John the Baptist
One of the clearest of the Gospel Trajectories is the steady diminution in the role given to John the Baptist, especially the spiritual superiority of John which is implied in his baptism of Jesus. John baptizes Jesus straightforwardly in Mark (evidently as part of a group), but in Matthew, he declares himself unworthy to baptize Jesus. In the final version of Luke, the baptism is mentioned but not described, and in John it does not take place at all. Tracing this developmental trajectory upward, we find that the stronger role for John is earlier, and thus the more likely to be historical. This implies that Jesus was at first closely involved with John, Other signs confirm this, and further imply ongoing contact between the posthumous John and Jesus movements:
- It is only with the arrest of John that Jesus begins preaching (Mk whereas the Gospel of John makes John and Jesus preach simultaneously in the vicinity of Jerusalem).
- Jesus at first (Mk 1:14-5) preaches a gospel of repentance and forgiveness, indistinguishable from the same text's description of the preaching of John (Mk 1:4).
- Mark's narrative of the death of John (Mk 6:17-29) is highly atypical of Mark's style, and is most readily understood as a borrowed piece of Johannine propaganda: John's captor Herod is shown as interested in John's teachings, exactly like the governors before whom the captive Paul is brought in Acts. This rather lurid tale probably originated in the John movement, as an apologia for his execution.
- Someone demands to know why Jesus's disciples do not fast as the John disciples do; he answers that they will do so after his death (Mk 2:19-20). This is a specific, uncoded prediction that the Jesus movement, when it redefines and consolidates itself after Jesus's death, will adopt, or revert to, an original Johannine practice (for fasting in the early Jesus movement, see Didache 8:1).
- The Lord's Prayer is given in response to a request by Jesus's disciples that they "teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples" (Lk 11:2).
It has further been suggested that several passages in the Synoptics are influenced by pre-existing texts of the John movement. For example:
- Boismard finds that the Magnificat of Mary (Lk 1:46-55) would be more appropriate if spoken by the older woman, John's mother Elizabeth. It is in any case obvious that the story of John's conception and birth is far more elaborately presented than that of Jesus; the Lukan story thus has a pronounced Johannine narrative cast. An original Elizabeth story may be behind Luke's text, and an original story of John's miraculous birth may be have inspired the same claim for Jesus (first made in Matthew; Luke's birth narrative is part of Luke B).
This line of inquiry seems to us a highly promising one. What is needed is more information about the beliefs and practices of the John movement itself. For the intriguing possibility that an aberrant Johannine sect (the Mandaeans, who still exist in Iran and Iraq at the present time) preserves among its traditions some which go back to a Johannine beginning in the 1st century, see the Mandaeans page.
25 Nov 2011 / Contact The Project / Exit to Alpha Index Page