Was John the Baptist the original baptized figure or a mere anti-marcionite icon?

[Giuseppe]

Usually there are only four options about the incipit in Mark (with John the Baptist):

1) consider it genuine of the Earliest Gospel (for the reasons you like).

2) consider it a reaction against the marcionite Christ, since John the Baptist works as an ideal link between OT and NT writings.

3) consider it a way to co-opt the figure of John the Baptist from a rival sect that considered John as the Jewish Christ.


4) consider it a way to reverse the relation between the original baptizer (the divine Christ) and the original baptized one (the human ''historical'' Jesus = John).


I confess that the my natural reading of that incipit is always been the point 2.


But then a doubt is raised: remember the Cyrenain episode. The separationists (the original readers of Mark) had no interest to introduce Simon of Cyrene, since for them Jesus was the human recipient abandoned by Christ, not Simon. So it is clear that Simon of Cyrene is a proto-catholic interpolation. In virtue of the same reason, there is no reason for a separationist reading of Jesus Barabbas (for example, seeing Barabbas as the true Jesus who escapes), so also Barabbas is surely an (anti-Gnostic) addition in Mark. Also Judas is an addition, since he cared to call Jesus as ''rabbi'', by specifying that he, Jesus, is the betrayed person, and not himself (Judas) against a possible misunderstanding by the guards (evidently to explain that the crucified was just Jesus and not Judas).

So there was no interest by the separationists to introduce John the Baptist in the role of the Baptizer of Jesus, since the Baptizer is already the divine Christ. John is an intruder, unless he is the original man Jesus who was baptized by the divine Christ.

This only fact makes me suspect that the point 4 has some appearance of truth.

[Joseph D. L.]

There is two and only two possible courses to explaining John the Baptist:

1) Simon of Cyrene has priority over Lazarus...

... Simon of Cyrene emphasis the nature of the Christ spirit in the Synoptics...

2) Lazarus has priority over John the Baptist

... or, Lazarus emphasis the importance of the "Risen Lord" in John.

But how does this explain John the Baptist?

Either John was prefiguring Simon or Lazarus. Jesus then becomes an allegorical bridge between John and Simon/Lazarus.

That means that John himself is an afterthought. Not Simon of Cyrene.

Anyone who became imbued with the Christ became Jesus, including John, Simon, and Paul.

You throw around terms like gnostic, anti-gnostic, and "Judaizers", but you don't know what these mean.

[Giuseppe]

Too much characters in the your post. The Earliest Gospel had to be the less specialized about their number. Legends (and number of actors involved) grow. Not the contrary.

[Joseph D. L.]

The earliest Gospel wouldn't have any characters at all. It would be a mandate announcing the Good News, and not a pseudo biography of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth.

To put it in simpler terms for you: Lazarus = Antinous, Simon of Cyrene = Lukuas

The only real issue here is which came first. John the Baptist is a meaningless variable to the theology.

[Giuseppe]

I am using "Earliest Gospel" as term to refer the first "pseudo biography of the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth". I can agree that before the 70 the Gospel was only "a mandate announcing the Good News".

Without polemic, but I would like to abandon the old game of seeing x where y is written etc.

Where this game may work is with John in the place of Jesus, since Mark invented 'eloi eloi lema sabactani' to explain away the risk that Jesus was invoking Elijiah (i.e. that the man on the cross was John the Baptist).

[Joseph D. L.]

There was no "before 70". The mandate was issued sometime after the Kitos revolt, with Hadrian's blessing, and the Epistle of Barnabas gives evidence for this.

There was...

No Christianity in the first century,
No Paul in the first century,
No reason for either in the first century.

Everything comes during the second century and after Kitos. Thinking that there is some great partition separating everything before 70 ad and everything after 70 ad only handicaps your thinking. The first century, in regards to Christianity, might as well not even have happened.

John is an anachronism overlayed by the Josephus-Hegesippus author and editor, who superimposed Theudas into the narrative. There was no need for a baptist introducing Jesus onto the scene, because it was Jesus who issued the new baptismal rites with his death.

[Giuseppe]

I am always open to a new scenario, but please, about anything related to allegories in the Earliest Gospel, I like to consider the things from the POV of the minimal mythicism paradigm (viz. from a god Jesus to a man Jesus) beyond if before or after 70 CE.

[Giuseppe]

I have started this thread, at any rate, moved by this reading about John the Baptist.

It astonishes me that, despite thousands of scholars daily studying early Christianity, to my knowledge not a single one has pointed out a monumentally important and fairly elementary datum regarding Simon Magus: in the Aramaic language, the word “stand” (amad) also means “baptise.” This fact is so vital to understanding the Magus that it changes everything one can say about him.

http://www.mythicistpapers.com/2018/06/ ... ary-pt-14/