Why John the Baptist had to become the Angel of YHWH of Exodus 23:20

[Giuseppe]

“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.

(Exodus 23:20)

In another thread some evidence is given to raise the question: was the figure of the precursor/messenger of Jesus required simply by the prophecy in Exodus 23:20 or for a different reason (other OT prophecies, rivalry with the John sect, a historical John who baptized really a historical Jesus, etc) ?

The problem is made more difficult since the Angel of YHWH described in Exodus 23:20 is easily seen as the biblical Joshua. The Gospel of 12 holy Apostles (syriac version) seems to reserve that prophecy for Jesus. But a problem arises: is Jesus the Angel of YHWH or is he the person who has the Angel of YHWH as his (more or less divine) precursor?

In Exodus 23:20 YHWH is addressing Moses, but obviously Moses stands for the entire Israel, since the Angel of YHWH has to precede him as an entire group. Hence, was Jesus seen in the "servant" Israel or in the his leader (=who leads him) i.e. the Angel of YHWH? A distinction between the Angel and who is introduced by the Angel is required.

Only in a second place the Angel of YHWH is combined with the figure of Eliah as precursor of the Messiah. Frankly, I wonder why so much insistence is given on John as Elijah etc and not on John as the Angel of YHWH seen in Exodus 23:20. I have the strong suspicion that that insistence is all mere apologetics.

Once explained the need of a precursor with "the name of YHWH in him", the name of John ("YHWH gives grace") was imposed naturally. Note also the deliberate contrast between what the Angel of YHWH will do (death and destruction on the enemies of Israel in Canaan) and what John will do (giving grace by the his baptism).

John the Baptist was confused with the new Jesus/Joshua because he was identified with the Angel of YHWH who was already easily confused with the old Jesus/Joshua.

Is it only a coincidence the fact that the person who had to play the role of the Angel of YHWH was just one with the "Name of YHWH in him" ? Did a historical John exist independently from that role and from that name that were required per Exodus 23:20?

[Giuseppe]

Note also the deliberate contrast between what the Angel of YHWH will do (death and destruction on the enemies of Israel in Canaan) and what John will do (giving grace by the his baptism).

Note that John 1:17 is using the same passage Exodus 23:20 to reiterate the antithesis between justice and grace introduced by Jesus/Joshua (identified with the Angel of YHWH) in conparison to Moses:

For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ

So in the name of "John" ("YHWH-gives-grace"), the part "YHWH" is required by the fulfillment of Exodus 23:20 ("my name is in him"), while the part "gives-grace" is required by the Christian need of an Angel of YHWH who was better apt for the new Joshua/Jesus (as opposed to the old).

[Giuseppe]

Note that, differently from the past, now I am able, by this new evidence, to confute the skepticism of DCH about John as an "angel" (as opposed to a mere human "messenger"):

(No need, by you MrMacSon, of quoting all from the link given above)

The marcionite Jesus says that John is more than a prophet: he is an angel. Translated wrongly as "messenger".

The same angel alluded by Paul in Gal 1:8.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed

Giuseppe,

But where has it been established that John was an angel?

IMHO, it is only your process of thinking, which links passages by vague commonalities, that gets results like this.

I don't give a rat's buttocks whether a 2nd century Gnostic writer portrayed him so. We don't have any evidence of this equation in canonical or "apostolic" literature produced in the late 1st or very early 2nd century.

the evidence is in the incipit of the Gospel of Holy 12 apostles (syriac version), where the "angel" who is mentioned is not (still) John and is not (still) human(-ized) but probably alludes to the Angel of YHWH from Exodus 23:20.

[Giuseppe]

The idea of grace is surely intrinsic to the baptism of John in Mark 1:8:

I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

I am going to suspect that John the Baptist was not only an anti-Gnostic figure (note the Marcion's difficulty to accept fully him in the his Gospel), but he was meant to allegorize someway «the Gnostic gospel of grace», also. What I mean by the "gnostic gospel of grace"? The sympathy acquired by Jesus among the Gnostics as the revealer of a Gospel of grace against the Just God of the Jews. In this way, John is the repetition of the same pattern already seen in action, and resumed by the following table:

The Gnostic «problem»	The Jewish-Christian «solution»
They accused the Jews for the killing of Jesus	Pilate was introduced to make it explicit that Jesus was killed as Jewish Messiah and only as such
They adored a Jesus Son of Father who is not the God of the Jews	Barabbas was introduced to make it explicit that the other Son of Father was not the true Jesus called Christ
Taste the Gnostic flavor of John 1:17: For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ	The grace came not by Jesus but by John the Baptist (meaning «YHWH gives grace»). At contrary, Jesus «will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire» (Matthew 3:11) The «fire» doesn't forgive, differently from water.

Note that the first point («They accused the Jews for the killing of Jesus») doesn't mean that the Gnostics wrote the First Gospel (where I think that only the Jews killed Jesus), but that they profited enormously from a violently anti-Jewish reading of a Jewish gospel where the Jews alone crucify Jesus.

ADDENDA: note that for the Jewish-Christians who added respectively Pilate, John the Baptist, and Barabbas for the reasons given above, these were not interpolations (even if we woul call them as interpolations), but «fulfillment of scriptures». As the logic goes, if it was a fact that the Gnostics hated the Jews, that the Gnostics adored a Son of Father, that the Gnostics exalted Jesus as bearer of grace, then that fact had to be predicted and fulfilled and read, in what these ideas could have of good or of evil from a Jewish-Christian POV, by the same Gospel. Hence: the interpolations.