Dan Snow's History Hit - John the Baptist

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

Not long after the turn of the first millennium, a Jewish prophet emerged from a period of desert solitude in the Jordan River valley. He wore simple camel hair garments and ate nothing but locusts and wild honey. His name was John the Baptist, and his pre-messianic preachings about repentance and God's final judgement would form the bedrock of the early Christian faith.Joan Taylor is Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College London and author of 'The Immerser: John the Baptist Within Second Temple Judaism'. She explains why people were so drawn to him, and why he is considered the forerunner of Jesus Christ.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Max Carrey.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail].

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History. I've just returned from Jordan, and one of those stunning sights I saw is certainly one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries of the last few decades. If you drive down into the mighty gash in the earth that runs from the Sea of Galilee, Lake Tiberias, all the way to the Dead Sea, you're driving down into the Jordan Valley. The River Jordan runs like a little artery right through the middle of that valley. It's the world's lowest river. Now this once huge, untamed, life-giving river has been drained of much of its water. It's been cut back and controlled and canalized, and much of its water has been taken

for the farms that lie on its banks. And today it's really just a muddy little stream, the banks thick with rushes. But here's the really fascinating bit. By a strange twist of fate, a long stretch of this river, particularly the bit where I visited, just the north of the Dead Sea. It has escaped the explosion of concrete and steel that has swept across the world over the last 60 years. And that's because from 1967 to the 1990s, this was a fault line in one of the world's great geopolitical antagonisms. Israel had driven the Jordanians totally out of the west Bank of the Jordan River in 1967, during the Six-Day War. They'd captured Jerusalem, Jericho, and many other places made famous by

stories of the history of the Holy Land. The Jordan River became the front line. It's where the Israelis and the Jordanians eyeballed each other. There was barbed wire, there were minefields, there was the threat of monumental violence. It was not shovel-ready prime real estate. And it grew wild, it remained unspoiled. And then when peace was declared between Israel and Jordan in the 1990s, archaeologists quickly penetrated this dense scrub, and they found something quite astonishing. They dug and discovered the remains of early Christian churches, a cluster of them. They also discovered a fine stone staircase which leads down into what was once the Jordan River. It's changed course a little bit over the intervening years.

And we know from very early travellers' accounts exactly what these structures were. They were religious sites where early Christians came on pilgrimage to be baptised, to be immersed in the holy waters of the Jordan River. Now why here? Why on this spot? There's a lot going on here and it's all connected. This was traditionally where it's believed that Joshua led the Jews across the River Jordan to take possession of the Holy Land, to conquer the promised land. They were carrying the Ark of the Covenant, the waves, the waters parted and they marched onto the West Bank. They marched into Canaan, they besieged Jericho. They were here to conquer and claim the land that they believed they'd been promised by their God. More importantly for early Christians it was here that they chose to

build their churches, here they chose to come for baptisms and pilgrimage because they believed that John the Baptist has set himself up on that spot. John the Baptist, charismatic figure, a dangerous figure, a rebel if you like, predicting great change was coming, eschewing material goods, living in the wilderness, and importantly, according to the Gospels, recognising Jesus when he came along to get baptised. And that was really the start of Jesus' adventures. I went there and I was lucky enough to explore the site quite thoroughly and I climbed into the remains of Jesus' adventures. I went there and I was lucky enough to explore the site quite thoroughly and I climbed into the remains of a cave which early Christians believed that

John had dwelt in himself because it had been incorporated into the church. The apse of the church was the curvy bit where the altar is, was actually the wall of the cave in which they traditionally believed obviously that John had lived while he was carrying out his ministry. It's an exciting place to go and visit. It's a great site. A place where ancient historical texts, ancient religious texts like the Gospels, are corroborated by early travellers' accounts and the archaeology under the ground. It's a very satisfying place to go and visit. Whether or not you believe in the sacred story of the site, the fact is that early Christians believed that is where Jesus was baptised. That is where Christianity itself begins. So the question is, who is this John the Baptist?

Why were people going to see him, to listen to him, get baptised by him? Did he definitely exist? And how did he shape early Christianity? Here to tell me all about it is Professor Joan Taylor. She is at King's College London, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, and she has a wonderful knowledge of literature, archaeology, language, culture, and history. It's great to have on the podcast. This is John the Baptist, folks. Enjoy. Joan, thank you very much for coming cleared the tower. Joan, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. You're welcome. Lovely to be here.

Now, whenever I post about biblical history, you get a range of responses. Let's just say that politely. First of all, how do we know someone called John the Baptist existed in real life? Tell me. That's a very good question. I think probably he existed in real life because it would have been much more convenient had he not existed. So our Gospels are really worried about John the Baptist. They're trying to make sure that people don't go running off after him, that they run off after Jesus. John the Baptist had to be explained. And you can see them trying to make sure that he was less than Jesus. So when you have something like that, as a historian, you think, okay, he probably did exist. Yes. Okay. That's interesting. So he does appear in all the gospels, very close to the beginning of all of them. Is there any other evidence for him?

Yes. So one of the interesting things about John the Baptist is he's also talked about by Josephus, a historian of the first century. Josephus was someone who grew up in Jerusalem. He went over to Rome later in his life and wrote a lot about Jewish history at the time. And he talks about John the Baptist as someone who was a good man who wanted people to follow a path of righteousness and piety, do the right thing, come to be baptized. He really thought very highly of John the Baptist, which is very interesting. Excellent. So what do you think we can say about him with any certainty? First of all, give us the period. What date are we talking? We're talking about the time of Jesus, just before the time of Jesus. The story goes in

the Gospel of Luke, which has this quite nice chronology of John the Baptist, that he appeared in the 15th year of the Emperor Tiberius. So we've got the year 28. That's the right time for him to appear. He comes to the River Jordan. He calls people to be baptized in the River Jordan to repent and be prepared for some incredible change that is going to take place very, very soon. God is going to somehow transform things in Judea. So he's calling people to come out to the Jordan to do a sort of a statement of faith, to repent of their wrongdoings, to cleanse themselves, to be prepared for this extraordinary event that is going to happen. How normal would that have been, Joan? I mean, were there lots of

ascetics of millenarian people sort of wandering around in this period? Was this a feature of Judaism, of life in what we now call the Holy Land? In some ways, it could be that there are some parallels to John the Baptist. And it's a big question you ask because there was an enormous amount of expectation that something was going to happen. God was going to act in history because, frankly, things had become pretty awful. And Jews had tried to get autonomy at different times over the few decades before. After the death of Herod, for example, just around the time Jesus was born, around 4 BCE,

Herod's death then shot a whole lot of people into excitement, and they went off and they wanted to have this transformed Judea. And so there was this expectation that there was going to be autonomy, there was going to be God ruling Judea, there was going to be the rule of divine law, everything was going to be put right. And that had all been quashed by Rome. Then what happened was it just kind of simmered under the surface for quite a long time, but finally really erupted in what's called the first revolt against Rome, the Judean revolt against Rome in 66 CE. And that led ultimately to Rome coming in with all the might of the Roman legions and

putting that down and destroying the temple. And that was a terrible disaster for Jews and Judaism. But I think John the Baptist fits into that overall pattern of people wanting change, people wanting autonomy, people wanting God to look after Israel. And the asceticism, which becomes very familiar in the Christian tradition of going into the desert, going beyond the bounds of settled life and wearing simple clothes and fasting and eating locusts and wild honey. Is this something that he pioneers? Or again, is this part of a tradition in this part of the world anyway? he pioneers, or again, is this part of a tradition in this part of the world anyway?

You know, it's really hard to say. There is later on, Josephus talks about a guy called Bannus, who goes off and lives on what trees provide. And that means he's living very simply in the wilderness. And Jesus himself goes off into the wilderness after he's been to John the Baptist. So there's a kind of idea that the wilderness is a place where you can be particularly close to God. There was a group called the Essenes who lived by the Dead Sea, and they're talked about by Pliny, the Roman historian, who lived out and away from Jerusalem and would have had quite an austere lifestyle there by the Dead Sea. They are usually the people who are understood to have been the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, so they are not very far away from John the Baptist. So there may have been other groups

who were also going to the wilderness. Myself, I think that there's something about the wilderness that attracts people because it's the place of nature. Jesus talks about, consider the lilies of the fields, they neither sow nor spin and God looks after them. There's a sense that if you go out to the wilderness, God will provide for you. So if you go out to the wilderness and you're just living on what God provides in nature, that you're particularly close to God. Such a fascinating strain of thought that really endures to this day. People think by going to nature, somehow you're closer to nature itself or God, if you believe it's fascinating. So he goes to a particular site on the Jordan, which as a curiosity of modern geopolitics, it still feels

like quite a wilderness area. It hasn't been developed at all because it was an area of minefields and a frontline in the Arab-Israeli conflict for years. So he's on the far side of the Jordan. He's living in this cave and he, again, baptism, immersion in water. Is this something that he really innovates? Well, all these big questions you ask. Living in a cave, there is this cave of John the Baptist on the other side of the Jordan that is the traditional site where he lived. And in the Byzantine period from the 4th, 5th, 6th century, pilgrims would go out and remember John and go to this pilgrimage site and go to the Jordan.

So it is fascinating how there are these places of memory. go out and remember John and go to this pilgrimage site and go to the Jordan. So, it is fascinating how there are these places of memory. And you're right that some places do stay remarkably unchanged. And because it's a major border between Israel and Jordan, it's sort of been left alone from development. So, you can go there now. But the Jordan, of course, now is a tiny little trickle of a stream rather than this great wide river. And it used to be a wide river. You can see even in pictures from the 1920s before all the water was siphoned off for irrigation further to the north, that it was a wide, wide river and not that easy to cross. So, these places you go to are sites of memory, but also they have changed over time. They have altered. But yes, why did people go

to the Jordan? Why did people come out there? And was he doing something really innovative? In some ways, he was because he certainly was called the Baptist, meaning the immerser or submerger. He was putting people underwater. And usually in Second Temple Judaism, the Judaism of that time, people self-immersed. They didn't go to someone who stuck you underwater or called you to go underwater. Immersion was part of a pattern of religious life that meant that you were purified in a ritual way. You were ritually purified and ready for the divine. So it's not about having a bath. It's not washing in soap and water and being clean. It's being pure in a different way, but it's still about the body. It's making sure your body is ritually pure for any kind of divine encounter.

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And so he is baptising people. I mean, this is the fascinating thing about John the Baptist, which I'd forgotten, is that Jesus lives many years of his life, not attracting particular attention. Then he goes to be baptised by John the Baptist, and boom, and God acknowledges him as son, according to Christians.

And the following day, it all begins. He gets his first disciples, and he's off. The ministry begins. So do you think there would have been a steady trickle from elsewhere in Judea, what we call Israel, Palestine now? Would there have been a steady trickle of people coming to meet John to get baptized by him? I think more than a steady trickle, what Josephus says is that Herod Antipas was absolutely terrified of John the Baptist because so many people had come out to him at the Jordan. He was drawing an enormous crowd. It was just a massive moment. It was sort of Jerusalem spring moment. Everyone was out there expecting something amazing to happen. In the Gospel of Mark, it says that all Jerusalem

and all Judea went to John the Baptist. Slight overstatement, but it shows how much he was attracting people. He was an amazing phenomenon. And there was something about John and his call and saying, you've got to come out here right now and be in this because something amazing is going to happen. He was quoting Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah, that God was going to act in history. So Jesus went out with everybody else. He went out because that was something that you did if you were waiting for God to do something. And we could talk a lot about the motivations for Jesus, but that in itself was a problem in terms of the Christian proclamation because what John the Baptist was calling for is for people to repent, to think about what they were doing

wrong in their lives, to put away the things that had been the cause of any harm, classically your sins, things that you wanted to do away with. What John was saying was come to be baptized, be purified. And people came to the Jordan and they confessed their wrongdoings, which is pretty amazing, a kind of public confession of things that you had done wrong in order to repent and to be restored, to be ready for a completely new way of living. Which all sounds quite familiar to those of us raised in the Christian tradition, Which all sounds quite familiar to those of us raised in the Christian tradition, repenting, acknowledging sins, confessing. It sounds like John has a big impact on what would become Christianity, Christian thinking. Absolutely. He did have a huge impact via

Jesus, who really picked up so much of his message. One of the things I think is really important about John is he was also quite fiery with people coming to him. And often people don't quite know what to do with that sort of statement from John the Baptist when people come to him. He calls them a brood of vipers, you bunch of snakes, why are you coming? He challenged people. He said, you're just fleeing from judgment. You're afraid. And what he wanted to do by that was challenge people to act differently. He said, bear fruit that befits repentance. Do the right thing. And people said, well, okay, we mean well, what are we supposed to do? And he said, look, if you have two tunics, two items of clothing, you share with the one who does not have that. If you have food, you do the same. And it's only really when you have

worn fruit that befits repentance, when you have shown that you are repentant, that God will really allow you to be purified. It's not just a case of saying, oh, you know, I mean well. He really challenged people to act, which I think is not so much part of the Christian tradition so much. The Christian tradition has become very focused on beliefs, that you vow certain beliefs, and it's supposed to sort of happen that you do the right thing. But John the Baptist is very much about righteousness, which means doing the right thing counts for everything. So, the Gospels make it very clear that John the Baptist sort of saw Jesus and immediately went, he's the one. Yes, that's the one we should all get very excited about.

So as you say, carefully maneuvering John the Baptist into a subordinate position. Jesus goes off on his ministry. What do we think happens to John the Baptist? Does he appear in the Gospels after that? He does in terms of his disciples go to Jesus in the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. There are various different references to John the Baptist and Jesus' mission. And people want to know whether Jesus is John raised from the dead after John dies. So there's another story. But in Matthew and Luke, there's quite a lot of statements about John the Baptist. It's quite a question about how John and Jesus

relate. And disciples from John go to Jesus and ask, are you the one we're expecting? And Jesus replies to the disciples of John the Baptist. So there's a slightly different story of Jesus and John the Baptist in Matthew and Luke in comparison to the Gospel of John, the fourth Gospel, not to be confused with John the Baptist, the Gospel of John the Evangelist. And in the Gospel of John, absolutely, the fourth Gospel, it's John the Baptist recognizing Jesus and saying, he is the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, go and follow him. He must increase, I must decrease. He says he's not Elijah. He's backing off. He's backing away from Jesus and pointing everybody to Jesus. Whereas in Matthew and Luke, it's much more a question about, hmm, we don't quite know what's going on between John and Jesus, and Jesus is saying how great John the Baptist is and how important he is. But he's really taken

off the scene. John is really taken off the scene when he gets arrested by Herod Antipas. And just quickly tell us all who Herod Antipas is. So Herod Antipas is the ruler of Galilee and Perea, where John the Baptist was baptizing on the Jordan side. And he was put there by Rome. He was a Roman puppet client ruler and was trying to do the right thing by Rome, and that meant keeping the peace at all times. trying to do the right thing by Rome, and that meant keeping the peace at all times. And so getting rid of charismatic people developing quite a following with a sharp critique of the status quo is probably high on Rome's list of priorities. Absolutely. So John the Baptist did a calling everyone together and saying, God is going to rule Judea. There's going to be this great transformation of the world.

oh, God is going to rule Judea, there's going to be this great transformation of the world, prepare the way of the Lord, that to Roman ears indicated, oh, he's not too keen on the imperial project. He's not keen on Caesar. He's wanting God completely ruling Judea, which is the kind of thing that Judean rebels were saying a generation before. So they would have been very nervous about that. Herod Antipas would have recognized that instantly. Added to that, according to the Gospels, John was directly criticizing Herod Antipas for his marriage to Herodias, who was his niece. In those days, that could happen, but it wasn't very good. And so Herod Antipas had seen off his wife, who was the daughter of the Arabian king Aratas, and she'd gone home to Arabia, to Nabatea, and he'd married Herodias. That caused instability in itself, but it was just wrong in terms of his actions.

So John the Baptist did a double whammy of criticizing his ruler and proclaiming the rule of God in a Roman province. Right. So he's arrested. How long does he languish in prison and what is his fate? Actually, we don't know how long he languishes in prison and what is his fate? Actually, we don't know how long he languishes in prison. Josephus tells a different story to the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel of Mark tells a story that everyone is familiar with about there's a birthday party for Herod. Antipas,

he gathers his friends together. Herodias is there who had a grudge against John for the reason that he was criticizing her. And her daughter dances for Herod. And Herod Antipas says, ask me anything, little girl. She's only a little girl. And I will give you half my kingdom, whatever you ask for. Tell me what you want. And she says she wants the head of John the Baptist on the plate. And therefore, John the Baptist is executed then and there at the banquet of Herod, which is an

extraordinary story. It's a very vivid story. But Josephus tells a different story, which is that Herod takes John the Baptist to a fortress called Machaerus, which is on the other side of the Dead Sea, a very remote fortress but quite built up at the time. Brilliant archaeological excavations have taken place there that really illuminate Machaerus. What happens is Herod Antipas then executes him really for sedition because he is worried about some kind of revolt that is being stirred up by John the Baptist. So that's the end of John the Baptist. Approximately what date do we think that might be? It's before Jesus is killed. Well, it's a good question, what date, and there are real issues about how long we think the mission of John the Baptist was.

real issues about how long we think the mission of John the Baptist was. He appeared in 28. How long did he go on for? Was it one year? Was it two months? There's no indication exactly of when Herod arrested John, and it hinges also on the date of Jesus and when Jesus was executed. It's very, very difficult, but sort of, let's say 2930, the year's 2930. So John the Baptist is dead. From everything you've described, it seems like he has an important role in shaping what would become Christianity. What do you think his key legacy was? His key legacy, well, I suppose the call to repentance is really key. His ethical call, his call to anticipate a change, a transformation of the world, he did look forward to some kind of figure arriving, a coming figure. He said that the coming figure would be soon arriving and making a change. And that was certainly interpreted

by Jesus' followers as indicating Jesus. Whether or not he himself totally bought it that it was Jesus, I think historically that's tricky. You can interpret the evidence in different ways. Our Gospels definitely want us to believe that, but it's not 100% clear. He's given the legacy of baptism to Christianity. Even though it's very different in Christianity what baptism is, it was transformed in the early church really, that idea that water plays a part in your arrival in the faith is a very important part of what John the Baptist has given to Christianity. And perhaps one little through line, a little minor detail, is that when the King Charles III was anointed just recently for his coronation,

it was using water from the River Jordan. And without John heading out to the Jordan 2,000 years ago, that probably wouldn't be the case. Absolutely. Well said. Thank you very much indeed for coming on and talking all about it. Thank you for having me.