The case for John of Gischala eclipsed as "John the Baptist" in Mark

[Giuseppe]

I have raised this question:

Hi Greg,

building on Vermeiren's case that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus son of Saphat, I wonder if the baptism of Jesus by John is a distorted record of Jesus son of Saphat becoming a vassal of John of Gischala after the former's retreat to Jerusalem.

From this POV:

The sinner Jesus coming from Galilee (Nazareth == the lake of Ge-Nesareth?) to be purified by John at the Jordan is Jesus son of Saphat of which the "sin" was his defeat in Taricheae in Galilee. This Jesus had to cross twice the Jordan because Samaria was closed to him.

In addition, John baptizing/anointing Jesus is John of Gischala making Jesus son of Saphat his high priest.

Curiously, John of Gischala may be behind the "man carrying a jar of WATER": in addition to his potential capacity of baptize with WATER by his jar, this man (friend of Jesus) is also the owner of the upper room where the Gospel Jesus celebrated the eucharist. Could he be John of Gischala who had designed Jesus son of Saphat as his high priest in service inside the Temple citadel (during the siege, dominion of John of Gischala)?

Then, it would be not a coincidence that Pharisees questioning the origin of the Jesus' authority received as answer by Jesus a reference to the origin of John's authority (Mark 11:30): if Jesus could pose as last high priest of the Temple of besieged Jerusalem, it was only as vassal of John of Gischala. The Jesus's power derived from John's power in both the cases.

The Gospel Jesus started his preaching in Galilee after the arrest of John: in historical terms, if it is true that Jesus son of Saphat joined John of Gischala AFTER his actions in Galilee, it is also true that Paul (and his paulinized Jesus, per Tarazi et alia) started his preaching in "Galilea of Gentiles" (the Roman Empire) AFTER that John of Gischala ended in a Roman prison.

Hence, totally beyond if the Baptist Passage in Josephus was original or not, the conclusion would be, in both cases, that the figure of John the Baptist served to eclipse the disturbing memory of the relation of vassalage of Jesus son of Saphat with John of Gischala.

And to eclipse the disturbing fact that John of Gischala prophetized the coming of Jesus "with fire" in the original Jewish layer of the Book of Revelation.

Thoughts?

[Giuseppe]

The answer:

Interesting Giuseppe. John controlled the temple during the siege of 70; the oracles of Revelation originating from the time of the siege and centered around temple imagery may have originated from prophets under John, or John (compare War 6:285-286 and Rev 11:1-2); the 144,000 on mount Zion of Rev 14:1f sound like an idealized allusion to John’s army in Jerusalem; and Revelation is directly said to be from John of Asia Minor, who may be the post-war John of the Revolt. Separately, Jesus’s subordination to John is in the gospels’ traditions and just how that came about has been much discussed and debated.

I think a case can be made that John of Gischala could be John the Essene, the war hero supposedly killed at Ashkelon. Josephus does not identify these two Johns, Josephus tells John the Essene favorably whereas Josephus hates John of Gischala (but there could be motive to not volunteer an identification of the two), and there is the objection that John the Essene was dead. No one has suggested this identification previously but I think a case can be made. The argument would first establish a range of examples in Josephus and elsewhere of just common basic ancient confusions over issues of death and survival of individuals. Lots of examples. Josephus himself, hit by a stone outside the walls of Jerusalem, was thought to be and reported dead inside the walls of Jerusalem, with rejoicing, until Josephus turned up alive again, many other examples. Separately there seem to be a range of cases of doubled figures in which Josephus or other editors simply included stories without making explicit identifications with other variantly-named or described figures who were the same, but either the editors did not know or did not care or did not bother to say. (One simple example: Joseph Cabi son of Simon, high priest ca. 62 CE [Ant 20.196]; and Joseph son of Simon, revolt commander in Jericho in 66 [War 2.567], fairly clearly identical.) How this phenomenon happened is not entirely clear but it may be if work on Josephus’s histories was being done by committee, or perhaps different prisoner interrogation stories set down in writing, i.e. multiple hearsay sources not given much critical analysis or cross-referencing. (See War 6.114 where two obvious duplicate variant versions of sons of the same Matthias are written in the same sentence as if they are two Matthiases–and that mistake is even more striking once it is realized that that Matthias is Josephus’s own father!) In the case of John the Essene and John of Gischala, if these were identical Josephus would have known, but the hypothesis would be that Josephus simply did not disclose voluntarily that identity, any more than Josephus also may not have volunteered cross-identifications on other occasions of figures relevant to his personal history such as “Bannus” or “the Egyptian false prophet”, and so on. That is, strategic use of doublets in narrative or history-telling as one way of finessing uncomfortable facts. (Is there a study on this as an phenomenon?)

In my understanding, once Josephus’s John the Baptist and aspects of Josephus’s John the Baptist in the synoptic gospels are deleted, what is left is not no-John but rather a John of the era of the First Revolt and then after that in Asia Minor–the John of Asia Minor of Acts 18 of the “disciples of John”; the John of Revelation; the John the narrative character with which the Fourth Gospel opens and implied author of that Gospel; and Papias’s “John the Elder”, all arguably John of Gischala of Josephus.

At first sight the idea John the Essene = John of Gischala may seem a stretch or arbitrary but it may be worth a closer look. The way Josephus portrays John of Gischala, he was local to Gischala, of poor or common birth, he got a band of brigands together and that is what he was: a leader of a local gang of brigands in Galilee who later took power in Jerusalem. I see elements possibly indicating more to the story than that:

–according to Josephus, John worked for him (Josephus) in Galilee, before they became estranged.

–Josephus tells of John being in league with the Jerusalem government in an unsuccessful attempt on the part of the government of Jerusalem to fire or remove Josephus from being governor in Galilee. How was a local homegrown bandit leader so closely aligned with the Jerusalem government against Josephus? Josephus does not clearly explain.

–John accused, to the Jerusalem government and to anyone listening in Galilee, that Josephus was planning to defect to the Romans. Josephus said John was lying, before doing exactly what John said Josephus was about to do.

–in pseudo-Hegesippus, a medieval version of Josephus with stories not in the Greek texts of Josephus’s works but which some scholars think may draw on ancient lost sources (e.g. Justus of Tiberias and so on)–in pseudo-Hegesippus Josephus actually was involved in the aftermath of the battle of Ashkelon and he (Josephus) did a massacre in Ashkelon. That is where Jewish heroes John the Essene and Niger were reported fallen, though Josephus tells of Niger living after he was supposed to be dead. In Josephus’s Greek texts Josephus is not in Ashkelon, did not massacre people there, and John the Essene is said to have died there. Josephus tells of the emergence of the apparently unrelated military commander John of Gischala in Galilee, whom Josephus has working under him (Josephus) until they become estranged. Although speculative, one could put two and two together and have John the Essene not actually killed at Ashkelon despite reports, then turn up in Gischala (which Josephus says was his hometown) and continue as Jerusalem-authorized leader of an army. That is, a picture in which John in Galilee in contact with and authorized by Jerusalem is in continuity, not discontinuity, from the earlier John authorized by the Jerusalem government at the battle of Ashkelon.

Nothing is known of Josephus’s war hero John the Essene’s origins, nothing except the nickname or surname and that he was a commander, part of the Jerusalem government. But John of Gischala is also aligned with the Jerusalem government through no mechanism explained by Josephus. That Josephus allows the reader to think the two figures are separated, even though telling the stories of both, could be for reasons. This is admittedly speculative, but I am trying to show it is at least a possibility without obvious falsification. It would add an interesting component to John of Revelation/Asia Minor if that John was, at least in one version known to Josephus, surnamed or nicknamed “Essene”.

(my emphasis)

For the chronicle, Vermeiren allows me the translation in Italian of his book.

[StephenGoranson]

"John the Essene" is mentioned as a general in translations, but that may be a confusion in Josephus with the gentilic (place name), someone from Essa/Gerasa, so maybe not an Essene, according to Abraham Schalit (in Namenwoerterbuch zu Flavius Josephus, supp. to the Concordance edited by K.H. Rengstorf, Leiden, 1968, p.34, 46, 66).
IIRC, Steve Mason also discussed Schalit's observation.

[Giuseppe]

I don't know how the possible identity (or not) between these two Johns in Josephus can affect the topic I am interested about (the identity between the Gospel Jesus and Jesus son of Saphat for the impossible "coincidences" of a triple crucifixion, a secret friendship in the past and a name + patronimic in common).

ADDENDA: Possibly a clue is the possible ethymology of "essaios" as "baptizer", hence John the Gischala == John the Essene == "John the Baptist".

Giuseppe wrote: “The ethymology of Essaios is Baptizer. Proved by GRÄTZ also.”

Graetz did make an etymological proposal, meaning “bathers” (rather than baptizers), but if I recall correctly, he proposed that it came from Aramaic in a *hypotherical* and *unattested* form.

[gryan]

I have raised this question:

Hi Greg,

building on Vermeiren's case that the Gospel Jesus == Jesus son of Saphat, I wonder if the baptism of Jesus by John is a distorted record of Jesus son of Saphat becoming a vassal of John of Gischala after the former's retreat to Jerusalem.

Since I answer to "Greg" in daily life, I did a double take. The "Greg" addressed here is Gregory Doudna, and his reply is found here: https://vridar.org/2021/01/25/john-the- ... ent-130271

[Giuseppe]

Since I answer to "Greg" in daily life, I did a double take.

Precisely.

Following the link, I quote again here Gordon Louis Rylands about ὁ βαπτίζων == ὁ Εσσαῖος

And as the statements made about him [John the Baptist] seem to connect him more closely with the Essenes than with any other sect, a natural inference would be that he stands as the representative of that sect. Now, the Greek word baptisma means nothing more than “washing with water and as it is known that one of the customs of the Essenes was to wash themselves all over with cold water every day, they could naturally be called the baptizers; and so John the Baptizer would be John the Essene. Raschke finds a confirmation of this in the name “Essene” itself; he points out that as the Aramaic word for the Baptizer is Es-hia, which in Greek would naturally become Essaios, this, coupled with the above-mentioned habit of the Essenes, would be a strong inducement to the symbolizing writer to adopt the symbol “John the Baptizer” to stand for “John the Essene,” and so to represent the sect of the Essenes. It is noteworthy that, although the accepted reading in chap, i, v. 4, of Mark’s Gospel in the Greek Testament is “ came John baptizing,” some good manuscripts read “came John the Baptizer”—literally the Baptizing [one]. If the second reading were the correct one, it would strongly confirm the conclusion just reached. The only difference between the two readings is the omission of a single letter, the definite article, in the first one. This could easily happen in copying, especially as it leaves perfectly good sense—indeed, the copyist might well think better sense, not knowing the reason for which the evangelist put the article in. Matthew employs the term “John the Baptist” ; in Mark alone of all the evangelists is the expression “John the Baptizer” found; and no doubt each writer had a good reason for the particular form of the word which he uses.
Another fact pointing to the same conclusion is that, while Josephus mentions three religious sects among the Jews (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes), the Gospels also mention three (Pharisees, Sadducees, and the disciples of John). This suggests the idea that the Gospel writer meant to connect the disciples of John with the Essenes, as he does not explicitly mention the latter sect, though we should expect him to do so.

(Gordon Louis Rylands, Evolution of Christianity, p.57-59)

[StephenGoranson]

Above in this thread I noted that "John the Essene" is a misreading of "John of Essa/Gerasa (Josephus uses both place names for it).

Additionally,

Steve Mason, What Josephus Says about the Essenes in his Judean War (online by title):

In at least one case, finally, there is good reason to believe that Josephus understands )Essai~oj as an ethnicon, designating someone from Essa. He mentions a place called Essa in the Transjordan (Ant. 13.393 = Gerasa in War 1.104), and a person from Essa would most naturally be called an )Essai~oj. Further, in War 2.567 we are introduced to the commanders chosen for the revolt: Niger the Perean, John the )Essai~oj, Josephus, and others. In War 3.11, similarly, we are told of Niger o( Perai5thj, Silas o( Babulw/nioj, and John o( )Essai~oj. These immediate contexts, taken with the fact that John is never credited with any of the traits otherwise mentioned for Essenes, provide prima facie support for Schalit's proposal (1968: 46 s.v.) that in John's case )Essai~oj means "of Essa."

So, "John the Essene" did not exist. And the Aramaic word proposed, an unknown hypothetical form not in any known ancient writings. That's a lot of non-existence being used by someone who strains to say Jesus did not exist...

[Giuseppe]

And the Aramaic word proposed, an unknown hypothetical form not in any known ancient writings.

While you are possibly correct about John being not an Essene but one from Essa, I fear that you ignore too much easily the Rylands's reasons above supporting 'baptizer' as the meaning of "Essaios". In my view, it is surely more probable the Essene connection (via Essaios) with the appellative 'The Baptizer' given to John in the Gospels, than the Joan E. Taylor's suggestion that the "Herodians" were the Essenes.

At any case, the entire essene discussion is not about the topic of this thread, and the historicist Russell Gmirkin appears to agree with Lee Harmon and Greg Doudna about John of Apocalypse as John of Gischala (or one of the priests in service under John of Gischala).

[StephenGoranson]

You mentioned Russell Gmirkin. Coincidentally, earlier this morning, I posted, questioning one of his interpretations. If interested, the thread is “It’s not all Greek to me” At:
ane-3@groups.io

[Giuseppe]

Is your (and Mason's) argument that Josephus wrote "John the Essene" in full knowledge of the fact that "Essene" means "from Essa",

...or that Josephus wrote "John the Essene" meaning "Essene" (not as an ethnicon) despite of the fact that John came really from Essa?

In the latter case, are not you introducing a bit of an ad hoc hypothesis?