The Woman with the Alabaster Jar

The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are referred to as the synoptic gospels (from synopsis, “seeing together”) because they present many of the same stories, frequently in the same sequence, and many times with the same words. This is not unexpected since most biblical scholars believe that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of the sources for their gospels. By way of contrast, however, even a casual reader of the NT will notice that the Gospel of John is markedly different. For example, in John’s Gospel there are no narrative parables, no exorcisms and few relatively miracles, and extended discourses instead of proverbial “sound bites.”

General Comments on the Passion Narratives

That said, the Fourth Gospel does start to track more closely with events in the synoptic gospels beginning with the arrest in the garden and continuing to Jesus’ burial. This suggests that a common tradition of Jesus’ passion (from the Greek, “to suffer”) was known separately to both Mark and John. This passion tradition probably was not a full-fledged narrative source, but more likely a collection of individual episodes that Mark and John each shaped to their purposes. A certain sequence – arrest before trial, trial before crucifixion, etc. – is inherent in the events being described and that is why the chronology is the same.

In the Revised Common Lectionary used by many Christian denominations, Passion (Palm) Sunday gospel reading rotates between Matthew, Mark, or Luke in a three-year cycle. The Good Friday gospel reading always comes from John. The reading from John starts with the arrest in the garden, but the readings from the synoptic gospels begin with the Last Supper. This is partly due to the fact that passages from John’s Last Supper are read on Holy Thursday, but also because the Last Supper is a more intrinsic part of the passion narrative in the synoptics than it is in John.

While each evangelist shows Jesus coming into conflict with religious authorities, it is in the days just prior to the Passover festival that a conspiracy to eliminate Jesus develops. According to Mark (14:1-2), the “chief priests and scribes” sought to arrest and execute him “by stealth” to avoid igniting a riot during the festival.

From Head to Toes

At this point, Mark turns to the story (14:3-9) of an unnamed woman anointing the head of Jesus with an alabaster jar of expensive ointment (made from real nard!) at the home of Simon the leper in Bethany. Upon hearing complaints that the money spent on the ointment – 300 denarii, equivalent to 300 days’ wages – could have been given to the poor instead, Jesus admonished them, saying the woman performed a good service in anointing his body prior to burial. (Words in italics are common to more than one version of the story.)

Jesus Anointed at Bethany by contemporary artist Anthony Falbo 

Matthew (26:6-13) also reports the story of the anointing in Bethany, but Luke does not because he already recounted a similar story earlier in his gospel (7:36-50). In Luke’s version, Jesus was at the house of Simon the Pharisee in Galilee, when an unnamed sinful woman washed his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and then anointed his feet with an alabaster jar of ointment. When the Pharisee complained that the woman was a sinner, Jesus tells a parable of two debtors, compares the reception he received from Simon with that of the woman, and then forgives her sins.

Luke seems to have conflated two separate stories involving Jesus and unnamed women. In one story from his private “L” tradition, a sinful woman washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and dries them with her hair. In the second story from Mark, the unnamed woman anoints Jesus’ head with expensive ointment just prior to his crucifixion.

What’s odd about Luke’s conflation of two stories is that John does the same thing! In his telling of the story (12:1-8), six days before Passover Jesus is at the home of Lazarus in Bethany. While Lazarus’ sister Martha served dinner, his other sister Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with a pound of expensive ointment (made from real nard!) and then wiped it off with her hair. Judas objects to the extravagance saying the perfume could have been sold for 300 denarii and the money given to the poor.

The tendency to blur the stories together continued in Christian preaching. The virtuous Mary of Bethany in John became muddled with the sinful woman of Luke and confused with Mary of Magdala. What is the most likely sin of a woman? Prostitution, of course. And so we end up with a tradition of Mary Magdalene as a reformed prostitute! (For more on what we know from the gospels of Mary of Magdala, check out my later article.)

Enter Judas

Returning to Mark’s chronology (14:10-11), after the anointing in Bethany, Judas approached the chief priests and offers to betray Jesus; they offer him money. Because Luke omitted the anointing scene, Judas’ offer of betrayal is part of the same unit with the plotting of the chief priests (Lk 22:1-6). Some scholars think Mark intentionally inserted the anointing at Bethany to separate this unit since that is his rhetorical style, sometimes referred to as Mark’s “sandwich technique.” He will start an episode, cut away to something else, and then return to conclude the episode.

Mark calls the betrayer “Judas Iscariot” and re-introduces him as “one of the Twelve.” Scholars have debated the meaning of “Iscariot” without any resolution as to whether it refers to a nickname, his place of birth, or something else. We really just don’t know. That he was one of Jesus’ inner circle was truly scandalous to the early Christians.

Mark provides no motive for Judas’ act of betrayal. Matthew said he did it for the money (thirty pieces of silver). In the story of the anointing in Bethany, John tells us (12:6) that Judas was the treasurer and would take from the purse. While Judas was simply greedy in Matthew, in John he was a greedy thief.

Luke provides a different motivation: “Satan entered into Judas.” This is an allusion to the end of the temptation episode (4:13) where the devil “departed from [Jesus] until an opportune time.” Well, he’s back! Curiously, John uses almost the same words in 13:27: “Satan entered into him.” So not only does John provide the mundane motivation of greed, but he also adds the Lucan motivation of demonic possession.

Next week we will continue our journey through the passion narrative with the Last Supper and the institution of the eucharist.

What's the Catch?

Let’s say that you are asked to write the screenplay for a movie about the life of Jesus. In your source material (the Gospel of Mark), Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee by calling the first disciples (Mk 1:16-20): Simon and Andrew, John and James. They were fishermen and he tells them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” And they left everything behind and followed him. After this, Mark records a typical day in the life of Jesus (Mk 1:21-39) where, on one Sabbath in Capernaum, he exorcises a man possessed by an unclean spirit, heals Simon’s mother-in-law as well as many others, and leaves town early the next day.

The sequence of events bothers you as a screenwriter because it doesn’t seem plausible that four fishermen would just leave their families and business behind to follow some stranger who happened to be passing by. You need to establish a motivation for the characters in your movie. So you transpose the Capernaum events to occur before the calling of the first disciples. That way, the audience will have seen there’s something special about Jesus. And you will also have Jesus perform a miracle for the fishermen – not just healings or exorcisms – to provide motivation for them to drop everything and follow Jesus.

Alternate Versions of the Same Event?

This is exactly what Luke did with his gospel. We have already discussed how Luke transposed Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth from later in Mark (6:1-5) to the inauguration of his public ministry. Luke follows this with his version of Mark’s events in Capernaum (Lk 4:31-44). Only then does Luke recount the calling of the first disciples (Lk 5:1-11). He uses Mark’s call of the first disciples – along with 4:1-2 – as a frame, but uses his special “L” material as the centerpiece.

The story of the miraculous catch of fish is not in Mark, but it does have similarities to a post-resurrection story found in John (21:1-14). In the Johannine account, the disciples – among whom were Simon Peter and the sons of Zebedee – had returned to their old jobs as fishermen. Having caught nothing all night, a stranger on the shore suggested they cast their net over the right side of the boat and they caught so much fish, they couldn’t pull it into their boats and had to drag it ashore. Only then did they recognize the stranger on the shore “was the Lord.” This story in John is immediately followed by its sequel (21:15-23) in which Jesus twice tells Simon Peter (vv. 19, 22) to “follow me.”

Just like in John’s version, in the Lucan account, Simon and the sons of Zebedee had fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus directed them where to cast their nets and they brought in an extraordinary haul of fish, so much so their nets were near breaking and the boats almost sinking. Simon Peter reacts by saying, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Jesus responds, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” And then we rejoin the Marcan frame with the disciples leaving everything behind to follow Jesus.

“You’ve seen the catch, now here’s my offer: Follow me.” The Miraculous Draught of Fishes (1545) by Jacopo Bassano

Internal Clues

There are obviously some differences between the two stories – Jesus on the boat in Luke, on the shore in John, for example – but they have similar DNA. Biblical scholars believe that we’re looking at one miracle story that was recalled slightly differently in the sources available to John and Luke.

One clue is Simon’s name in v. 8. This is the only time in Luke’s gospel that he is referred to as “Simon Peter.” Otherwise, Luke calls him “Simon” prior to Jesus giving him the name “Peter” in Lk 6:14. In John’s “fish catch” story he is consistently referred to as “Simon Peter,” so Luke is probably reflecting his private source (“L”) in using the double name.

So is it a miracle story from Jesus’ ministry (Luke) or a post-resurrection encounter (John)? Again, scholars believe that the internal evidence in Luke’s story points to it being a post-resurrection story, and a key point is Simon Peter’s reaction in v. 8.

Faced with the miraculous catch of fish, a natural reaction might be gratitude for the catch or awe at the magnitude of haul. Instead, Simon falls to his knees in front of Jesus and says, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” The fear, the feeling of unworthiness, and addressing Jesus as “Lord” are consistent with a post-resurrection context in which Peter had previously denied Jesus and feels guilt or shame. Jesus’ reassuring words of “Do not be afraid” are almost standard in post-resurrection appearances.

The events in Luke’s account take place in a boat, so when Simon tells Jesus to “depart from” him, it is not clear how he expects Jesus to do that. However, it would make sense if the original setting took place on land and/or Peter had just recognized the risen Jesus.

Combine this with a setting in which the disciples had returned to fishing in Galilee and the focus on a missionary call specifically to Peter, and perhaps the core of this story is the first post-resurrection appearance to Peter. If this hypothesis is true, the point of the story would be to explain the rehabilitation of Peter after his denial of Jesus and confirm his apostolic mission.

Catchers of Men

Note how Luke changes the challenge of Jesus from “you will be fishers of people” in the Marcan account to “you will be catching people” in the Lucan version. One obvious reason is the grim fate of the fish brought up in the nets. The words usually translated as “catching people” literally means “taking people alive.” Luke wants to put a positive spin on the commission.

The fish are symbolic of the success the disciples will have in bringing in followers. Despite their skill, the disciples cannot do it alone, but with the power of Jesus behind them their achievements will surpass their wildest dreams.

Our Homeboy Jesus

If you have ever watched one of those movies “based on a true story,” you may have noticed a disclaimer in the end credits that goes something like this:

This is a dramatization inspired by certain actual events. Some of the names have been changed and some of the events, dialogue and chronology have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

It’s a fact of life that the motion picture medium is different from the written word. An author can explain background at length on the printed page in ways not available to the director in a two-hour movie. So the script writer will reshuffle events and combine characters to tell the story in a fashion that will be intelligible to an audience who has little or no familiarity with the original events.

Inspired by Actual Events

Luke takes that approach with the Third Gospel. It opens (1:1-4) with an acknowledgement of the existence of other gospels (“many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events”) and explains “I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account.” He will incorporate the pre-existing material into his own work, but Luke feels he has a free-hand to shape the material to suit his theological needs because his sources did the same.

Biblical scholars know that one of Luke’s sources was the gospel of Mark. We’ve seen how Luke follows Mark’s structure in beginning his account of the public ministry with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism, followed by Jesus being tempted in the desert. Here is where Luke departs from Mark’s chronology. After the temptation in the desert, Mark announces the arrest of John the Baptist and Jesus’ return to Galilee (Mk 1:14). Over the course of the next few chapters, Mark documents the calling of the first disciples and various healings and parables. It is not until chapter 6 that Mark recounts Jesus’ return to Nazareth where he is rejected (6:1-6). Matthew follows Mark’s chronology and doesn’t report Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth until halfway through his gospel (13:54-58).

In contrast, Luke goes his own way in placing Jesus’ rejection in Nazareth (4:16-30) as the kickoff of his public ministry. Why? One reason seems to be that Luke wants to use this scene to highlight two themes of his gospel: Jesus as fulfillment of the OT and Jesus as the “sign to be contradicted” promised in Simeon’s prophecy (Lk 2:34). A second reason is that it portrays Jesus as “teacher,” another favorite theme for Luke (Jesus is described as “teacher” 13 times in the gospel).

Fictionalized for Dramatic Purposes

Luke takes the barebones of the Marcan account (“he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished”) and fleshes it out with details: Jesus stood up to read, was given the book of Isaiah, reads the passage (a composite of Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6), gave the book to the attendant, and sat down with all eyes fixed upon him. ). In the synagogue, the reading of Scripture would be done standing while the interpretation would be done while seated. Luke builds the tension as the audience – both in the synagogue and readers of the gospel – wait to hear Jesus say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Initially, his audience seemed impressed and ask, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” One gets the impression of “hometown boy makes good.” After this, though, the episode gets a little incoherent.

In the Marcan source, the reaction of the Nazarenes is more along the lines of “who does he think he is?” They call him “the carpenter, the son of Mary” and take offense with him. That’s when Jesus says, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.” The implication is that his immediate and extended family also rejected him (in Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ family thought he had lost his mind) and Jesus marveled at the lack of belief in Nazareth.

The rejection in Nazareth makes sense in the context of Mark (and Matthew) because this occurs after Jesus has already spent considerable time touring Galilee preaching and healing. But in Luke, no miracles or healings have yet been reported. His initial reception in Nazareth seems quite receptive.

“Well, that escalated quickly.” Jesus is Rejected in his Hometown, woodcut from Images of Scriptural History (1593) planned by Jerome Nadal, S.J. 

Things Get Ugly

That’s when we see material that only appears in Luke’s version of the story. Jesus cites a proverb (“Physician, heal thyself!) and discerns the crowd desires to see him perform miracles like he did at Capernaum. But Luke has not reported any miracles performed in Capernaum! This is a giveaway that this passage originally occurred later in the ministry and, although Luke moved it to the beginning of the ministry, he didn’t bother to eliminate the inconsistency.

It’s at this point (v. 24) that Jesus delivers the “no prophet without honor” line from Mark except Luke leaves off the part (in italics in the quote above) about the prophet being rejected by his kin since, in Luke’s gospel, the family of Jesus were believers. Vv. 25-27 are also lines only found in Luke as Jesus compares himself to the prophets Elijah and Elisha who were sent to help non-Israelites.

In the final verses (28-30) we finally see those in the synagogue filled with rage, determined to throw him off a cliff. Because Nazareth wasn’t built on a cliff, this may be an example of Luke’s fuzzy geography, or he may have wanted to foreshadow the crucifixion. Luke’s vague description of Jesus’ escape (“he passed through the midst of them and went on his way”) should not be considered a miracle because that would have given the Nazarenes the miracle they were hoping to see.

Looking back on how Jesus’ message was received over the course of forty years, Luke summarizes the gospel message in this passage. Jesus was rejected by his own but found acceptance among Gentiles. Jesus proclaimed himself as the fulfillment of OT promises, but provoked the fury of his co-religionists. Initially drawing crowds eager for the next miracle, the same crowds turned against him and sought to destroy him. Jesus escaped with his life this time because his hour had not come, but the clock is ticking.

The Real Temptations of Christ

Temptations are funny things. Some things that are irresistible enticements for one person don’t even merit a second thought for another. For an ordinary mortal, turning a stone into bread isn’t a temptation, it’s an impossibility. Yet it is these sort of “temptations” that confront Jesus immediately after his baptism in Matthew and Luke.

The Synoptic Temptations

Mark’s account of the temptation in the desert is terse:

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. (Mk 1:12-13)

Both Matthew (4:1-11) and Luke (4:1-13) expand upon this brief statement with three specific temptations of the devil, and Jesus dismisses each temptation with a quote from Deuteronomy:

1. Turn stones into bread. – “one does not live by bread alone” (Deut 8:3)
2. Throw yourself from the pinnacle of the Temple. – “you shall not tempt the Lord” (Deut 6:16)
3. Worship me and gain the kingdoms of the world. – “you shall worship the Lord” (Deut 6:13)

The fact that Matthew and Luke cite both the same temptations and OT quotes is strong evidence that each drew from a common tradition that was unknown to Mark. Biblical scholars call this hypothetical collection of sayings the Q document.

The major difference between Matthew and Luke in this episode is that Luke reverses the order of temptations #2 and #3 so that the climax occurs at the pinnacle of the Temple. So which order was original in Q? Most commentators think Matthew retains the original order as the devil raises the stakes – as well as the altitude – throughout and the Deuteronomy quotes appear in reverse order. As we have seen in the discussion on the infancy narrative, Luke has a fascination with the Temple and Jerusalem, beginning and ending his gospel in the Temple. A significant chunk of his gospel (9:51-19:27) is dedicating to describing Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, a feature unique to Luke.

If Matthew is closer to the Q source, Luke modifies it in an effort to make the temptations more believable. In Matthew, the devil asks the hungry Jesus to turn all the stones into bread. Not wishing to turn the desert into a bakery, Luke’s devil suggests he only transform one stone. Similarly, Matthew’s devil takes Jesus to a “very high mountain” to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Perhaps knowing that no mountain is tall enough to see the entire world, Luke’s devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in an instant.

The variation on the order of the temptations is a good sign that we’re not dealing on the level of history, but of theology. The point of the desert temptation scene seems to be that Jesus is recapitulating the history of Israel with his forty days representing Israel’s forty years wandering in the desert. In the context of the citations from Deuteronomy, Moses reminds the Israelites of how, during those forty years, they were humbled by hunger, tested God, and tempted to follow foreign gods. But, unlike Israel, Jesus did not succumb to these temptations.

Opting more for Iago or Emperor Palpatine, contemporary liturgical painter Eric Armusik foregoes a more devilish look for Satan in his The Temptation of Christ (2011).

Temptations in the Fourth Gospel

Both Matthew and Luke retain Mark’s chronology with the temptation in the desert serving as the conclusion of Jesus’ preparation for his public ministry. The Fourth Gospel does not present a similar episode. In John’s gospel, as we previously saw, there is no explicit baptism by John and Jesus gathers his first disciples on his return to Galilee before returning to Judea to begin his own brief baptizing ministry. Although there is no dramatic scene of the devil tempting Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, we do see echoes of the temptation episode scattered in chapters 6 and 7 of John.

1. John 6:1-15 is John’s version of the feeding of the multitude, the only miracle of Jesus that appears in all four gospels. Mk 6:45 (paralleled by Mt 14: 22) says that immediately after the miracle, Jesus made his disciples leave in a boat while he dismissed the crowd. John provides the reason: When Jesus realized that the crowd was about to “take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself” (v. 15). This attempt to make Jesus a political leader is thematically similar to temptation #3 above where the devil offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world.

2. The feeding of the multitude in Mark, Matthew and John – but not Luke – is immediately followed by the miracle of Jesus walking on water. The next day, the crowds follow Jesus to the other side of the sea. Thus begins (6:26-34) the Bread of Life discourse in John. The crowd asks Jesus for a sign, saying that Moses gave them manna in the desert. Jesus in the Fourth Gospel does not quote Deut 8:3, but his response is similar to his dismissal of temptation #1 that it is not earthly bread that gives life, but that which comes down from heaven.

3. After completion of the Bread of Life discourse in John 6, the brothers of Jesus suggest that he travel to Jerusalem for the festival of Tabernacles to work his signs and show himself to the world (7:1-9). Jesus rebuffs their suggestion because his “time has not yet come.” The similarity here is the enticement in temptation #2 to become a spectacle by performing a public act of power in Jerusalem.

The parallels between the three Q temptations and those presented in John are quite interesting. For the modern reader, the temptations as presented in John are more believable than the dramatic temptations presented in Matthew and Luke. But the gospels were not written as biographies of Jesus. They were written to present Jesus’ message of salvation. In such a document, presenting a confrontation between the devil and Jesus gets the theological point across more efficiently than describing three separate occasions in the life of Jesus wherein he was tempted to perform miracles for his own benefit or to gain political power.

Or, as I learned from Spider-Man: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.”

Jesus the Baptist

[This is the conclusion of the previous article that discussed how the evangelists tried to suppress the embarrassment posed by John's baptism of Jesus. It also covered what we can know about John the Baptist from the gospels. Since this article depends on the previous one, I recommend you read it first.]

John's Rival

If Jesus accepting baptism from John was embarrassing, what about Jesus being a disciple of John and performing his own baptisms? The synoptic gospels portray Jesus presenting himself to John for baptism and then being tempted in the desert for forty days before starting his public ministry. But the Fourth Gospel offers a different sequence of events and additional details about the relationship between John and Jesus.

The Fourth Gospel states that Jesus’ first disciples – Andrew and an unnamed disciple – were previously disciples of John (1:35-42). Andrew recruited his brother Peter and their network of like-minded individuals to become Jesus’ core group. While the evangelist makes it look like John simply pointed Jesus out to two of his disciples and they followed Jesus, the reality must have been that Jesus spent enough time in John’s company to win over two or more of his disciples.

Later in the gospel (Jn 3:22-30), we have the odd story that Jesus and his disciples set up a baptizing ministry in Judea. John’s disciples learned of this rival ministry and complained to John that “everyone is coming to him” (v. 26). John shrugged it off the same way Jesus shrugged off complaints that others were exorcising in his name (Mk 9:38-41). But, in an awkward transitional passage (Jn 4:1-3), Jesus abandoned his baptismal ministry in Judea and returned to Galilee. The reason given – because the Pharisees heard he was more successful than John? – doesn’t make much sense.

Embarrassed by the idea that Jesus was imitating the Baptist, the final redactor of the Fourth Gospel inserted an editorial comment (v. 2) that it was really Jesus’s disciples, not Jesus, doing the baptisms. It seems the idea of Jesus being a disciple of John and performing his own baptisms so cut against the idea that Jesus was a unique and greater figure than John that the other three evangelists suppressed the tradition altogether. Can we really be sure, then, that Jesus abandoned the ritual act of baptism when he started his Galilean ministry? If baptism was not a part of his ministry, why would his last words in Matthew (Mt 28:19) be the command: “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them”? And why would the early Church adopt baptism as the initiatory ritual for new Christians?

Putting it all Together

If we put the pieces together, we have the figure of John, who became better known as “the Baptist” due to his signature ritual, bathing people with water as a symbol of a future baptism in the Holy Spirit from a more powerful figure who would come after him. Undergoing baptism was an acknowledgement that the recipient accepted John’s message of repentance in the face of the immanent judgment of God wherein those bearing the fruits of repentance would be saved and the rest burned in fire.

The Preaching of St. John the Baptist by Alessandro Allori (1535-1607)

Jesus then appears on the scene, takes John’s message to heart, and accepts baptism by John. Most likely he stays on with John for a while, long enough to win over some of John’s disciples. Jesus begins his own baptizing ministry in Judea, and some resentment arises among John’s disciples. Then for reasons unknown – perhaps due to the arrest of John by Herod – Jesus abandons his baptism ministry in Judea and begins his public ministry of preaching and miracle working in Galilee. Whereas John waited for people to come to him, Jesus decided that he would go to where the people were instead.

John was an ascetic, eating simple foods like locusts and wild honey (Mk 1:6) and avoiding strong drink. Jesus, on the other hand, was not an ascetic. Unlike John, he did not fast nor avoided wine. He did not isolate himself in the desert, but had table fellowship with tax collectors and sinners. From his prison cell, John began to have doubts. He had expected the imminent arrival of “the mightier one” who would separate the wheat from the chaff. Reports of his former pupil did not match that expectation, so John sent messengers to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?” Jesus responded with an inventory of his miracle-workings and concluded, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” In a gentle fashion, Jesus asks that his former teacher not be shocked that the end times have indeed arrived, but not quite in the fashion John had envisaged. There is no reply from John.

Implicit in Jesus’ beatitude on those who are not scandalized by him is the threat that those who cannot accept him will not share in the kingdom of God. The John who went to his death believing his life’s mission to be a failure is not the John presented elsewhere in the gospels who leapt in Elizabeth’s womb, or begged to be baptized by Jesus, or proclaimed, “Behold the lamb of God!”

John shows his influence on Jesus in the latter’s preaching of the imminent coming of the Kingdom of God and the call to repentance. John’s influence is also seen in the early Church’s adoption of baptism as an initiation rite. Jesus may have gone is own way, but he spoke highly of the Baptist, saying that he was more than just a prophet and that none was greater than John. But, for all that, John’s vision of the one to come after him was faulty. The “mightier one” would not be laying the axe to the tree or separating the wheat from the chaff, but would be making the blind see, the deaf hear, and the lame walk.

John is the bridge between the time of the Law and the Prophets and the time of the Kingdom of God. The Baptist was the greatest in the time of the Law and the Prophets, but a new era has dawned. In the time of the Kingdom of God, even the least person will be greater than John. That is what Jesus promises.

Beginning from the Baptism of John

[As I wrote up this week’s article, it quickly grew to be twice the length of a normal article, so I will divide it into two posts. The second half will be posted in a day or two.]

In Acts of the Apostles 1:15-26, the disciples had to choose a replacement for Judas. Peter lays out the qualifications: “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us” (vv. 21-22a). Indeed, all four gospels start the public ministry of Jesus with John baptizing in the wilderness. But in so doing, they expose an awkward fact: John baptized Jesus.

Damage Control

In being baptized by John, Jesus assumed an inferior position as a disciple of John. This was an embarrassment to the early Church, particularly in its dealings with the followers of John the Baptist during the spread of the ministry. Jesus accepting John’s baptism for the repentance of sins also raised awkward questions about the sinlessness of Jesus. This inconvenient truth of Jesus being baptized by John required some “damage control” on the part of the evangelists.

Mark (1:9-11) gets the baptism of Jesus out of the way as quickly as possible and uses the occasion to reveal Jesus’ vision of God declaring, “You are my Son…I am well pleased.” Matthew (3:13-17) presents John humbling himself before Jesus, saying, “I need to be baptized by you.” In true Matthean style, Jesus intones that John must baptize him “to fulfill all righteousness.” The Gospel of John (1:29-34) avoids the subject altogether. In the Fourth Gospel, the evangelist has the Baptist recount how he saw the Spirit descend upon Jesus like a dove – the same language used in the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ baptism – but the evangelist avoids saying this occurred at the moment of Jesus’ baptism.

Luke (3:21-22) has one of the oddest approaches to the story. He doesn’t deny that Jesus was baptized, but he does avoid stating that John did the baptizing. Like Matthew, he recounts some of John’s preaching and adds some ethical teaching, but then he ushers John off the stage with his arrest by Herod Antipas. In the gospels of Mark and Matthew, John’s imprisonment is announced right after Jesus’ baptism, but Luke contorts the chronology (and logic of the story) by placing the baptism of Jesus after John is out of the picture. It’s not a goof because in several speeches in Acts of the Apostles, the speaker (like in the example above) recalls how the gospel story began with John’s baptism of repentance, but in every case Luke avoids mentioning that Jesus was also baptized by John.

“The Baptism of Christ” (1515) by Joachim Patinir

The Historical John the Baptist

What do we really know about John the Baptist? Just as with Jesus, the gospels provide most of the information we have of the Baptist, but the Jewish historian Josephus also mentioned John in Antiquities (18.5.2). Josephus’ description of John’s ministry of baptism, his popularity and his execution by Herod Antipas is consistent with what the gospels tell us.

Both the synoptic gospels and the Fourth Gospel cite Isaiah 40:3 as the rallying cry of the Baptist: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” The Qumran community – from whose library we got the Dead Sea Scrolls – also used this quote from Isaiah to explain why they formed their community in the desert.

Mark provides only a small sample of John’s preaching (Mk 1:7-8) describing “a mightier one” who is coming after him, one whose sandals John is not fit to untie (the role of a slave was to untie the master’s sandals and wash his feet). John’s water baptism is a promise of the baptism in the Holy Spirit that will come with his successor. This saying is repeated in Matthew and Luke who both used Mark as their source material, but also in the Fourth Gospel (John 1:26-27), suggesting that this tradition is very old.

Both Matthew and Luke have more to say about John’s preaching, using almost the same words. Biblical scholars hypothesize that the two evangelists used a lost collection of sayings – dubbed Q, from the German word Quelle (“source”) – that Mark did not know about. Two “Baptist blocks” of material from Q related to John can be found in Mt 3:7-12 (which matches Lk 3:7-9 and Lk 3:15-18) and Mt 11:2-19 (which matches Lk 7:18-35).

The First Baptist Block of Sayings

The beginning of the first Baptist block portrays John as a fiery preacher of the imminent wrath of God: “The axe is laid to the root of the trees and every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Lk 3:9). The second half of the first Baptist block continues the fiery theme with the “mightier one” clearing out the threshing floor, gathering the wheat into the granary and burning the chaff. The implication is that to avoid the coming judgment one needs to repent and bear the fruit of repentance; simply being a “child of Abraham” will not save you.

Luke interrupts the first Baptist block of material from Q with vv. 10-14, verses which have no parallel in Matthew. In Luke, John offers ethical advice on how one can act to show repentance. He tailors his advice to reflect his audience. For the multitudes, share your coat or food. For the tax collectors, collect no more than is required. For soldiers, no extortion or intimidations; be content with your pay. This ethical advice has an echo in Josephus who wrote that the Baptist preached “cultivating virtue and practicing justice toward one another and piety toward God.”

Josephus provides a political reason for Herod’s arrest and execution of the Baptist: “Herod began to fear that John’s powerful ability to persuade people might lead to some sort of revolt.” Herod considered it wiser to arrest John before the situation got out of control and imprisoned him in the mountain fortress of Machaerus on the east side of the Dead Sea. Mark (6:17-29) and Matthew (14:3-12) provide more details on the reasons behind the imprisonment and death of the Baptist, but Luke is satisfied in only the briefest note (3:19-20).

The Second Baptist Block of Sayings

The second “Baptist block” can be divided into three units. In the first unit (Lk 7:18-23), the imprisoned John sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is “the one to come.” Jesus tells them to report what they see – the blind see, the lame walk, etc.

The second unit (Lk 7:24-28) is a carefully crafted composition consisting of Jesus’ rhetorical question (and three different answers) to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out to see?” The final answer emphatically praises John as more than a prophet, saying none born of women is greater than him, yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John.

In the third unit (Lk 7:31-34) Jesus compares the current generation to children in the marketplace. Like the children who refused to dance to the flute, John fasted and avoided strong drink. Like the children who refused to mourn, the Son of Man (Jesus’s term for himself) did not fast and drank wine. John was called a mad man and Jesus was called “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

[In part two, we will look at a tradition buried in the Fourth Gospel that seems to have been suppressed in the synoptic gospels and put the pieces together to give us a picture of how John influenced Jesus.]

Lost and Found

It is said that “nature abhors a vacuum.” The same can be said for would-be biographers of Jesus. The earliest gospel – that of Mark – begins the story of Jesus with his baptism by John. Since then, there has always been a curiosity among Christians to know what happened in the life of Jesus during those “hidden years” before his public ministry. In fact, a whole genre of literature called “hidden life” stories sprang up to describe what happened to Jesus in the years between his birth and his public ministry.

“Hidden Life” Tales

The purpose of “hidden life” stories – not only of Jesus, but of other great men in history – is to illustrate how the seeds of the adult’s success are to be found in the child. A familiar example to Americans is the story of George Washington, originated by Parson Weems, in which the young George admits to his father that he cut down the cherry tree:“I cannot tell a lie.” The tales of Jesus’ hidden life illustrate how, even as a child, he came to reveal his true nature in his own words and actions, unlike in the infancy narratives where the revelation had to happen through an intermediary.

The best-known of the hidden life stories of Jesus is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. It recounts anecdotes of the boy Jesus from age 5 to age 12. The anecdotes of the very young Jesus portray him as a brat using his powers in a punitive fashion to blind or maim those that annoy him, but as he ages he begins healing and raising people from the dead. He also performs miracles that help his own family such as stretching a beam of wood to fit a bed Joseph was building. Interwoven through these miracles are attempts by various teachers to instruct the young Jesus, resulting in Jesus doing the teaching. The last anecdote in the apocryphal gospel is based on Luke’s account of finding of Jesus in the Temple (Lk 2:41-52).

“You are going to be so grounded when we get home.” Jesus Found in the Temple by James Tissot (1836-1902)

Some scholars believe that the miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1-11) is another example of a hidden life story that found its way into a canonical gospel. This is the only miracle story in the NT that involves the mother of Jesus. In a hypothetical “hidden life” anecdote, Mary would have asked Jesus to supply wine and he would have given instructions on what to do, just as he instructed Joseph on how to address the problem of the short beam in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. If such is the case, John thoroughly rewrote the material to change the hidden life “gift miracle” anecdote into a “sign” of Jesus’ glory (“sign” and “work” being John’s preferred designations instead of “miracle”).

Luke’s Gospel version 2.0

Many biblical scholars believe that Luke originally intended to end his infancy narrative with the return of the Holy Family to Nazareth after fulfilling their duties in the Temple (Lk 2:39-40). Luke employs the literary device of an inclusio by beginning the infancy narrative in the Temple and ending it in the Temple. Similarly with his characters, Luke began with the elderly couple of Zechariah and Elizabeth and brought it full circle with the elderly couple of Simeon and Anna. He parallels the announcement, birth and prophecy of the future career of John the Baptist with the announcement, birth and prophecy of the future career of Jesus. Vv. 39-40 wrap up the infancy narrative and prepare the reader for the adult Jesus presenting himself to John for baptism.

That nice symmetry is broken with the insertion of the story of finding the boy Jesus in the Temple. This passage also introduces some inconsistencies with what went before (more on that later). It does not assume the reader is familiar with anything that happened previously in Luke’s gospel, and in fact is more intelligible if one reads it as an independent story. Yet, it has Lucan language throughout, so if the story was part of the tradition that Luke received, he reworked the material to fit it into his gospel, reprising the transitional verses about Mary keeping the events in her heart (compare Lk 2:51c with 2:19) and Jesus growing in wisdom (compare Lk 2:52 with 2:40).

In My Father’s House

The story itself is straightforward. Being an observant Jewish family, Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem every year to celebrate Passover. When Jesus was twelve, unbeknownst to his parents he stayed behind in Jerusalem. Thinking he was with relatives or friends, they went a day’s journey from Jerusalem before realizing he was not with the traveling party. Returning to Jerusalem, they found him three days later (presumably, one day out, one day back, one day searching) in the Temple precincts, sitting with the “teachers” – not “scribes” or “lawyers” – listening and asking questions.

Luke says simply, “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers” (2:47 NRSV). The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, however, gilds the lily somewhat in its version: “And those listening to him were amazed how he questioned the elders and explained the main points of the law and the riddles and the parables of the prophets.” In the apocryphal gospel, Jesus can’t simply listen and ask questions, he has to explicate the law and prophets.

Now comes the climax of the story. Mary chides Jesus for causing them worry and Jesus responds that it is only natural he should be in his Father’s house. Luke says that his parents did not understand what he said to them (2:50). Given that earlier in the gospel Gabriel explicitly tells Mary that Jesus “will be called Son of God” (1:35), why would his parents not understand when he says he says the Temple is his Father’s house? It doesn’t make sense in the context of Luke’s gospel where we have already been told the messianic secret, but does make sense if this was once an independent story meant to introduce the gospel message that Jesus is the son of God.

Having introduced this self-revelation on Jesus’ part, Luke now has a problem. It was well-established in the gospels that no one knew Jesus’ true identity during his ministry. Even his disciples did not really understand it until after his resurrection. But if Jesus knew who he was even as a boy, why did no one know who he was as an adult? Luke’s solution is to make this a one-off event and send him back to Nazareth with his parents where he would be obedient to them (2:51). He’s the mild-mannered Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, hiding from the world the secret that he is really Superman.