Did John Baptize Jesus?

The clear consensus of contemporary scholarship is that the baptism of Jesus by John is historically certain!  The Jesus Seminar printed Mark 1:9 in dramatic red in The Acts of Jesus, with the comment that few Fellows of the Jesus Seminar doubted that John baptized Jesus.  Here are some comments by a few scholars expressing the confidence they feel in the baptism of Jesus by John as historical event: "historically certain" (Lars Hartman); "one should not doubt the baptism" (Dale Allison); "a fact that commands almost universal assent" (James Dunn); "one of the firmest elements of the Jesus story" (Craig Evans); "as historically certain as anything in the gospels" (Bart Ehrman); "almost beyond dispute" (E. P. Sanders); "a basic historical fact" (Gerd Theissen).  If you are interested in seeing the literature, I can send you the bibliographical data.

 

            Of course, not everyone agrees.  The baptism of Jesus by John is described as myth by Burton Mack and Martin Dibelius ("myth": stories about Gods in a time and place not recognizable as our own time; hence it is not critical history).  Rudolf Bultmann, probably the most influential New Testament scholar in the twentieth century, describes it as a Christian legend about Jesus that emerged in the later Hellenistic church ("a story about holy people and religious heroes intended to be read for inspiration, instruction, and spiritual edification"; hence it is not critical history).  One can understand their reluctance to regard the story as a historical event.  Mark 1:9-11 clearly has the trappings of myth and/or legend: Jesus saw the heavens split asunder, he saw the Spirit descending; and a voice came out of heaven addressing him, "you are my beloved son."  Was it a vision and only available to Jesus?  (Compare Matt 3:17 where the voice addresses the bystanders.)  Did such events actually occur?  In truth, these kinds of happenings are not part of our common everyday world.

            What is the evidence for John baptizing Jesus?  Those who regard the baptism as historically certain are most persuaded by the criterion of embarrassment, that is to say, since it would cause the church a great deal of embarrassment to admit that Jesus was once the disciple of John the Baptist, it is hardly something that the church would have invented.  Those who doubt that it is historically certain raise a number of objections to its historicity. The obvious mythical/legendary character of Mark 1:9-11 for one.  For another, the Baptism of Jesus appears indisputably in only one late source (i.e., after 70CE): Mark 1:9-11.  In Matthew John has discomfort with baptizing Jesus, and Matthew never in so many words describes John as baptizing Jesus (Matt 3:13-17); In Luke John is put in prison before Jesus is baptized (Luke 3:18-22), and the baptism is not described as a baptism by John; in the Gospel of John, the Baptist only observes a spirit baptism of Jesus (that is, it is not a water baptism, John 1:29-34).  The reluctance of Matthew, Luke and John to depict Jesus as being baptized by John upon the confession of his sins is seen as evidence for the criterion of embarrassment (Mark 1:4-5).  But that criterion works as easily for the church in the latter first century as it has been claimed for the early first century.

 

            There is no evidence, however, that Paul knew of the baptism of Jesus by John, and early Christian baptism is not linked to the baptism of Jesus.  The baptism of Jesus, according to Q scholars, is not found in Q (a sayings collection thought to have been used by Matthew and Mark as a source for their gospels), and Josephus does not know a tradition of John baptizing Jesus.  There is only one source in the latter half of the first century that attests to the event—Mark 1:9-11.

 

            Whence then comes the supreme confidence that contemporary scholars have that John's baptism of Jesus is historically certain?  Likely they must be assuming that an incipient oral pre-Pauline Palestinian tradition of Mark 1:9-11 must have existed in some form prior to 70CE.  That might possibly have been true, but there is no evidence of such a tradition, and hence such a "hail Mary" argument is not probable.

 

            Bultmann did not address whether or not a kernel of history lies behind the legend of Mark 1:9-11.  But in describing it as a Christian legend that arose in the Hellenistic church and ruling out any chance that the legend was already circulating in the Palestinian church Bultmann seems to have made a de facto decision, which is that the baptism of Jesus by John as Mark 1:9-11 presents it is clearly not historically certain—perhaps it never even happened.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Charles W. Hedrick

Professor Emeritus

Missouri State University

Jesus Scrubbed

The military service uses the expression “scrubbing a list” when it is being checked for accuracy. To clean a list of errors, typos, inaccuracies, etc. one “scrubs” the list. I am using the term to describe a Jesus-Seminar-like exercise, which aims to determine in so far as is possible what in the gospels is left of the essentially historical Jewish man Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone “scrubs” Jesus: the gospel writers, Paul, translators, ministers, true believers and liberals, even historians! When a critical historian “scrubs” Jesus, however, his Jesus comes out as a radical figure having little in common with either the modern or ancient Christian church. In the first place, Jesus was not Christian but Jewish. The rituals with which he would have been familiar would have been those in Jewish tradition rather than in the Christian calendar. Jesus knew nothing of Christian baptism, Eucharist (Lord’s Supper), Christmas, Easter, confirmation, invitation hymns, ordained clergy, bishops, ordination, praying in Jesus name, etc.
     Jesus is represented as undergoing the Jewish rite of circumcision, of celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Dedication, Passover, observing the Sabbath, going to the synagogue and the temple, arguing with Pharisees about Torah (he knew nothing of the books of the New Testament). So how did we get Christian rites, theology, and celebrations out of this Jewish man? In part, it was due to the fact that Jesus was “scrubbed” by the evangelists in their narratives, and then by the later church. Their literary contexts and “Christian” spins of the oral Jesus traditions, which they received, made Jesus more amenable to the Christian Greek mentality.
     Most scholars accept that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer, but John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4-5). The Christian view (Paul) sees baptism as immersion in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Christ (Romans 6:3-4). Matthew, on the other hand, was bothered by the suggestion that Jesus might also be thought to have “confessed his sins” like everyone else when he was baptized by John, and completely eliminates this as a possibility by having Jesus explain to John why it was necessary that John baptize him (Matt 3:13-15). In Luke, apparently John does not baptize Jesus, for Luke writes that John was put in prison (Luke 3:19-20) immediately before the baptism of Jesus (Luke 3:21); this appears to be how Luke handled Jesus being baptized for the remission of his sin; he wasn’t baptized by John, but rather at a later time, and who baptized him is left unclear. In the Gospel of John, John’s baptism is not a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; rather John was baptizing so that Jesus might be revealed to Israel (John 1:31). The baptism of Jesus in John was a baptism of the spirit rather than a water baptism, which John only witnesses (John 1:30-34). On the other hand, in a strange passage John represents Jesus as baptizing others (John 4:1), but then in the very next verse (John 4:2) John actually denies that Jesus is doing the baptizing himself—a statement that contradicts John 4:1!
       The sayings of Jesus that pass historical/critical muster (if I can put it that way) do not offer guidance for living, talk about God or salvation, predict the future, warn about the end of the world, anticipate the foundation of an ecclesiastical institution that would last for 2000 years, establish a cult of a dying and rising God, or authorize the change of theology from a radical form of Judaism to an entirely new Greek/Roman religion. Here are three radical sayings that probably originated with Jesus of Nazareth; shorn of their literary contexts they appear to prescribe actions that are completely impractical and unworkable in practice in either the ancient or modern worlds:

Luke 6:27: “Love your enemies.” The seriously radical character of this saying is camouflaged by its literary context—by including it among other plausible but challenging acts one can render an “enemy”: do good, bless, pray. In this way the reader is led to believe that “loving your enemy” means something less than how one “loves” family, wife, parents, friends.

Luke 6:29: When struck on the cheek, offer the other; when someone takes your outer garment, offer your undergarment (which is worn next to the skin); put into practice this act would leave one nude without a stitch of clothing.
Luke 6:30: “Give to everyone who begs from you.” Follow this principle literally and how long do you suppose it would be before you find your savings exhausted, the bills piling up, and the mortgage long overdue.

      Another saying camouflaged by its literary context in all three synoptic gospels and the Gospel of Thomas is, “Pay both Caesar and God what is due them” (Mark 12:17). The oblique character of the saying is mitigated by the controversy story. In the context it comes across as an evasive answer by which Jesus avoids the trap laid for him by his interlocutors; in its literary context the saying is a shrewd quip allowing Jesus to best his interlocutors in the exchange. In itself as an oral survival from Jesus’ public career, however, it is simply ambiguous offering no clear guidance, since it does not specify the content of what is due the Caesar and what is due to God. One has to work that out for oneself with no help from Jesus. These types of sayings are characteristic of what most probably originated with Jesus. The literary contexts of the pronouncements in the gospels are not the actual social contexts of Jesus’ public career, but due to the evangelists. As a result, when the literary context is “scrubbed” we are left in general with sayings characterized by perplexing ambiguity or unrealistic idealism.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University