John the Baptist | Defender of the Torah #jewishhistory #history #earlychristianity #religion

#shorts #johnthebaptist #torah #prophet

One of those who came to listen to John and to submit to his baptism was Jesus of Nazareth. He listened to John’s preaching, was inspired by it and submitted to baptism in his turn. John the Baptist was a Jewish prophet of the Jordan River region, celebrated by the Christian church as ‘the Forerunner’ to Jesus Christ.

"John is the most underrated figure in Christian tradition, rarely given his due as a messiah and inaugurator of the movement Jesus himself arose from."
Dr. James Tabor

Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist. Jesus and John worked together on their holy mission to spread the message of the coming son of man.
Crucially, Jesus did not return to his home and continue his life in purity as most of John’s hearers did. Instead, he joined John’s ministry, preached his message and baptised others. Jesus understood that there was a sense of urgency, with the epiphany of the Coming One due imminently.

Eventually, the two men established a coordinated campaign in order to save as many people as they could. John continued to work in Judaea, while Jesus took his mission to Galilee.

He emerged from the wilderness preaching a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins and offered a water baptism to confirm the repentant person’s commitment to a new life cleansed from sin.

John, however, was a controversial figure in the early days of Christianity, with the early Church feeling it necessary to reinterpret his mission in view of the coming of Jesus Christ.
Josephine Wilkinson on John the Baptist:

The wilderness held great significance for the people of the Second Temple period, for whom it served several functions. It was a place of refuge, it was somewhere a person might go out to encounter God, or it provided the setting for events in which God intervened in the history of his people, such as the Exodus.

The wilderness, however, was also associated with the expiation of sins, such as the ritual of sending a scapegoat bearing the sins of the nation to the desert demon, Azazel.

John the Baptist was not the only one to preach in the wilderness. Theudas, the Egyptian and several unnamed prophets roamed the desert preaching their messages. Most were peaceful, and their sole aim appeared to be to prompt God to intervene once again and rescue the people from the oppressive Roman rule.

John’s baptism was based on existing Jewish lustration rites
Lustration rites had always been important in Judaism. Their purpose was to achieve ritual purity, with Leviticus 11-15 being a particularly important passage in this regard. As time went on, these rites were adapted and reinterpreted by some; although ritual purity remained significant, ascetic concerns also came to be addressed.

Indeed, John was not the only prophet to be associated with baptism. The ascetic, Bannus, lived in the desert and practiced ritual bathing in order to be pure as he took his meals. The covenanters at Qumran also observed strict ritual purity and even built a complex system of pools, cisterns and aqueducts to accommodate this need.

Dr. Joan Taylor
The Immerser: John the Baptist Within Second Temple Judaism (Studying the Historical Jesus)
Joan’s approach is multi-disciplinary; she works in literature, language, history and archaeology. She has written numerous books and articles in her fields of interest.
- The New Testament and other early Christian texts within their wider social, historical and cultural contexts, with a special interest in archaeological evidence.
- The historical figures of Jesus of Nazareth, John the Baptist, Judas Iscariot, Paul, Pontius Pilate, Mary Magdalene, and other New Testament persons, both in terms of the ancient evidence and how they have been constructed over time, including in modern literature and film.
- Second Temple Judaism, particularly the Jewish legal schools (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, ‘Zealots’) and popular religious movements.
- The Dead Sea Scrolls and the archaeology of Qumran.
- Alexandrian Judaism, Philo of Alexandria, and the ‘Therapeutae’
- Women and gender within early Judaism and Christianity, especially regarding women in leadership roles.
- Jewish-Christianity and early Christian constructions of history and orthodoxy.
- Comparative Graeco-Roman religion and philosophy: literary, epigraphical and archaeological evidence.

[michalslepcik]

Greatest prophet of them all John the Baptist whom baptized our Lord&Saviour ♥️
JesusChrist👣 whom is the word that became an flesh and dwelled among us
*AMEN*