THE EVOLVING BAPTISM OF JESUS

Together with the majority of New Testament scholarship, this post argues for Markan priority amongst the Gospels and seeks specifically to demonstrate this through the evolving accounts of Jesus' baptism. This evolution, in turn, will demonstrate the difficulties involved in taking, as most Christians do, assertions in the Gospels at face value.

Firstly, the Markan account of Jesus' baptism:

"As it has been written in Isaiah the prophet ... John (the one baptizing in the desert) came proclaiming a baptism for repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the Judean country and all Jerusalemites went out to him and were baptized by him in the Jordan River confessing their sins. And John was clothed in camel hair and a leather girdle around his loins and was eating locusts and wild honey. And he proclaimed saying: 'The one stronger than me comes after me, the one whom I am not competent stooping to loosen the thong of his sandals. I baptized you with water but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!'
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John and immediately going up out of the water, he saw the sky being rent and the Spirit descending like a dove to him and a voice out of the sky: 'You are my beloved son, in you I am pleased'."
Mark 1:2a, 4-11

While it is often difficult to read an individual Gospel account without subjecting it to presuppositions drawn from the other accounts, if we take Mark's account - the shortest and first to be written - on its own, it presents a radically different baptism than what Christians have come to envision based on a synthesis of the four Gospel accounts.

John's baptism is stated in verse 4 to be 'for repentance for the forgiveness of sins'. Jesus comes from Galilee and is baptized by John... the natural implication being that he did so for this reason (for the forgiveness of his sins). There is nothing in the text that would lead us to conclude otherwise and we shall see that this implication led both Matthew and Luke to revise the baptism account in their Gospels to accord with their nativity stories (of which Mark has none) that Jesus is the literal Son of God.

After Jesus is baptized, it is he who sees the sky opening and the Spirit descending and the voice speaks to him "You are my beloved son, in you I am pleased"... there is no indication in the text itself that John or anyone else witnesses these things (nor any indication John recognizes this Jesus as the one he has been preaching will come - more on this later), rather it is a personal message given to Jesus alone. Furthermore, this message - devoid of any preliminary nativity story in which Jesus is literally the Son of God (the words 'the Son of God' in Mark 1:1 are suspect additions and absent from Codexes Sinaiticus and Koridethi) - leads one to an adoptionist Christology... that is, that Jesus was adopted the Son of God at his baptism.

As the concept of Jesus the adopted Son of God evolved in Christian tradition into Jesus the literal Son of God, Mark's account of Jesus' baptism became problematic and thus needed to be revised. The Matthean account was the first to do this... immediately following are the critical revisions:

"Then Jesus arrives from Galilee at the Jordan to John to be baptized by him but he forbade him saying: 'I have need to be baptized by you yet you have come to me!'
And answering, Jesus said to him: 'Consent at once for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.'
Then he consents to him and having been baptized, Jesus immediately went up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw God's Spirit descending like a dove coming upon him and behold, a voice out of the heavens saying: 'This is my beloved son in whom I am pleased'."
Matthew 3:13-17

The Matthean account removes the implication that Jesus was baptized for the forgiveness of sins by having John proclaim that it is he who needs baptism from him. Jesus insists on being token baptized and then John consents. The voice from the sky, instead of being a private communication, is implicitly heard by others and is a third person declaration: "This is my beloved son in whom I am pleased."

The dialogue between John and Jesus, while solving the problematic implications of Jesus' baptism, creates a conflict with another Matthean source in which John, later imprisoned, is ignorant of who Jesus is:

"And John, hearing in prison of Christ's works, sending through his disciples said: 'Are you the one coming or should we expect another?'"
Matthew 11:2-3

While absent from the Markan Gospel, this query of John's is wholly compatible with the earliest baptismal story in which John exchanges no words with Jesus nor recognizes him as the one he has been preaching will come. Luke also includes this query of John's (see Luke 7:18-19) but recognizing the conflict it creates were he to adopt Matthew's solution to the baptismal problems, he opts for a different solution: Sidestepping it with some carefully executed ambiguity.

Luke confirms that John's baptism was 'for repentance for the forgiveness of sins' (see Luke 3:3) and parallels many of Matthew's additions (compare Matthew 3:7-10, 12 with Luke 3:7-9, 17) while adding many of his own (see Luke 3:10-15) but upon reaching the point of Jesus' baptism he inserts the following:

"And therefore with many different exhortations he evangelized the people while Herod the tetrarch - being reproved by him concerning Herodias the wife of his brother and concerning everything that Herod did evil - added this above all: He locked John away in prison."
Luke 3:18-20

Having narrated John's removal to prison, Luke proceeds to briefly mention Jesus' baptism with these words:

"And it came to pass when all the people had been baptized, Jesus was baptized [*] and praying, the sky opened and the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon him and a voice out of the sky came: "You are my beloved son, in you I am pleased."
Luke 3:21-22

Here Luke restores the voice from the sky to its Markan form of a personal communication but more importantly, he creates an ambiguity with implications so radical it is overlooked without a second glance. Luke has narrated in verse 20 that Herod locked John up in prison... so who is it who baptizes Jesus in verse 21? The knee-jerk assumption is that Luke has simply gone back in time for a moment and that John baptized Jesus... but the text certainly doesn't make this explicit and one is left wondering then why Luke went out of his way to insert John's arrest before narrating Jesus' baptism. On the contrary, the 'and it came to pass' at the beginning of verse 21 is an indication Luke is moving along chronologically, not going back in time. Now that John was in prison and all the people had been baptized (verses 20-21a), it was time for Jesus' ministry to start and it began with baptism... but not John's baptism for the forgiveness of sins. With no clear baptizer, the passive [*] could be construed reflexively... that is, Jesus baptized himself. Luke has created just enough ambiguity to avoid the implications of Jesus receiving John's baptism in the Markan Gospel.

While this post has been mainly concerned with how the Matthean and Lukan accounts reworked the earlier Markan account to fit their advanced Christologies, mention should be given to the Johannine Gospel where Jesus is the Divine Logos, God Himself incarnate, certainly in no need of baptism... and that is precisely what we find: There is no mention whatsoever of Jesus being baptized. Rather, John is given the message that the one on whom he sees the Spirit come down and remain on in the form of a dove is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and he then testifies that this Jesus whom he sees in the vicinity of the Jordan is the one (see John 1:32-34). It should be noted that this recognition, as with the Matthean dialogue between John and Jesus and John's implicit witness of the sonship proclamation, stands in conflict with John's ignorance of who Jesus is as recorded in Matthew 11:2-3 and Luke 7:18-19.

Hopefully this post has achieved its purpose in demonstrating the priority of the Markan Gospel and how the others evolved from it, altering what they perceived to be problems given their evolving beliefs surrounding Jesus.

Comments and constructive criticisms are welcomed as always.

Submitted with the kind permission of Jonathan (En Hakkore)

Admin wrote:Submitted with the kind permission of Jonathan (En Hakkore)

I thought this looked kind of familiar...

Kind regards,
Jonathan

All your showing is that you heart fails to see God's revealed word as truth.

Your pitting scripture against one another to create your alternate acceptable doctrine for your ears and morals opposed to God's.

Simple, eh!

Bob You truely have for me brought to light by this article, some more of the dots connected to undestand from the Gnostic understanding, more Truths of the Parables and scriptures, and in the Fashions they were written with reasons.

After reading all you have posted the Spirit within me has moved me to some items of sumation Here.

1. As stated in the Gnostic scriptures and in the Bible as to all will be told Parables, and to his disciples only will he tell the Mysteries to, to be spread upon the earth After his resurection even, thus the Kingdom was not yet here without those deeds performed.
So with with that in mind No man could have possibly Heard God say a Private thing openly to Jesus, such has been stated. For God talks to us not of Mortal tongue except through his children, He talks of the heart in silence.
2. And without knowing and having the kingdom here yet no man could have gotten that messge either. Even the Baptist, he never wrote anything, in fact did not even know who Jesus was from the prison text, being in cronology after the so called Baptism of Christ by Him, which tends to look as if it was a nice story just the same, but made up to formulate a trditional life of Christ for future church Biliefs to be established and debated over for many years after.

Truly some very interesting things brought to lite, In the Mindset of Gnostic understanding just proves again the web of tradition within this mortle world, although the many that are Putting deep belief in the triditional Dogmas and things this would be really close to heritic huh? I guess we are seeing more of how far the depth the dogmas of the Chuch realy goes, within a crude similarity to the Celestrial truth indeed.

Thank You much.....May Gods true light shine in us

Bro Thomas