Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

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Giuseppe
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Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

Antiquities 18.116-119:
But to some of the Jews the destruction ofHerod’s defeat is attributed to his murder of John the Baptist. Herod’s army seemed to be divine vengeance, and certainly a just vengeance, for his treatment of John, surnamed the Baptist. For Herod had put him to death, though he was a good man and had exhorted the Jews to lead righteous lives, to practise justice towards their fellows and piety towards God, and so doing to join in baptism. In his view this was a necessary preliminary if baptism was to be acceptable to God. They must not employ it to gain pardon for whatever sins they committed, but as a consecration of the body implying that the soul was already thoroughly cleansed by right behaviour. When others too joined the crowds about him, because they were aroused to the highest degree by his sermons, Herod became alarmed. Eloquence that had so great an effect on mankind might lead to some form of sedition, for it looked as if they would be guided by John in everything that they did. Herod decided therefore that it would be much better to strike first and be rid of him before his work led to an uprising, than to wait for an upheaval, get involved in a difficult situation and see his mistake. Though John, because of Herod’s suspicions, was brought in chains to Machaerus, the stronghold that we have previously mentioned, and there put to death, yet the verdict of the Jews was that the destruction visited upon Herod’s army was a vindication of John, since God saw fit to inflict such a blow on Herod

According to this scholar, the original word replacing "others" was "men".

At any case, the idea is that the "others" were different people from the people who already did join the Baptist.

What if the "others" were Christians?

This may be a sign of interpolation: the idea that John mets first a group A of people, and then he mets a group B (in the Gospel: only "Jesus", in Josephus: the "others").
I mean that the idea finds his origin in the Gospel: John dies just after he is met by Jesus. So here he is killed by Herod just when he is met by these enigmatic "others".
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

The idea that Herod fears X only after the arrival of "others" coming to X is basically a (late) Gospel idea: the Magi docet.

So the interpolator was inventing a reason for Herod kill John, so that the latter becomes a precursor of Jesus Christ even by his being a potential threat to earthly authorities.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Giuseppe
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

It is impossible for a Christian not infer from "Josephus"'s account on John the following moral lesson: just as the death of John implied the defeat of Herod, so the death of the Messiah expected by John will imply the defeat of all the Jews.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Nasruddin
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Nasruddin »

John's followers were those he taught to lead a a life of justice and piety, and were baptised as a sign that they were righteous souls.. The 'others' were those who were aroused by his sermons, but did not follow his ascetic lifestyle. They were the ones Herod feared, for they would act upon the words of John who objected to Herod's marriage, rather than just sitting and saying it was bad. He was not worried about men in rags preaching in the desert about purity. But he was worried about people motivated to act against him.

That's why Herod feared, arrested, and then killed John.
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DCHindley
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by DCHindley »

Nasruddin wrote: Sat Mar 31, 2018 3:00 pm John's followers were those he taught to lead a a life of justice and piety, and were baptised as a sign that they were righteous souls.. The 'others' were those who were aroused by his sermons, but did not follow his ascetic lifestyle. They were the ones Herod feared, for they would act upon the words of John who objected to Herod's marriage, rather than just sitting and saying it was bad. He was not worried about men in rags preaching in the desert about purity. But he was worried about people motivated to act against him.

That's why Herod feared, arrested, and then killed John.
Per Josephus, who may have had his own agenda in mind when he crafted his explanation of John's death.

I think you are right to think that the narrative as it is was keen to distinguish between those who came to John to be baptized *after* straightening out their own relationships with the God of their forefathers, and those who were highly agitated by his sermons.

But here is the problem with this: Those who came to be baptized in droves obviously were moved to do so by someone's preaching, but whose? It could be someone with a somewhat different social agenda than John's, and these two revolved about one another like two binary stars, but there would likely have been a number of people (besides say, Jesus) who could have served such a roll.

But the second half of this passage mentions Herod Antipas thinking that John was the one who was agitating these people, as "others" were ready to act on whatever he asked them to do, and this does suggest to me that John was critical of Herod Antipas, possibly his marriage or the reasons by which it was justified.

It seems Antipas was willing to adopt some Greco-Roman customs that his more conservative subjects of Judean stock found objectionable. He could have simply relied upon some sort of legal technicality to justify it. It's not like Judaism was a monolith set in stone, but one in which at least 4 schools of thought predominated in the homeland, plus "Herodians" who held many Hellenized positions on various subjects, with an unknown number of sects that may have existed among Diaspora Judeans.

We know from inscriptions in Asia Minor, far from super conservatives who predominated in Judea & the Galilean regions, that the norm for the observation of ancestral laws was significantly relaxed from those observed in the Judean homeland. They assimilated and sought out, and received, Greco-Roman patrons who were in no sense "Jews" and at least let them think that the Judean God was equivalent to the God Most-High, Jupiter, etc., but all the while continued to observe some ancestral traditions, particularly diet, circumcision of male children, and observance of Mosaic law in some way.

That being said, I think that John was attracting a following, first among repentant Jews (and this might have included Judeans of the Diaspora who had been able to retire to the homeland) and later among hot-heads, who were able to use John's sermons to raise the specter of rebellion.

DCH
Giuseppe
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Giuseppe »

I undertstand the possibility of a "realistic" interpretation of the account on JtB in Josephus along the same lines described by David, but the pattern is surprisingly similar to the irrational reaction of Herod when the Magi (just as the "others" in Josephus) came to him searching for a rival Messiah: the murder of John just as the "murder of the innocents". This simple possibility alone makes me doubt about the authenticity of Antiquities 118:116-119. Not to deny it, but simply to put it in discussion.
Nihil enim in speciem fallacius est quam prava religio. -Liv. xxxix. 16.
Nasruddin
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Nasruddin »

DCHindley wrote: Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:20 pm That being said, I think that John was attracting a following, first among repentant Jews (and this might have included Judeans of the Diaspora who had been able to retire to the homeland) and later among hot-heads, who were able to use John's sermons to raise the specter of rebellion.
That was the essence of my post.

There may have been two phases to John's preaching. He first preached the life that led to baptism, and then later on started to preach against Herod's marriage. All who heard his sermons would have been affected, but the non-baptized ones would be more inclined to action that could 'pollute' them with deeds that might not have been John's intention (i.e. outright violence against Herod).
Nasruddin
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Re: Who were the "others" coming to John the Baptist?

Post by Nasruddin »

Giuseppe wrote: Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:00 am I undertstand the possibility of a "realistic" interpretation of the account on JtB in Josephus along the same lines described by David, but the pattern is surprisingly similar to the irrational reaction of Herod when the Magi (just as the "others" in Josephus) came to him searching for a rival Messiah: the murder of John just as the "murder of the innocents". This simple possibility alone makes me doubt about the authenticity of Antiquities 118:116-119. Not to deny it, but simply to put it in discussion.
With regard to John, the 'others' (militant followers of John) were feared by Herod junior. But there is no mention that Herod senior feared the 'others' (the Magi). But kings are always fearful of rivals and see enemies everywhere.
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