John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
Post Reply
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Post by Giuseppe »

So Vinny:
Most historical figures from the ancient are known to us today because they were literate or prominent people or they did things during their lives that had an impact on their literate or prominent contemporaries. It was the impact of their lives that caused information about them to be preserved. Information about Jesus of Nazareth, on the other hand, was preserved because some person or persons claimed to have encountered him after he was dead. Had it not been for a belief that arose in supernatural events occurring after his death, we cannot be certain that Jesus would have left any mark in the historical record that would be discernible two thousand years later.
(my bold)
http://youcallthisculture.blogspot.it/2 ... icism.html

To think well, also John the Baptist was remembered by Josephus because some person (Josephus and/or his source) claimed that God punished Herod to vindicate the death of John.


If Herod was not defeated in battle, then we would have not mention of John in the historical record and therefore we would be John-Mythicists. No reason at all for Josephus to remember the historical John the Baptist.


(Obviously, to say that God punished Herod because of John means to say that God vindicated/resurrected John).



Could Josephus
[18.116] Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God as a just punishment of what Herod had done against John, who was called the Baptist.
and Mark 6:16
But when Herod heard thereof, he said, It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the dead.
be describing the same Herod's reaction to the news about a resurrected/vindicated John the Baptist ?



Surely, to assume that Herod listened - or thought to have listened - two news about John the Baptist

1) the first time, described by Josephus and relative to the war,
2) the second time, described by Mark and relative to the preaching of a historical Jesus

...is an impossible coincidence. Even assuming that Mark invented the episode of a Herod being worried about the news of Jesus, the image of a worried Herod about the re-apparition post-mortem - as a risen person or a vindicated person (there is not so much difference) - of someone cannot occur in two independent sources without the presence of a some link between these two sources.

Therefore ''Mark'' was aware, via Josephus or via another source, that historically Herod was alarmed by listening about the revenge (or resurrection) of John the Baptist against him.

Therefore the next question is : why didn't ''Mark'' refer the truth about the reaction of Herod to the news of a vindicated (by God) John ? Why did Mark write that the true cause of the Herod's reaction was the news about a living Galilean preacher named Jesus, and not the popular voices about the revenge post-mortem of John ?

An answer may be that that was the way, for Mark, to make John a ''realized'' Jesus insofar John, if only he was survived to his death, could become surely the more great apostle of Jesus (greater than Paul himself even, being John the seed thrown on the way and eaten by the birds).

But another answer may be that Mark could sell only this episode as the his ''proof'' of a historical Jesus lived under Herod and Pilate: the popular news about a vindicated John were really the news of a living historical Jesus, but only the readers of Mark could know this fact because only they had the ''truth''.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
lsayre
Posts: 769
Joined: Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:39 pm

Re: John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Post by lsayre »

Antiquities 18:116 appears to me to be a redactional stitch (or seam) which merely duplicates vs. 119. This means to me that 116, 117, and 118 are potentially interpolations.

[116] Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.

[117] Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late.

[118] Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.

[119] Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Post by Giuseppe »

Even if strongly interpolated, Josephus had to refer to Baptist only in virtue of what the people tought after the defeat of Herod: that essentially the PHANTASM of John punished Herod.

Evidently an hypothetical historical Jesus was more obscure than the phantasm of John. Therefore that phantasm had to be coopted as the "voices" about the mirabilia of the Jesus invented by Mark.

The fact that a phantasm is compared to the historical Jesus by Mark tells us that the inventor was aware that historically the original "Jesus" was only a phantasm, an apparition, an hallucination, and related effects.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Post by Giuseppe »

Note that it is not the RISEN Jesus to be compared with the RISEN John, but it is the HISTORICAL Jesus to be compared with the phantasm of John (by Mark).

Therefore we have the proposal of the same Mark about in which class of entities his Jesus belongs: the class of the hallucinated (invisible) entities.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
Posts: 13732
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:37 am
Location: Italy

Re: John the B and Mark 6:16 if Herod wasn't defeated...

Post by Giuseppe »

Given what Mark says about the Baptist in the rest of the gospel, I am more inclined to think that the entire matter of Jesus as John redivivus is more in line with the portrait of John as the man who could become, but merely in potentia, a great apostle if only he was survived longer to see really the Christ (and not merely during a short occasion at Jordan) in the person of Jesus. The image of John as Jesus redivivus is already implicitly confuted by the reader of Mark (who knows that Jesus is not John redivivus).

The meaning of the episode is all there, in that symbolism (that is the same of the Parable of Sower).

THESIS: John could see the Christ (by becoming an alter Christus) but he didn't recognize the Christ

ANTI-THESIS: Peter and the 12 did see the Christ but they couldn't recognize the Christ.

SYNTHESIS: Only Paul could and did recognize the Christ (by becoming an alter Christus).

Therefore, as corollary, John the Baptist is more a precursor of Paul than of Jesus.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Post Reply