So long as some interpreters continue to drive a wedge between Jesus and John, his fellow Jewish contemporary who influenced him most, we will struggle to combat the legacy of Christian antisemitism that denigrated Judaism – including John the Baptist – in the interest of elevating Jesus. Jesus’ high praise for his mentor ought to have prevented that all along.
When Jesus said that the least in the kingdom of God is greater than John, he was not claiming that John was excluded from the kingdom, nor that those who enter the kingdom are not born of women.
unfortunately for the ..... McGrath, in *Ev the sense is just that: John the Baptist was excluded from the kingdom.
So long as some interpreters continue to drive a wedge between Jesus and John, his fellow Jewish contemporary who influenced him most, we will struggle to combat the legacy of Christian antisemitism that denigrated Judaism – including John the Baptist – in the interest of elevating Jesus. Jesus’ high praise for his mentor ought to have prevented that all along.
In the title I confess that I was tempted to use the term "apologist" against someone.
Dr. James F. McGrath is the Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in the United States. He is the author of Christmaker: A Life of John the Baptist, and John of History, Baptist of Faith: The Quest for the Historical Baptizer. Both will be published by Eerdmans this year
oh my - The Quest for the Historical Baptizer - I wonder if we should send him Greg Doudna's article....
"Is Josephus's John the Baptist Passage a Chronologically Dislocated Story of the Death of Hyrcanus II?" (2020)
There is a comment on McGrath's article that maybe from the Steven Carr that used to post on Neil Godfrey's blog - and maybe on this forum in it's early days.
Steven Carr
4 days ago
'Matthew says they proclaimed the same message: ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’ (3:2; 4:17).'
It must be true then, mustn't it?
No historical records outside the Gospels say that John preached any such thing.
If Jesus did preach that the kingdom of heaven has come near, then he was out by at least 2000 years.
