Chapter 3

Chapter 3. A Lamp, Burning Brightly

In the previous chapter, we looked at a text that presented John the Baptist mainly in historical terms. We will now consider a work that appeared at roughly the same time as the Antiquities, in which the presentation may seem entirely spiritual.

In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist is always called John. Here, to avoid confusion, the text will be referred to as "the Fourth Gospel." In it, the Baptist is a prelude-figure introducing the appearance of Christ; his primary role is that of a herald to the Messiah, as the original "witness to testify to the light" (John 1.7).

Here is John's testimony to him: he cried aloud, "This is the man I meant when I said, 'He comes after me, but takes rank before me'; for before I was born, he already was." (John 1.15)

As "the Jews of Jerusalem sent a deputation of priests and Levites" to inquire who John made himself out to be, he proclaimed that he was not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet like Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 18.15 (John 1.19-21). Further pressed about his identity, he applied the verse of Isaiah 40.3 to himself: "I am a voice crying aloud in the wilderness, 'Make the Lord's highway straight'" (1.23). When some Pharisees then asked why he was baptizing, since he was not the Messiah, Elijah, or the Moses-like prophet, John told them (1.24-27) that he baptized in water, but among them stood the man who was to come after him, one whose sandals he was not fit to unfasten.[1]

The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and exclaimed, "Look, there is the Lamb of God; it is he who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1.29). John then repeated his testimony from verse 1.15, explaining that his purpose in baptizing was so the man who would be the Messiah should be "revealed to Israel," that he would be known by "the Spirit coming down from heaven like a dove and resting upon him" and would thus be the one "who is to baptize in Holy Spirit." These verses (1.30-33) are the Baptist's total testimony to Jesus. "I saw it myself, and I have borne witness. This is God's Chosen One" (1.34).

The following day, John pointed Jesus out as "the Lamb of God" to a couple of his disciples (an unnamed disciple and Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter) and promptly lost the pair -- and possibly the others mentioned -- to Jesus (John 1.35-51). These events took place "at Bethany beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing" (1.28). Verses 3.26 and 10.40 indicate that this was east of the Jordan River, but there is no definite location known by such a name.[2]

John's next appearance in the Fourth Gospel is at 3.22-30. Jesus and his disciples were in Judaea, baptizing, while John was at Aenon in the Decapolis territory, a couple of miles west of the Jordan River and close to the northern borders of Samaria and Perea. Some of John's disciples approached him due to a dispute "with Jews about purification," but their question was about the growing popularity of Jesus, who was with John "on the other side of the Jordan."

John's answer was: "A man can have only what God gives him. You yourselves can testify that I said, 'I am not the Messiah; I have been sent as his forerunner.' It is the bridegroom to whom the bride belongs. The bridegroom's friend, who stands by and listens to him, is overjoyed at hearing the bridegroom's voice. This joy, this perfect joy, is now mine. As he grows greater, I must grow less." (John 3.27-30)

Verses 4.1-3 sustain the theme of the increasing acclaim of Jesus, as a report reached the Pharisees that "Jesus is winning and baptizing more disciples than John." Learning of this, Jesus withdrew from Judaea and set off for Galilee. After that, there are no more appearances by John, though he is mentioned in chapter 5 as Jesus discoursed on his own authority.

"If I testify on my own behalf, that testimony does not hold good. There is another who bears witness for me, and I know that his testimony holds. Your messengers have been to John; you have his testimony to the truth. Not that I rely on human testimony, but I remind you of it for your own salvation. John was a lamp, burning brightly, and for a time you were ready to exult in his light. But I rely on a testimony higher than John’s. There is enough to testify that the Father has sent me, in the works my Father gave me to do and to finish -- the very works I have in hand..." (John 5.31- 36)

The final mention of the Baptist is at John 10.40-42, as Jesus returned to the "Bethany beyond Jordan" where the whole story began. Crowds gathered, and many came to believe in him, saying, "John gave us no miraculous sign, but all that he said about this man was true" (10.41).

We can assess this material from many perspectives. Here we will focus on two: reading it as a late text that mostly reflects concerns of the organized Church, and as a relatively straightforward account much transformed by such concerns. The latter is less complicated, so we begin there.

John appears as a notable figure active along the Jordan River valley. The territory covers some 95 miles of land, from the former Lake Huleh down through the Sea of Galilee and on into the main valley until it meets the Dead Sea. John's influence presumably extended all over this land. But if we assume he was active mostly in the main river valley, the Fourth Gospel's report of a few disciples who were natives of Bethsaida (and another later based at Capernaum) shifts us to locations north of the Sea of Galilee. John seems to have had a primary or original base of operations east of the Jordan. This "Bethany beyond Jordan" cannot be firmly placed otherwise. (But consider that the Gospel's last mention of John, when Jesus returned to this "Bethany," is followed immediately by a report of Jesus at another Bethany -- the village of Mary and Martha and Lazarus.)

People came to John for baptism, and some came to ask about the significance of the rite. These would have included religious leaders from many different "schools"; and in this account, it is notable that some of them asked John who he thought he was. His activities seem to have been associated with expectations about the coming of the Jewish Messiah and the prophets Moses and Elijah. John denied that he was someone who fulfilled prophecy, but he did associate his activities with a prophetic calling by referring to himself as "a voice crying in the wilderness, 'Set straight the path of the Lord.'" That may confirm the image of an ascetic holy man who withdrew from the world in strict piety. (More radically, it might be the self-designation of a man who thought his people should be freed from "Babylonian captivity," the original context of the verse in Isaiah.)

John stated his belief that one of his followers, Jesus, had been revealed as the Jewish Messiah. Some scholars suggest that the Fourth Gospel's account intentionally obscures Jesus' dependence on the baptism by John since it does not mention it.[3] If so, it does not work very well. As an account of an event understood as revealing Jesus' messianic status, here we encounter a tradition that saw it as not only entailing the baptism but being directly dependent upon it (suggested by verse 1.33, the very reason John baptized). That could reflect a situation in which the baptism was assumed rather than one with embarrassment about the circumstances.

Jesus and his earliest disciples came from among John's followers, and Jesus became a leader in the growing movement. Even after they parted ways with John, they continued performing his ritual. When tensions arose, they moved on to Galilee (as Jesus wanted to avoid a conflict with John). The Fourth Gospel's distinctive tradition of Jesus and his earliest disciples (Philip, Nathanael, Cephas, Andrew, and the unnamed disciple), and the implication that all were at first followers of John the Baptist, presents a different picture than found in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke).[4] The prominence of Andrew and Philip might reflect an earlier tradition if the organized Church regarded them as having been loyal to John (and so downplayed the two in later accounts).

Beyond the beginning of the fourth chapter, John is found nowhere except in remarks made by Jesus and by some folks at the original site of John's activities. (Presumably, they are posthumous references, though the only indication of his fate is at 3.24, which notes the occasion for the bridegroom speech "was before John’s imprisonment.") These may add little to what there is to consider: some people had said that John was no miracle-worker, but what he had to say about Jesus was valid; and John had given affirmations about Jesus to religious leaders (or people in general?) who had high regard for John himself. The latter, the discourse of 5.31-36, is intriguing: initially, it sounds as if it is John's testimony that Jesus sees as decisive, but it culminates in his assertion that he relied on much higher testimony than John's.

One way to read the Fourth Gospel's account of John the Baptist, then, is to see in it a tradition that assumed an audience that already knew a good deal about him: the circumstances of his death; that Jesus had been his follower; that Jesus' messianic identity had been revealed in baptism and attested to by John; and so on. Read in this way, the account seems a distinctly glowing homage to John himself, as one who lit the way to the light itself.

Accounts of the lives of saints have an overwhelming tendency to serve "the one thing needful" -- to bring people to conviction of some sacred truth. Historical accuracy is not entirely precluded thereby but is more doubtful, if only because any original elements tend to be obscured by official paradigms. Take the case of Apollos considered earlier. In Paul's letter, there is a fresh contemporary reference to a man vividly envisioned. In Acts of the Apostles, we have a figure of legend -- too prominent to be omitted yet too embarrassing to be distinctly depicted.

Such tendencies are particularly apparent in the Fourth Gospel. The text presents itself as the testimony of an original disciple, unidentified except as one "whom Jesus loved" (John 21.20). Shrewd indications of intimacy help persuade us of the report's accuracy: the disciple was familiar with the High Priest and his entourage, and so had access to events surrounding the trial of Jesus (John 18.15-16); after the crucifixion, Jesus' mother moved in with the disciple (John 19.27), who thus had access to her recollections. The text exhibits detailed knowledge of regional topography and first-century Jewish customs, plausible chronological sequences, and matter-of-fact details that seem to serve no thematic purpose.[5] Parts of it seem out of context and unstructured, like a "patchwork" account, suggesting that it could have come from an oral tradition close to an authentic source.

Yet it also stands as the most theologically advanced of the Gospels of the New Testament. Ever-present is the idea that Jesus is the Word of God Made Manifest, the Only Begotten Son, the True Vine, the Real Bread, the Living Water, the Light shining on in the darkness, come to save the world.[6] This elaborately developed conception of Jesus' existence reveals much meditation on -- and inspired interpretation of -- the meaning of that existence. So much of the writing seems theologically driven, with each narrated incident another opportunity for rapturous discourse, that it is never clear if we may be dealing with original information or just being dazed by the extraordinary skill of a writer who sought to bring people to the faith.

At John 2.1-11 is the story of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding.[7] Taken at face value as a biographical episode, it strongly suggests that Jesus got married: his mother comes to him as the wine runs out and she then directs the servants to do whatever he tells them to do; when the steward of the banquet approves of the wine, he compliments the bridegroom for having served the best wine last. If Jesus had merely been a guest at someone's wedding, he inadvertently assumed duties reserved for a bridegroom at his own wedding. But since we immediately learn (2.11) that this was "the first of the signs by which Jesus revealed his glory and led his disciples to believe in him," we can read the story as symbolic discourse employing imagery typical of the Johannine New Testament texts. Jesus is the Bridegroom, and the Church is His Bride at the great eschatological Wedding (Revelation 19.7-8). John the Baptist testified that the Bride belongs to the Bridegroom. The wine symbolized a new spirit of faith transformed from the waters of Judaism, made possible by doing whatever Jesus tells us to do; and so on. The episode can serve as a point of departure for an analysis of the Fourth Gospel's account when seen as a thorough reflection of the Church's concerns.

1. Throughout the narrative, John is steadfastly deferential to Jesus, epitomized in the bridegroom testimony at 3.27-30. We may see that as a corrective literary motif for believers who thought highly of John in his own right: "He was not himself the light; he came to bear witness to the light" (John 1.8). The exposition of the bridegroom testimony (at 3.31-36) further points to this: Jesus was from Above, John merely earthly. (Still, it says much for John -- the best man at the Wedding; his prestige can only be obscured by a constantly deferential characterization.)

The overall presentation makes the point explicit: a witness to the light but not himself the light; one whose follower takes rank before him; a man unworthy of so much as washing his master's feet. After John proved less successful than Jesus, he announced how he was simply happy to be there. And after John's death, Jesus returned to the place where the story started and won over many more (the remainder?) of John's followers. This emphatic tendency looks like incessant harping on John's place relative to Jesus, the only point of which would be to correct those who thought too highly of John himself.

Constant attention to the theme of Jesus-was-better-than-John implies a prevalent and possibly immediate concern, felt to be necessary throughout the presentation. Moreover, since virtually the first thing we learn about John is that "he was not himself the light," we may conclude that the author(s?) addressed those who thought otherwise. That suggests a fluid picture in which early believers might have displayed confusion about the person to whom they should pay homage (potentially making Paul's opening refrain in I Corinthians more significant: "Was it in the name of Paul that you were baptized?").[8] We can assume that early Christians devoted to John the Baptist needed to be won over to the right interpretation while being dissuaded of too high an opinion of him. And that was attempted in a curiously ironic way, by attributing to him a place merely less lofty than that of the Son of God: First, there was the Word........ then John appeared.........

2. These episodes occur in the context of highly symbolic presentations: The Word become Flesh as Son from the Father; the Wedding; the Cleansing of the Temple. Nicodemus as a "type" for sympathetic "Jewry" (and given a Christian "full testimony," epitomized at John 3.16). The conversion of Samaria -- a woman (people) who was wife to five husbands (gods) and whose current live-in was not her husband (not one of their own gods).[9] And the report of John has its own symbolic features: The Best Man at the Wedding; a brightly burning Lamp; Witness to the Lamb of God; Herald to the Light from Above. A plausible historical reconstruction tends to be thwarted under these circumstances, as it is hard to argue with Faith, and we must assume there were real human beings who somehow inspired such lofty characterizations.

Isolated details can be intriguing and sometimes staggering. The Fourth Gospel presents circumstantially plausible episodes that seem to be incidents drawn from an account of a life. Yet virtually this same material also appears in the most symbolic form, wherein nearly everything is a Sign pointing to Truth. The immediate response of Jesus to Nicodemus (at John 3.3-5) might have importance by itself if the translation of the word pneuma is "wind" rather than "Spirit" (having both meanings in ancient Greek). That people must be "born over again from water and wind" might represent Jesus' understanding of (and "witness" to) the original meaning of John's baptismal rite, as a process in which a divine presence manifested itself through natural elements via the ritual. Yet by the time the Fourth Gospel appeared, baptism had long been an initiation "into the name of the Lord Jesus," making it more likely that the immediate response of Jesus is just a derivative of the full testimony of John 3.11-21.

When we consider John himself in the Fourth Gospel, we find that his whole purpose in life was to testify that Jesus was the Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, He who would baptize not in water but in Holy Spirit. These are distinctly recognizable as primary concerns of the later Church.

3. People could have remembered John as a man who gave positive testimony about Jesus. And it is possible that he was deferential toward Jesus as such (which would have been appropriate if he believed Jesus was the Messiah). But that would presumably have been a far more complex situation than we can adequately imagine considering the nature of the material in which it appears. Moreover, as we will see, the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal expectations among some Jews at the time about the appearance of two separate individuals called "Messiahs."[10] What "the Messiah" might have meant to John, or to any half-dozen other people of his time, is not easy to say.

These considerations are not exhaustive, but we continually encounter the same issue: how do we determine what might be historically accurate in such a text? If we try to get a plausible idea, we think about how the symbolic "overgrowth" developed from some original circumstances that may lie underneath. Eventually and after much frustration, we could give up and assign the text to a wholly symbolic sphere in which everything related stands for something else. But then we can sometimes be "haunted" by tiny details that suggest we are peeking into an authentic setting.[11] When assessing what Josephus had to say about the Baptist, I ultimately concluded that he could not help but speak highly of him. When I consider the Fourth Gospel's account, I find something similar. While it might seem strange to see John the Baptist made out to be a personage only a little less lofty than the Son of God, that may have seemed less inappropriate to someone who had reason to regard him in the highest terms. But that is impossible to "prove," even by engaging in creative editing to present some imagined original opening for the Gospel; that is, omitting the discourse material on the Word, the Son from the Father, and so on, and noting that without these, it starts by telling us about John in a distinct setting that culminated in his close relationship with Jesus. We will have to revisit these issues once we have examined the portrayal of the Baptist in the Synoptic Gospels.

Notes

     1. According to the editor's note for John 1.27, New English Bible, op. cit., p. 109, that was "the task of the slave who washed the master's feet."
     2. Ibid., note for John 1.28.
     3. See the analysis by Crossan in Historical Jesus, op. cit., pp. 232-4.
     4. See Sanders, op. cit., pp. 119-22.
     5. Cf. the introduction to the Gospel of John, New English Bible, p. 108. A. N. Wilson's Jesus, op. cit., pp. 48-60, is an excellent introduction to reading the Gospel of John and issues involved in reading any Gospel. A scholarly introduction is D. Moody Smith's Johannine Christianity: Essays on Its Setting, Sources, and Theology (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1989); see, viz., p. 71 note 28.
     6. Cf. Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament? op. cit. pp. 177-83; Smith, pp. 175-89; Sanders, pp. 66-73.
     7. The following is indebted to Wilson, pp. 61-2.
     8. Cf. ibid., p. 103; Murphy-O'Connor, op. cit., pp. 276-7.
     9. Cf. Wilson, pp. 153-5, 247-8.
   10. Sanders, p. 241; James C. VanderKam, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity," Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Hershel Shanks (New York: Random House, 1992), p. 196.
   11. See Smith, pp. 20-1, on an original witness inspiring the Johannine community.

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