Is John the Baptist a sanitized Elijah or is (the midrash from) Elijah a rehabilitation of John the Baptist?
Posted: Tue Dec 12, 2023 11:54 pm
A genuine dilemma:
- A) Elijah was an icon of Zealot violence, hence he was sanitized as the persecuted John the Baptist (in other terms, John the Baptist is only a tool to sell a new politically correct Elijah)
- B) all the midrash from Elijah serves to rehabilitate John the Baptist against the Marcionite defamation of him (in other terms, the midrash from Elijah is only a tool to sell a new politically correct John the Baptist).