18 This charge I commit to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies made earlier about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, 19 having faith and a good conscience. By rejecting conscience, certain persons have suffered shipwreck in the faith; 20 among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have turned over [παρέδωκα] to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.
The beginning of Mark again, from YLT:
7 and he proclaimed, saying, `He doth come -- who is mightier than I -- after me, of whom I am not worthy -- having stooped down -- to loose the latchet of his sandals;
8 I indeed did baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'
9 And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John at the Jordan;
10 and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and the Spirit as a dove coming down upon him;
11 and a voice came out of the heavens, `Thou art My Son -- the Beloved, in whom I did delight.'
12 And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness,
13 and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were ministering to him.
14 And after the delivering up of John, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the reign of God,
15 and saying -- `Fulfilled hath been the time, and the reign of God hath come nigh, reform ye, and believe in the good news.'
8 I indeed did baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'
9 And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John at the Jordan;
10 and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and the Spirit as a dove coming down upon him;
11 and a voice came out of the heavens, `Thou art My Son -- the Beloved, in whom I did delight.'
12 And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness,
13 and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were ministering to him.
14 And after the delivering up of John, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the reign of God,
15 and saying -- `Fulfilled hath been the time, and the reign of God hath come nigh, reform ye, and believe in the good news.'
It's difficult to make sense of this, because clearly what we have has been altered from the original text, so its hard to really understand what we're working with.
But notice this: After the baptism, we read only that "he" was sent into the wilderness, and "he" was tempted by Satan, and "he" was with the beasts. So here is it is unclear who "he" is. Of course we assume that its Jesus, because that's how Matthew and Luke (and John) present it and its how all of the translations of Mark frame it.
The Hermeneia on Mark states early manuscripts read "to him" while later manuscripts read "upon him", "probably under the influence of one or more of the parallels in Matthew." It goes on, "Ehrman argues that Mark's preposition εἰς was changed to ἐπ’ because the earlier reading was used by some "Gnostics" to support their claim that a divine being had entered into Jesus at the time of his baptism and thus separating "Jesus" from "the Christ"".
What I suspect is this. John says, "he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit". So right here John is stating that Jesus will be the one who performs a baptism on others and that this baptism will be a baptism with the Holy Spirit.
But then we get v9, and I suspect that v9 is an entire modification of the original narrative. And that in the original narrative it was Jesus that baptized John, not the other way around. But if that change is made, then v11 also has to be changed from "Thou art My Son" to "This is my Son", with the Spirit talking to John. The interesting this about this is that this aligns with the voice at the Transfiguration as well:
Mark 9:7 And there came a cloud overshadowing them, and there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, `This is My Son -- the Beloved, hear ye him;'
So here is what we get:
8 I indeed did baptize you with water, but he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit.'
9 And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came and baptized John at the Jordan;
10 and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and the Spirit as a dove coming down to him;
11 and a voice came out of the heavens, `This is My Son -- the Beloved, in whom I delight.'
12 And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness,
13 and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were ministering to him.
14 And after the delivering up of John, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the reign of God,
9 And it came to pass in those days, Jesus came and baptized John at the Jordan;
10 and immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens dividing, and the Spirit as a dove coming down to him;
11 and a voice came out of the heavens, `This is My Son -- the Beloved, in whom I delight.'
12 And immediately doth the Spirit put him forth to the wilderness,
13 and he was there in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by the Adversary, and he was with the beasts, and the messengers were ministering to him.
14 And after the delivering up of John, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of the reign of God,
The thing about this is that now v8 properly sets the expectation of what happens next, and v14 properly concludes the events of v12 & 13.
In the traditional reading John tells us that Jesus is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit, but then we never see Jesus do any baptizing. Then Jesus is driven into the wildering a tempted by Satan, but we hear nothing about what comes of it, its just an event with no purpose, and then we hear that John was taken, with no clue as to why.
Of course when we read this we gloss over all of these things because we've already read the story from Matthew so we just fill in the details ourselves. And by now we all know that we're going to be hold about the arrest of John in Mark 6 but a reader of the story for the first time would be baffled by this opening. John tells us that Jesus is going to do some baptizing, but then he gets baptized instead, and what happened to John, why is he taken away all the sudden?