradiction. On the one hand, by making John older than Jesus, and having Mary rush off to visit Elizabeth, Mary, as well as her unborn child, are showing deference to John. On the other hand, by making Jesus’ conception of a much higher order than John’s — while John is conceived through God’s intervention, Jesus is conceived by God himself — Luke is giving John a lower status than Jesus’. Luke may be proposing that while Christianity owes a great deal to the teachings of John the Baptist, Christian teachings have superseded his.

John in the Wilderness

Luke ends his narrative of the birth of John the Baptist with a foreshadowing of his adult life:

And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel. [Luke 1:80]

Luke did not invent the child’s future, as it had already been described in the first gospel by Mark in his earliest mention of John, which Matthew repeats almost word for word [Matthew 3:1–4]:

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness … John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. [Mark 1:4–6]

This image also appears in The Book of John, where John is raised in a mythological wilderness:

…Excellent Ennosh took him [John],
and brought him to Parwan, the white mountain,
On Mount Parwan, where infants and children,
are raised on spring water,
until I became twenty-two years [old].
I learned all of my wisdom,
and perfected all of my words. [32:25–31]

The Gospel of John skips over these details, perhaps taking them for granted, but does give us a clue where this image of John in the wilderness may have originated:

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, ‘I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness: Make straight the way for the Lord.’ [John 1:23]

Nevertheless, while we can find an Old Testament reference that foretells this image of John, it does not mean that it is entirely fictitious or original. There were holy men living in the wilderness in that period, such as one described by Josephus in his autobiography:

… Banus lived in the desert, and used no other clothing than what grew upon trees, and had no other food than what grew of its own accord, and bathed himself in cold water frequently, both night and day, to purify himself …

In fact, Josephus himself joined Banus in the wilderness for three years.

While Josephus does not mention John’s life in the wilderness, possibly simply out of narrative economy, it is hinted at in The Book of John. It is possible, therefore, that, just like Buddha before him, John may well have retreated into the wilderness to contemplate until he reached enlightenment, or to put it into more scientific terms, until he arrived at a coherent conception of the relationship between the spiritual and material world, which he would then rejoin society to preach.

John is not the only person in the gospels who spends time in the desert. According to the three synoptic gospels, after his baptism, Jesus also retreats to the desert where he is tested by Satan. In fact, according to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus spends forty days in the wilderness where he ‘was with the wild animals,’ [Mark 1:13] after which he rejoins society and begins to preach his gospel. This reflects the forty years which, according to the Book of Numbers, the Israelites spent in the desert after escaping from Egypt. As Jesus is following John’s example, this also portrays John as a precursor to Jesus. It may also indicate that John was one of the models on which Mark based the figure of Jesus.

John the Baptist as God’s Messenger

The words spoken by John the Baptist in the Gospel of John hark back to the synoptic gospels. The Gospel of Mark begins with the words:

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way (quoting Malachi 3:1), a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’ (quoting Isaiah 40:3) And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness… [Mark 1:1–4]

In this opening passage, Mark invokes three Hebrew prophets.

In the Book of Isaiah (whose name means ‘Yahweh is salvation’), the prophet describes how God will make Jerusalem the centre of his worldwide rule through a Messiah who will destroy their Babylonian captors. Isaiah also speaks out for the disadvantaged and against corrupt leadership and believes that righteousness is founded in God’s holiness rather than in Israel’s covenant. The Book of Isaiah so closely reflects the themes of the New Testament, that it is often called the Fifth Gospel.

The passage Mark is referring to reads in full:

A voice of one calling in the wilderness ‘Prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ [Isaiah 40:3 –5]

The Book of Malachi (whose name means ‘my messenger’) is the last book of the Old Testament and was written to correct what the author saw as the lax religious and social behaviour of the Israelites during the Second Temple period.

The full verse from Malachi reads:

‘I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,’ says the Lord Almighty. [Malachi 3:1]

This, in its turn, is a reference to Exodus:

‘See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says.’ [Exodus 23: 20–21] (The word ‘angel’ derives from the Greek word ‘ángelos’ meaning ‘messenger’, also used to mean ‘messenger of the gods’.)

The Book of Malachi has been greatly influential in that it prophesises the return of the prophet Elijah.

See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. [Malachi 4:5]

Elijah (whose name means ‘Yahweh is my God’) first appears in the Book of Kings where he zealously defends monotheism at a time when many Israelites have wavered in their faith and are worshiping both the Israelite God and the Canaanite deity Baal. The quote from Malachi reflects a Jewish belief that Elijah will return to herald the arrival of the Messiah on Earth, and his name is invoked in many Jewish rituals.

As we can see, Mark’s opening words would evoke for his readers who are familiar with the Hebrew Bible — or its Greek Translation, the Septuagint — prophecies of the coming of a Messiah and calls for spiritual renewal, both central themes of the Christian gospel.

Matthew and Luke introduce John the Baptist with similar quotes to Mark’s, though Luke quotes two more verses of Isaiah, while neither includes the quote from Malachi. This is curious as both follow Mark in often associating both Jesus and John the Baptist with Elijah.

Elijah in the Gospels: John or Jesus?

Elijah himself makes a brief appearance in the gospels in an event known as the Transfiguration. In virtually the same wording all three of the Synoptic Gospels [Mark 9:2–13, Matthew 17:1–8, Luke 9:28–36] describe how Jesus takes his disciples Peter, James and John, up to a mountain top where he is revealed in all his divine glory flanked by Moses and Elijah, while the voice of God calls Jesus his beloved son. While Moses represents the Law, and Elijah the Prophets, both seem to be deferring to Jesus, so that, as Kenneth Humphrey puts it, this event ‘serves to make clear who is top dog in this assemblage of all-time greats.’ (Although the apostle John supposedly witnessed this great event, it is not mentioned in the Gospel of John, casting doubt on the claim that the author of that gospel was actually this John.)

The name of Elijah is invoked elsewhere in the gospels, as well, particularly in his aspect as a precursor to the coming of the Messiah, but who should be cast in that role is the question.

When Herod first hears about Jesus, he is alarmed. When he is told that some believe Jesus is Elijah, Herod fears that Jesus is actually John the Baptist — the man he has just had executed — raised from the dead. [Mark 6: 14–16, see also Matthew 14:1–2, Luke 9:7–9]

Jesus himself is intrigued by this question and asks his disciples who people say he is, and he is told: ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ [Mark 8:28 see also Matthew 16:13–14, Luke 9:18–19]

Mark lets his audience come to their own conclusions on this question. After the Transfiguration, as Jesus and his apostles come down the mountain, they ask him about Elijah. Jesus answers their questions, then adds: ‘But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.’ [Mark 9:13]

Matthew does not trust his readers to make the inference for themselves and follows his account of this conversation with: ‘Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.’ [Matthew 17:13] Matthew makes this point even more forcefully earlier, when John sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him if he is the Messiah. Jesus gives one of his cryptic answers about himself, but clearly states his feelings about John the Baptist, calling him ‘more than a prophet’, the messenger Isaiah predicted, the greatest man born of woman and ‘the Elijah who was to come’. [Matthew 11:7–15]

Luke makes sure that John the Baptist is identified as Elijah from before his birth, when the angel tells Zechariah that his son ‘will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah’. [Luke 1:17]

In the Gospel of John, the priest and Levites ask John point blank if he is the Messiah, and he denies it while in the Synoptic Gospels, John also ensures that his followers do not mistake him for the real Messiah. All the gospels follow John’s declaration in Mark: ‘After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’ [Mark 1:7–8 see also Matthew 3:11, Luke 3:16, John: 1: 26 –27]

So, as we can see, time and again, the Gospels follow Mark in insisting that it is John the Baptist who is Elijah, not Jesus; that John is just the precursor preparing the way for the real Messiah. It is as though Mark is trying to counter an earlier gospel in which Jesus is cast as the messenger and precursor rather than as the Messiah himself.

As Richard Carrier speculates, perhaps that earlier gospel also opened with Isaiah’s prophecy though referring to Jesus as the messenger. However, in his version, Mark inserted John to play the role of messenger while he promoted Jesus to Messiah. In doing so, Mark not only corrected what he considered mistaken beliefs about Jesus, but also denied the legitimacy and independence of the Baptist cult, while yet avoiding alienating them altogether by denigrating John himself.

John’s Teachings on Baptism

All the gospels follow Mark in introducing John the Baptist before Jesus begins his ministry. John is already attracting followers from all over Judea, who come to him to be baptised. However, the gospels do not entirely agree on what John is offering with his baptism.

Both Mark and Luke make it clear that John is ‘preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.’ [Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3] Both Mark and Matthew tell us that his followers ‘[c]onfessing their sins, … were baptised by him in the Jordan River.’ [Mark 1:5 and Matthew 3:6]. However, while Matthew does have John calling for the people to repent, he does not directly make the claim that John’s baptism will grant forgiveness of sin. Furthermore, in his gospel, John makes no connection between baptism and sin but says, rather, that ‘ …to those who believed in his name, [John] gave the right to become children of God…’[John 1:13]

These disparities suggest that while Mark and Luke were comfortable attributing Christian teachings to John the Baptist, Matthew and John were ambivalent about claiming that John taught that his baptism was for the forgiveness of sin, the very opposite of what Josephus tells us about John’s teachings:

For immersion in water, it was clear to [John], could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body, and only if the soul was already thoroughly purified by right actions. [Jewish Antiquities 18.5.2]

So, while it may well be that John’s followers confessed and repented of their sins before being baptised by him, the baptism he offered did not cancel out their sins. In fact, it is clear that John taught that a divine power could not just strike out our sins, but rather that we must atone for our sins ourselves by right actions.

It is only in the Gospel of John, that we see any reflection of John’s actual teachings about the Living God.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. [John 1:6–8]

These subtle differences again reflect the purposes of each gospel and their intended audience. All the gospels taught that John was merely a precursor to Jesus. However, Mark and Luke were writing for a predominantly gentile audience who might not have had the theological background to distinguish the subtle but fundamental difference between Christian teachings on baptism and John’s. They were free then, to claim that there was no difference. Meanwhile, Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience who would understand the difference, and so had to respect that understanding, while still claiming the superiority of Christian teachings. On the other hand, John was writing to rebut alternative theologies, so he had to appeal to members of the Baptist sect by acknowledging their vision of God, while also claiming Christian superiority even to the point of noting that Jesus and his disciples were baptising more converts than John. [John 4:1–2]

The Baptism of Jesus

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptised by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ [Mark 1:9–11]

This story can be seen as essentially an etiological myth, a narrative that explains and justifies a religious practice, rite or sacrament by giving it divine origins. At the same time, it plays a pivotal role in the gospels. It establishes Jesus as the Son of God, thus giving him divine status, a status reinforced later at the Transfiguration (see above) where, once again, God claims Jesus as his son. It also foreshadows the Crucifixion and Resurrection as, in baptism, one dies to one’s old life and is reborn in Jesus. (See Jesus and the Naked Man.)

Nevertheless, as sceptics have noted, this story also presents an embarrassing theological conundrum. Why would the sinless son of God need to be baptised for the forgiveness of his sins, and by a mere mortal at that? This contradiction was not entirely lost on the evangelists.

Unlike Mark, Matthew saw that there was a problem, but his workaround is rather obtuse:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. But John tried to deter him, saying, ‘I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?’ Jesus replied, ‘Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfil all righteousness.’ Then John consented. [Matthew 3:13–15]

Luke dodges John’s role in Jesus’ baptism by using the unattributed passive voice, writing only ‘When all the people were being baptised, Jesus was baptised too.’ [Luke 3:21] Meanwhile, John doesn’t even mention the baptism, only quoting John the Baptist who testifies that, on some unspecified occasion: ‘I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.’ [John 1:32]

On the other hand, from the point-of-view of the Baptist sect, there would be no contradiction as they believed that one’s ‘soul [should already be] thoroughly purified by right actions’ in order to receive baptism. Thus, as a man of right action, Jesus was the perfect candidate for John’s baptism. The Baptist perspective was compatible with the beliefs of some early Christians who held alternative beliefs to those preached by the proto-orthodox church, and which the church saw as far greater theological challenges, namely Adoptionism and Docetism.

Adoptionism was a belief held by many early Christians, in particular Torah-observant Christians such as the Ebionites. (See INRI: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews? — Part 1) They did not believe that Jesus was God’s son conceived by him on the Virgin Mary, but rather that Jesus was a human being conceived by Mary and Joseph in the ordinary way, but who was the most righteous of men because he followed God’s law perfectly. Therefore, God adopted Jesus as his son and designated him to be the perfect and final sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. God showed he accepted Jesus’ sacrifice by raising him from the dead and exalting him to heaven. One reading of the story of Jesus’ baptism is that this is the moment at which God adopted Jesus.

Docetism offered another interpretation of the baptism of Jesus: that the Jesus who walked into the Jordan was just an ordinary man, but the Spirit that descended on him was God in the form of a dove who entered Jesus’ body thus giving him divine powers. God left Jesus’ body as he hung from the cross leading him to cry out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

One aim of the Gospel of John was to counter such theologies. Not only did he skip the story of Jesus’ baptism, he insisted that Jesus had always been divine.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. [John 1:1–14]

Given these theological issues, one might ask why this story was included in the gospels at all. If the aim of the evangelists was to portray John the Baptist as merely a precursor of and subservient to Jesus, why tell a story in which Jesus is seen as a supplicant to John, humbly requesting a sacrament from him? Why include a story which lends itself to unorthodox interpretations?

I feel the key is in the idea that the story was acceptable to both the Baptist sect and Torah-observant Christians such as the Ebionites. Jesus goes to John for a baptism which proves that he is a pure and righteous man, then goes off and preaches his own version of God. This suggests to me that this story is claiming that Christianity is an off shoot of the Baptist sect, that it took John’s teachings and carried them forward into a new and better theology. Therefore, I would argue, this story was in the original gospel on which Mark based his gospel, and while he may have altered it to fit his own beliefs, he could not leave it out without alienating those early Christians he wanted to bring into the fold of Pauline Christianity. (See INRI: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews? — Part 2) He left it to later evangelists to deal with the fall-out.

Conclusion

So we are left to ask, what does all this mean? Why is John the Baptist in the gospels? Why do the gospels insist on his role as a precursor and devotee of Jesus? Why do they tell the story of Jesus being baptised by John? Perhaps the answer is in the Acts of the Apostles.

…Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ They answered, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’ So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’ ‘John’s baptism,’ they replied. Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. [Acts 19:1–5]

Paul comes across some ‘disciples’ who have been baptised by John but have not heard Christian teachings. So, whose disciples are they, exactly? Clearly, these are John’s disciples, the Ephesus chapter of the Baptist sect. On meeting them, Paul goes about undermining their faith in John and his practices. He manages to convince them that John meant them to follow Jesus and that John’s baptism is not as effective as Christian baptism, such that they allow Paul to baptise them into the Christian church. Paul is thus invalidating the Baptist sect so he can recruit its members.

This story shows us the purpose of including John in the gospels and his playing this role. It is to justify the suppression and absorption of the Baptist sect into the Christian church. And since the Baptist sect disappeared from history within the Roman Empire, they obviously succeeded.

© Pauline Montagna 2025

Read more reflections on Christ Mythicism

References

Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The battles for scriptures and the faiths we never knew, Oxford University Press (2003)

Dr Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt, Sheffield Phoenix Press (2014)

G.J. Goldberg, John the Baptist In the New Testament and Josephus

The Mandaean Book of John, translated by Charles G. Häberl and James F. McGrath (2019) Internet Archive

The Mandaean Book of John — Drs. James F. McGrath & Charles G. Häberl (2024) History Valley (YouTube Channel)

Kenneth Humphreys, Fabricating the Jesus Story: The Gospel of ‘Mark’ and Jesus: The Greatest Man Who Never Lived on his website Jesus Never Existed.