2.34 The Problem of John the Baptist
History in the Bible
Garry Stevens
4.6 • 693 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2019
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
Jesus' identity as Son of God is revealed at his baptism by John, an old-style prophet who promotes Jewish ritual washing. Did John recognise Jesus at this event or not? The gospels differ. They regard the Baptist as a problematic figure, and treat him enigmatically. The synoptic gospels downplay him. The gospel of John (the apostle, not the Baptist) takes him over.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Gide. I'm Gary Stevens. And welcome to the second series of the History in the Bible podcast. |
| 0:13.1 | More of the history in more of the books in all the Bibles. |
| 0:19.9 | Episode 2.34 |
| 0:22.0 | The Problem of John the Baptist |
| 0:25.1 | The Birth and Infancy Stories told by Matthew and Luke |
| 0:31.1 | are prologues to Jesus' life. |
| 0:35.3 | Mark and John don't bother with that overture. They launched straight into the first act. |
| 0:42.8 | In all the Gospels, the first event of Jesus' adult life is his encounter with John the Baptist. |
| 0:51.5 | In the Orthodox tradition, his usual title is John the Forerunner. |
| 0:57.0 | In the Catholic tradition, he is sometimes known as John the precursor. |
| 1:02.0 | Modern scholars are in an unusual and universal agreement that this encounter is one of the most certain things we know about Jesus' life. |
| 1:13.6 | In all the Gospels save one, Jesus is baptized by John. |
| 1:19.6 | This seminal event in Jesus' life is colossal, bigger than colossal. |
| 1:26.6 | I cannot emphasize how stupendous this event is. |
| 1:31.3 | For at Jesus baptism, God delivers a cosmic pronouncement. |
| 1:36.7 | Jesus is his son. |
| 1:40.1 | For all the significance that the Gospels attach to John, they present him in enigmatic and |
| 1:45.8 | contradictory ways. He is a problematic figure that the Gospel writers don't quite know |
| 1:52.4 | how to deal with. The other New Testament writers ignore John, apart from one brief aside |
| 2:00.0 | in the book of Acts. The Baptist appears in none of the letters, |
| 2:04.8 | nor in Revelation. You get the feeling that if the gospel writers had their druthers, |
| 2:12.9 | John the Baptist's subplot in the Jesus biopic would have been left on the cutting room floor. |
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