The connection of John with wilderness preceded the Gospels

[Giuseppe]

Stuart is great to have pointed out that Marcion derided John the Baptist in this passage of Luke/Matthew.

Matthew then in 24.26 in fact helps us here, with Jesus giving two examples of false prophets.

So, if they say to you, 'Lo, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out;
if they say, 'Lo, he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.

The first one is very obvious, John the baptizer or John the apostle / John the evangelist. Whatever the legends all seem to overlap. But the passage takes us back to Matthew 11:7-8 and Luke 17:24-25 where Jesus admonishes the crowds for going out to see John. (Robert Price counts this as part of the evidence of a rival Christ cult around John; I'm less certain, instead seeing John as a rival patron saint from another sect.) The second one we are in the Gnostic inner chambers, a theology of God's house derived I think from Jacob's ladder story, the very one referenced in John 14:2-3 -- but that's neither here nor there. The language suggests a Gnostic inner chamber for the select.

But this means that someway John was connected with the wilderness totally apart from the midrash on Isaiah etc in Mark 1. Marcion rejected that passage hence his knowledge of the connection John/wilderness couldn't come from the Judaizing incipit of Mark.

From the other hand, the wilderness is hardly a realistic element for a prophet like John. Josephus teaches that who went to wilderness didn't return because he failed miserably. The words of Marcion talk about a successfull cult or importance of John in the wilderness. It is a miracle by which Marcion could only be embarrassed.

But what was the miracle involving John in the wilderness?

That could only be the descent of the Spiritual Christ on John or in presence of John. The "wilderness" is a code word to say that none witnessed the event because the event never happened.

The simplest explanation is that some Judaizers identified John as the man on which the spiritual Christ descended in a mysterious way, i.e. without no ocular witnesses to see the scene.

Celsus read probably something of similar in his lost gospel.

When you were bathing, says the Jew, beside John, you say that what had the appearance of a bird from the air alighted upon you. And then this same Jew of his, continuing his interrogations, asks, What credible witness beheld this appearance? Or who heard a voice from heaven declaring you to be the Son of God? What proof is there of it, save your own assertion, and the statement of another of those individuals who have been punished along with you?

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04161.htm

John witnessed a miracle in the wilderness and consequently he was the Witness par excellence of this miracle.

[Giuseppe]

Now, if the importance of John is as Witness of a Miracle in the Wilderness, this only means that John was the first "Pilate" of the holy fable, i.e. in absolute the first link beetween the myth and the real History in the process of euhemerization, working therefore how Pilate will work later, as connector of a myth in the solid "History".

[Giuseppe]

The corollary is that John was enough famous to work as temporal connector.

Imagine the original oral incipit as saying:

In the time when John the Baptist was in the wilderness, Christ descended...

Note that Capernaum is also the name of a source emerging quasi magically in the wilderness. The meaning is the same: Christ emerged miracolously in the wilderness and only John witnessed the event. Hence John anchored Jesus to solid "History" the first time.

What we don't know is if Christ descended on John or before him.

At any case, the importance of the Witness/Recipient was so great that Marcion was obliged to denigrate the wilderness to attack John. Something as: what do you wait to see in the wilderness? Only a mirage.

[Giuseppe]

But then the reaction of Marcion against John as Ocular Witness of the descent of Jesus on earth was originally a denial of the same embryonic claim that Jesus descended on earth. What have you seen in the wilderness? Only John. And him only. No Jesus seen with him.

This remembers the denial that Pilate crucified Jesus, so that Ignatius had insist (with scum on his mouth) that Jesus suffered sub Pontio Pilato.

[Giuseppe]

This explains miracolously why the Gospel of Marcion derided the link John/wilderness in a Gospel where the readers couldn't still read the Judaizing incipit of Mark 1 with the John based on Isaiah etc.

That derision was a denial, and that denial was very old, made shortly after the first hearsay about a "historical" Christ witnessed by only John in the wilderness.

The historical Marcion was the first denier of the original mere hearsay about a human Christ seen on earth by another (historical) human being (John).

[Giuseppe]

A trace of the Marcion's embarrassment before the historicizing news about a human Christ seen by John in the wilderness is preserved in Mark 1 itself, where "Mark" disturbs himself to avoid at any cost any recognition of a miracle by John the Baptist: he saw only a mere man amon men, no miracle in action, and even the man disappeared rapidly because thrown by the Spirit in a wilderness where not even John could follow him to see him.

This is probably the reason the name Marcion was so execrated and connected with antidemiurgism and a lot of other "bad" heretics.

Marcion was the first Christian (placing Jesus's death in outer space) to rebel explicitly against the growing euhemerization of Jesus on earth via connection with his first Ocular Witness: John the Baptist.

If John became the WITNESS par excellence, Marcion became the NEGATOR par excellence.

Marcion deserves any honour by mythicists for this act of extreme heroism. Glory to Marcion forever!!!

[davidmartin]

So Giuseppe would you agree that the Gnostic myth was set in their version of 'outer space'? Just curious how you see that
What say you to the only mention of Pontius Pilate outside of gospels/acts in 1 Timothy? i was so surprised to see it i couldn't believe it at first
If it was added in, why 1 Timothy? There's something about 1 Timothy i'm missing...

[Giuseppe]

So Giuseppe would you agree that the Gnostic myth was set in their version of 'outer space'? Just curious how you see that

I don't see the connection with this thread. Carrier's answer about my question:

That belief is attested too late to be of any use in reconstructing the origins of Christianity.

I mention such beliefs in general only in two sentences in OHJ and only as proofs of concept, i.e. that some groups could imagine such things (pp. 580-81, 609-610, and that only in regards nativities, although the same point would extend to crucifixions).

Gnosticism, BTW, didn’t exist. It’s a modern construct that actually had no ancient correlate.

(my underline)

As to 1 Timothy, it is a banal Catholic (not even Marcionite) forgery.

[Giuseppe]

Scholar Rikva Nir seems to argue that the essence of the baptism of John in the Baptist passage in Josephus is a Christian product.

If the essence is not more original, then the authenticity of the entire Baptist passage collapses with it.

Hence we should consider the concrete possibility that "John the Baptist" was only "John" before to be reduced to "John the Baptist".

Hence the problem has to be reduced to the role of the theological meaning of "YHWH gives grace" in the Origins.

[maryhelena]

Another perspective.

Greg Doudna

IS JOSEPHUS’S JOHN THE BAPTIST PASSAGE A
CHRONOLOGICALLY DISLOCATED
STORY OF THE DEATH OF HYRCANUS II?

https://www.academia.edu/43060817/_Is_J ... yrcanus_II_

If this analysis is correct—that Josephus misplaced this story to the wrong Herod
in Antiquities—then there is no attestation external to the New Testament of the New
Testament figure of John the Baptist of the first century CE of the time of Jesus. The
implication would seem to be this: either the New Testament John the Baptist has been
generated in the story world of the Gospels, or he is a different figure than Josephus’s
John the Baptist, perhaps a later leader in the same movement bearing the same name,
who was secondarily conflated with Josephus’s John the Baptist. These issues are beyond
the scope of this paper.

footnote:

On the forgery issue see the discussion of Peter Kirby, “The Authenticity of John
the Baptist in Josephus,” at http://peterkirby.com/john-the-baptist-authentic.html. A
recent argument for forgery, Rivka Nir, “Josephus’ Account of John the Baptist: A
Christian Interpolation?,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 10 (2012): 32-62,
identifies the ideology of Josephus’s John the Baptist passage as that of 1QS and
considers Qumran texts not part of mainstream Judaism, in contrast to the Essenes
considered to have been part of mainstream Judaism and unrelated to the Qumran texts.
Nir argues that Josephus could not have favorably portrayed a view that purification
would be effective only if moral sin was eliminated first, which Nir argues was held only
by fringe groups on the edges of Judaism such as the Qumran texts; therefore, Nir argues,
the John the Baptist passage is a forgery and interpolation. However each of these
assumptions—that the Qumran texts were fringe, that 1QS and the Essenes are unrelated,
and that Josephus could not have represented the purification teaching of 1QS
favorably—is doubtful